Faced with a dense, 200+ page research report filled with tiny fonts and inscrutable charts, a reporter once asked me for some guidance: "What's the 'choke on your cornflakes' statistic from the report?" That is, what's the lead; what in the report would make someone choke on their cereal if they read it in the morning newspaper?

The GPGI (Good People at Guttmacher Institute) have delivered a cornflakes moment in their latest report on unintended pregnancy. Spoons down. Four in ten unmarried young adults age 18-29 essentially do not believe that birth control works.

As shocking as this is, it is not a surprise. The Guttmacher report provides important new analysis of data collected in 2009 and first reported in The National Campaign's report, The Fog Zone. From The Fog Zone: 38% of unmarried men 18-29 and 44% of unmarried women 18-29 agreed with the statement: "It doesn't matter whether you use birth control or not; when it is your time to get pregnant it will happen."

It's not just young adults who are fatalistic about contraception. In a survey just released by The National Campaign, fully 42% of those age 12-19 agree it doesn't matter whether you use birth control or not--pregnancy just sorta happens.

Reminder: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recognizes contraception as one of the ten greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. Still, here we are in 2012, and a very significant minority of teens and young adults has a flat earth view of birth control and its effectiveness. Oh dear.

P.S. For those keeping track, the song of the week is The Explorers Club's "Run, Run, Run."

There are so many parts of life that can best be described as awkward. Long elevator rides, for instance. Middle school, start to finish. Slamming your full body weight into a door clearly labeled 'Pull.' But something that shouldn't be awkward? Talking to your health care provider about birth control.

Cue a new Bedsider article with tips on "How to Talk Doctor," accompanied by a hilarious video series that perfectly exemplifies the uncomfortable nature of getting to the nitty gritty when talking to your  health care provider about condoms, the pill, the IUD, or the NuvaRing. My favorite is a toss-up between the ring and the condom. I love a good Lord of The Rings reference, but the face the condom guy makes is classic. In fact, don't take my word for it:

I mean, I get it; it's not my favorite conversation to have either. There's the choice of words to use; should you try to use the clinical terms that your provider uses or some more colloquial terminology at the risk of sounding silly? And the questions you have, should you really ask your provider if something you read online is true, when we all know 99% of the Internet is made up? The answer is yes. Answering questions that seem awkward or uncomfortable for you is no big deal for your provider. It's LITERALLY their job to answer them. And what's more uncomfortable, asking your provider about how to use a condom or trying to Google it in the heat of the moment? That's what I thought.

Bedsider put together a list of dos and don'ts to make the conversation easier. A summary: before your appointment, prepare yourself. Know what's going on in your body and what birth control method you might be interested in, but don't try to Web MD yourself to insanity. That's what your provider is for. When it comes to actually speaking to your provider, there's no such thing as over-sharing. And if your provider asks YOU questions, that's not the time to close up. Answer the questions completely, and honestly. Once you've made a plan with your provider and you're sure you have all the information you need (and written down somewhere in case you forget!), don't be afraid to try out another provider for a second opinion.

It's your body and you should feel 100% comfortable with the plan you've decided on. And then, of course, when you're walking out, try not to throw yourself on the door marked 'pull.'

Let's face it: Eva Mendes is totally together and gorgeous in any light, setting, and situation--but I started to forget her superstar status as she really began to inhabit Grace, the bedraggled young Latina mom she plays in the new film Girl in Progress. The film, from director Patricia Riggen (Under the Same Moon) opens Friday, May 11. Grace was a mom at 17 and totally missed out on her chance to have fun as a teen. She's trying to make up for it in her 30s, despite the fact that she is now the mother of Ansiedad (Cierra Ramirez), her teenage daughter who is desperate for some real parenting. Grace is convinced that she has a real future with her married boyfriend (Matthew Modine), whose house she cleans, and is either absent or oblivious whenever Ansiedad makes it clear she needs attention. Badly.

Ansiedad is so determined to get away from her chaotic home life that she comes up with a plan to skip adolescence and just be an adult already. Without her mom's presence and supervision, Ansiedad gets away with everything. Which is not lost on her. It's easy to root for Grace to get some fun and romance, even though she does it at the expense of her daughter, failing her, little by little, every day. Ansiedad hasn't had the luxury of being a kid either and tries to erase her last trace of vulnerability. Still, one night she bursts into her mom's room, crying for her in the middle of the night, only to find it empty. Again.

There were moments in the film that made me want to go wake up my daughter just to tell her that I'd never ditch her to stay out all night, especially when she needed me most. But she's only 7, and she needs her sleep. There's a lot to talk about, and it's a lot easier to talk about what Grace or Ansiedad did, or didn't do, than it is to talk about ourselves and our daughters--and what we need and what we'd do differently. I think this movie will start some interesting conversations between mothers and daughters that might not otherwise have happened. At least I hope so. Watch the trailer (below), check out a message from Cierra Ramirez to parents, and tell us what you think.

You've had it marked on your calendar for months, and now it's finally here: the 11th annual National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy!

Geek confession time: Besides taking in a Nationals game, enjoying Woodford Reserve, hanging out at Jake's Boiler Room, or spending time with my perfect son Harrison, one of my favorite activities every year is pouring over pages and pages and pages of public opinion survey data and trying to make sense of it. How do teen guys age 15-19 from families with limited means living in southwestern states feel about the first time they had sex anyway? I gots to know, right?

Having now spent some quality time with the results of The National Campaign's latest survey of teens and adults I have come to the simple conclusion that making sense of it all is actually, well, simple. It's really not complicated at all. A moment to explain...