Condom Use on Upswing with Mexican Adolescents The News
go to original December 22, 2012

Mexican condom commercial (davddudley)

Sexual health expert Adriana Eréndira Vega said this week that condom use among Mexican adolescents is rising.

Radio and television programs dealing with sexuality and the introduction of sex education in schools are two important contributors to this positive trend, Eréndira Vega said. The emergence of sexuality topics in newspapers and on television as well as large-scale public health and advertising campaigns has encouraged widespread discussion of contraceptive use, she said.

A recent study on State of Mexico Autonomous University (UAEM) nursing students showed that 50 percent of the respondents see health as the most important benefit of contraceptives. Likewise, half of the respondents said the media played a significant role in their decision to use contraceptives at the beginning of their sexual activity.

More than three quarters said that that their friends had encouraged them to use contraceptives.

Over half said that money wasn’t a factor in their decision, though the same number believed that marital status could have some influence.

Sexuality can sexual health can be confusing for adolescents as they struggle to iterpret a mix of messages from school, the media, peers and family, Eréndira Vega said.

According to the The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), 97 percent of young people between the ages of 15 and 19 know of at least one from of contraception; however, more than half have unprotected sex their first time.

The Health Secretariat (SSA) estimates that 17.4 percent of babies in Mexico are born to mothers under 20, of which 60-80 percent are unplanned.

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