第16章 Eye on China(15)

Effective measures

Central authorities promoted IUD and sterilization in the 1980s and 1990s as themeasures can be effective for years, making them easy for family planning officials to monitor.

Only in the past decade have more people turned to private and independentmeasures like condoms and the Pill. About 10 percent of married couples aged 15 to49 used condoms in 2006, according to the National Population and Family PlanningCommission.

However, although more popular than the Pill, condoms are still not as reliable interms of protecting against unplanned pregnancy.

Clinical trials on 100 women over a 12-month period have shown that an average oftwo to 12 accidental pregnancies occur with the use of condoms. That number drops to 0.1to one with the Pill.

However, the vast majority in China is still not aware of such information.

“Chinese women in general have many misconceptions about hormones and the Pill,”

said Cheng Linan, chairwoman of the Chinese Society of Family Planning at the ChineseMedical Association.

A poll of 1,300 women and 233 men in seven major Chinese cities between 2003 and2005 found that a large number think taking the Pill every day will lead to infertility, withmany also complaining it leads to weight gain and endocrine disorders. Some even fearedit could cause cancer.

“All medicines have toxicity to some degree,” argued Hu Jing, a 27-year-old editor ata weekly Chinese-language magazine in Beijing. She said her boyfriend disapproves of hertaking the Pill due to “the health risks”.

Such misunderstandings not only prevail among the public but also among medicalprofessionals.

When Hu was in college, a professor of medical science told her during a sexeducation lecture that the Pill causes minor depression. Research by the Shanghai Instituteof Family Planning Technical Instruction also found less than 3 percent of obstetricians inShanghai use the contraceptive.

The negativity is also reinforced by myriad horror stories on the Internet, such asthe one posted by a female netizen under the name “I Was Made A Clown” on Tianya, apopular forum.

The writer describes how she lost interest in sex after more than a year of taking thePill and became ill tempered. In January 2009, four years after starting the contraceptive,she stopped and almost immediately experienced menopause, with doctors diagnosingpolycystic ovary syndrome - one of the leading causes of female infertility.

The post, which first appeared on June 15, has so far received 473,848 views and 1,815comments. Many comments center on similar concerns, with some even calling for readersto re-post the story “to warn others”.

“Misleading information on the Internet over-magnifies the side effects of the Pill,”

said Cheng with the Chinese Society of Family Planning. “The Pill is safe as long as thewoman does not suffer high blood pressure, a cardiovascular disease or serious diabetes.

“At the root of this public fear is the lack of sex education,” she added.

Harsh lessons

While the Chinese have become more open about sexual behavior, many still havelittle knowledge about reproductive health. This has led to many young people regularlyusing emergency contraception, otherwise known as the “morning after pill”, as a form ofcontraception.

Analysis by IMS Health, an international consultancy, shows over-the-counter salesfor oral contraceptives hit 444 million yuan in 22 major Chinese cities in 2009. Themorning after pill accounts for roughly 70 percent of that market, according to HuangDongliang, marketing director for Beijing Zizhu Pharmaceuticals.

“We sell at least five boxes of (the morning after pill) on a typical day and more thana dozen on a busy day,” said a saleswoman at the Wanmin Yangguang drugstore in Beijing’sChaoyang district.

The majority of buyers, she estimated, are 20 to 25 years old.

A post-graduate student in Beijing who did not want to be identified told ChinaDaily she takes the morning after pill every time she visits her boyfriend in another city,which is more than 10 times a year. Worried about the possible damage this could do, shee-mailed a doctor, who warned her not to replace the Pill with a “patch-up remedy”. Themedic later posted his suggestions on Tianya.

Experts agree that a lack of sex education is preventing many people from making theright choice.

The population center’s 2009 Web survey found that 49 percent of respondents stillthink the morning after pill is the most effective contraceptive for preventing pregnancy.

Although listed as part of the official curriculum by the Ministry of Education, sexeducation in schools is limited. Teachers mainly focus on the basic facts, such as secondarysex characters and the science of reproduction, rather than talking openly about sensitivetopics like contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.

Hu Zhen, a professor at Chengdu University’s teaching college, launched a selectivecourse on sex education in March that covered topics like sex culture, science andpsychology but overlooked information on contraception.

In defense of the course she designed, Hu said students already learn a lot aboutcontraception through the Internet.

However, research in 2007 by Tongji Medical College of Huazhong Universityof Science & Technology showed that, out of 80,000 students from 49 universitiesnationwide, at least 90 percent believe it necessary for colleges to teach aboutcontraception.

Sexual liberation

The high demand for knowledge comes as part of a sexual revolution that sexologistssay has been occurring in China since the late 1980s.

Pan Suiming, director of Renmin University of China’s institute for research onsexuality and gender, said 51 percent of Chinese singletons had sex before marriage in2006, showing an average increase of 7.9 percent year-on-year since 2000.