Emergency Contraception in the Caribbean

While Plan B, a different brand of EC, is now available over the counter for women 18 and older in the United States, it has only recently become available in the Caribbean.

Over three days, executive directors and senior staff from St. Lucia Planned Parenthood Association (SLFPA), Barbados Family Planning Association ( BFPA), Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago (FPATT), international staff from IPPF/WHR, and I developed educational and promotional strategies to raise awareness of Optinor as a birth control method.

In the Caribbean, as in the United States, there is opposition to EC, as well as misunderstanding and misinformation about what it is. Many in the community, including some pharmacists, wrongly think Optinor is an “abortion pill.” To change people’s perceptions, the first step is to clarify that EC does not cause an abortion.

Raising awareness of EC with medical providers and the public, while at the same time improving access to EC in clinics and emergency rooms, will enable Caribbean women to have an additional and important birth control option.

At the end of the three-day session, each organization presented concrete plans for programs tailored to their clients.

• Barbados will focus on student leaders at the University of the West Indies with an appeal to finish their education without fear of pregnancy, or without resorting to folk remedies if they do become pregnant.
• Trinidad and Tobago will offer Optinor as a backup plan to women accessing contraceptive services. They will provide information on EC and other birth control options at booths during Carnival and other local cultural fêtes.
• St. Lucia will turn to community partners like youth magazines, local DJs, beauty shop owners, and talk show hosts, for their help in explaining the facts about EC to people in the community.

Trainings like these are small steps toward providing more information on birth control options to women around the world. Participants left with a deeper understanding of how they can make the public aware of EC and encourage its use, and trainers left with a deeper appreciation of the challenges and hard work these professionals face in their countries.