We appreciate the points raised by Nielsen, Towers, and O’Boyle and applaud their ongoing efforts to ensure the best possible health of our troops and their families.

We acknowledge that many medical schools and residency programs provide limited training in family planning, and as a result many practicing clinicians (in both civilian and military settings) have inaccurate perceptions of rates of unintended pregnancy and the safety and effectiveness of available contraceptives. Although our review of the literature identified 2 articles indicating that some active-duty servicewomen thought their health care providers had inadequate knowledge of contraceptive options, these studies are far from definitive.

Our review of the existing research highlights the facts that: (1) there is currently minimal data on military clinicians’ training and knowledge about contraception; (2) the quality of available research on military women’s use of contraception and risk of unintended pregnancy is variable; and (3) much of the publicly available data are quite dated. That being said, one recent study evaluating contraceptive use and access among deployed servicewomen (n = 281) found that the majority (59%) of respondents were not counseled about contraception prior to deployment.

As Nielsen, Towers, and O’Boyle note, both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are working to improve the health care provided to active-duty and veteran women. We remain hopeful that these efforts will increase contraceptive use and reduce rates of unintended pregnancy among our country’s active-duty and veteran women. We look forward to opportunities for collaboration with military, civilian, and VA researchers to conduct more current and high-quality studies to evaluate the reproductive health needs of US military women.