Contraceptives

If you are not taking your low dose birth control pill correctly, you risk being one of the 12 women who get pregant each year while using this popular method of birth control. Why?  Because you are missing too many pills.  Apparently, while we may not admit it,  30-50% of us miss taking 3 or more low dose birth control pills per month!

Today, those of us using low dose birth control pills can avoid many of the significant side effects that the 60’s contraceptive pill inflicted on us but one leading expert,

Professor James Trussell of Princeton University in America is warning us now that even the low dose birth control pill may be ‘outdated’. Are you taking a low dose birth control pill ‘by default’ because your doctor did not offer you other options of reversible birth control (maybe because he /she is not adept at fitting IUDs or inserting implants)?

What can you use instead that will give you reliable and effective protection against pregnancy yet at the same time give you the same benefits (reduced side effects) as your low dose birth control pill?

The methods of birth control advocated by Professor Trussell, at a British Pregnancy Advisory Service conference in London, are either implants or intra - uterine devices (IUD) -  these also last longer and can be ‘fitted and forgotten’. Of course, like the low dose birth control pills, neither of these methods of contraception will protect against STDs.  Paragard is a non hormonal IUD that is safe if you smoke. IUDs can cost from $200-$500 dollars but protection lasts from 5 -10 years depending on type.  It can take up to one year to get pregnant after removing an IUD.  Watch this video on IUDs HERE and there’s more information on implants HERE.

Half of all pregnancies in America are unintended and are due to the failure/improper use of contraceptives.  It’s probably a similar situation in Australia and the UK.  If 7% of women currently using a low dose birth control pill swapped to an IUD or an implant, it’s estimated that 73,000 unintended pregnancies per year would be prevented in the UK. Let’s face it, with so much unprotected sex going on too, it’s unrealistic to think that every lass is going to rush off the next morning to get emergency contraception. If you decide on a home induced abortion and live anywhere other than the UK, you can take your first dose of the appropriate medication at a clinic then take the second at home 48 hours later. In the UK a woman has to go back to the clinic for her second dose.

GASP!

It turns out (see this chart Table 2) that low income, teenagers under the age of 20 who are living with their boyfriends and who are using the contraceptive pill have a failure rate of almost 50%.  48 of them will have a pregnancy within 12 months. 

The bottom line is:  NO type of contraceptive is reliable if you don’t strictly follow the instructions and use it as it has been designed.  Human error causes accidents!
In view of all of the above, we MUST improve the way we teach our children.  We must improve the ‘holistic’ sex education curriculum to focus on encouraging young people and singles to be much more responsible about their sexual behavior, more educated about rearing children and wiser about CHOOSING the person with whom they wish to raise a family.

Too much, too soon
Advertising and the media bombard young people with sexual imagery, encourage instant gratification while detracting from the real ‘love’ aspect of a union that creates a new life. Young people now live in a culture of “use and be used,” instead of “love and be loved.”  Whether the two parties are consenting to ‘using’ each other, doesn’t make it ok.

Source:  Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., is the author of  Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love In A Hook-up World. She blogs at jennifer-roback-morse.blogspot.com