The latest pill popping craze among teen girls may well be birth control pills.

A Thomson Reuters study, released March 2011, reported that:

Eighteen percent of teenage women ages 13 to 18 filled prescriptions for oral contraceptives in 2009, a proportion that has steadily risen since 2002, the study found.

The number of commercially insured teens filling birth control prescriptions from 2002 to 2009 increased 50 percent, while prescriptions for those with Medicaid rose 29 percent.

ABC News/Good Morning America followed up on the Reuters study and reported the following in July, 2011.

Today, one in five American girls between the ages of 13 and 18, two-and-a-half million teens in all, are on the birth control, the study found, and doctors say the age at which teens start on the pill is getting younger and younger.

From 1 in 8 teen girls in 2002, to 1 in 5 by 2009.

Say what?!?

If it jumped that much in 7 years, what are the numbers now, 4 years later?

And, what affects are these synthetic hormones having on the developing bodies of our maturing girls? on their future health?