SAN ANTONIO — The Brooke Army Medical Center is creating a one stop shop for female service members to get contraception.
The new clinic will offer different forms of contraception and resources to those who want options before starting a family.
Being a mom in the military has its challenges and rewards.
US Army Maj. Dr. Kayla Jaeger has a three-year-old daughter.
“I love her more than anything else, but obviously wearing this uniform and having a family that includes kids really changes your perspective on things,” she said.
Maj. Jaeger is the Chief of Adolescent Medicine at BAMC.
The new Patients in Need of Contraception clinic, or PINC for short—just opened to all female active military members assigned in Joint Base San Antonio.
The walk-in clinic opened after increased demand across armed forces, Jaeger says.
“There seems to be just a lot of barriers to women receiving contraception in the military. There’s a huge focus on readiness for women and for active duty females,” she says.
BAMC says that a team of providers and nurses can help with decision making, prescription refills or starting a new form of contraception altogether.
Research group Ibis Reproductive Health published a study that cited data from 2011 showing 7 percent of active-duty women ages 18 to 44 reported an unintended pregnancy the prior year.
That’s nearly twice the percentage compared to 4.5 percent of women in the general population who reported an untended pregnancy in the same study.
“Pregnancy prevention is [one thing], but thinking about deployments and wanting to limit the number of periods…or take it away altogether, this is something that we really have a lot of control of,” Jaeger says.
She says the services can address pregnancy prevention, address personal health and hygiene-related issues to improve force readiness and mission accomplishment.
“You’re preserving their ability to stay in the fight, you’re helping, potentially financially at this situation in their lives. It’s really kind of a force multiplier to be able to have control over that aspect,”
The clinic is open on Wednesdays from noon to 2:00 pm in the Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine Clinic at the CPT Jennifer M. Moreno Clinic.