Birth Control Overview. Birth control is any method used to prevent pregnancy. There are many different methods of birth control including condoms, IUDs, birth control pills, the rhythm method. The advent of the female birth control pill greatly aided women's struggle for autonomy and fulfillment. The male birth control pill will also create great changes, but these changes will not be to some women's liking. Be careful what you ask for – you might get it. This column was first published in Newsday (4/11/05). Casino near lake geneva wi.
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When choosing the best type of birth control method, you have many choices at your disposal. Many modern birth control methods have high rates of success, but the best method is one that is easy enough to use that you will always remember to do so. Keeping that in mind, you must always consider the side effects as well as the ease-of-use of each birth control method.
Most women use birth control to prevent pregnancy and plan their families. However, some forms are helpful in regulating menstrual cycles, cramps, and preventing ovarian cancer, infections, pelvic inflammatory diseases, and other gynecological concerns. In choosing the right method, you must select a method that addresses the problems you have.
Deciding on the Right Birth Control
When choosing birth control, you have several basic types available:
• Barriers
• Hormonal
• Intrauterine devices
• Sterilization
• Behavioral
Before you decide on what is best for you, you must answer some basic questions for yourself:
• Do you ever want to get pregnant?
• Do you want to get pregnant in the next 12 months?
• Do you have health conditions that birth control medications can help treat?
Your answer to these questions will help you decide whether you want a temporary or a permanent solution to pregnancy prevention and whether you need more than a barrier. It also tells you whether you want something that will have long-lasting effects on your fertility or something that you can stop using it when you decide to have a baby.
Barriers: Birth Control That Blocks Out Sperm
Barriers prevent sperm from entering the uterus to fertilize the egg. Popular barriers include condoms, female condoms, dental dams, contraceptive sponges, and diaphragms, among others. All of these methods are temporary methods to prevent pregnancy and some, such as condoms, reduce the chance of sexually transmitted diseases. Once you know how to use these devices correctly, they have an average 90% effectiveness rate. The advantage is that if you decide that you want to become pregnant, you can stop usage immediately and have unprotected sex. Barriers are the only over-the-counter birth control.
Hormonal: Birth Control That Blocks Ovulation
For highly effective protection against ovulation, hormonal birth control methods, such as the pill, patch, ring, and injection offer a trouble-free approach to preventing pregnancy. While not effective in preventing sexually transmitted diseases, the hormones they contain may be effective in treating other conditions such as acne, bad menstrual cramps, anemia, cysts in breasts and ovaries, pelvic inflammatory disease, and many other problems. In some women, hormonal products are linked to blood clots, heart attacks, strokes, and high pressure, which makes it important to have annual checkups.
Once you stop using hormonal forms of birth control, you may have to wait two or more months for your cycle to get back to normal before you can become pregnant.
Intrauterine Devices: Long Term Pregnancy Blockers
When you want long-term pregnancy blockers, intrauterine devices or IUDs can be placed in your uterus. While these devices are not protective against sexually transmitted diseases, they offer a trouble-free birth control that can be virtually fool-proof. The IUD introduces no hormones in your body that could prevent immediate pregnancy, so when you are ready to try for pregnancy, simply have your physician remove the device, and you can begin immediately.
For some women, the intensity of menstrual cramps increases, but other side effects of modern IUDs are rare. Damian artt poker game. A small percentage of women get pregnant while fitted with an IUD, and have a risk of ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy that develops outside the womb, often in the fallopian tubes).
Sterilization: No Longer Able to Conceive
If you have completed your family, want no children, or have a medical reason not to get pregnant, sterilization for the female through tubal ligation or the male through a vasectomy is an appropriate solution. Reversal of these processes is difficult, often ineffective, and costly. Sterilization offers no protection against sexually transmitted diseases and is seldom recommended for those under 35 due to the possibility of later regret.
Birth Control Roulette Videos
Behavioral Solutions: Contraceptive Roulette
Some sexual partners rely on behavioral techniques such as withdrawal (coitis interruptus) or fertility awareness to prevent pregnancy. Most of these methods have a much lower success rate, while offering no protection against STDs.
If you want help in determining the best method for you, Rocky Mountain Women's Health Center can help you make the best choice. Complete a Contraception Assessment and then make an appointment with one of the specialists for prescription or a fitting.
Questions About Your Birth Control Options In Salt Lake?
Contact a Rocky Mountain Women's Health Center provider near you for more information about contraceptives and their usages.
Related reading:
Women have long lamented the unequal burden they shoulder in the area of contraception. Today researchers are reportedly close to perfecting a male contraceptive that is free of side effects, easy to take, and reversible. But do women really want a male birth control pill?
When choosing the best type of birth control method, you have many choices at your disposal. Many modern birth control methods have high rates of success, but the best method is one that is easy enough to use that you will always remember to do so. Keeping that in mind, you must always consider the side effects as well as the ease-of-use of each birth control method.
Most women use birth control to prevent pregnancy and plan their families. However, some forms are helpful in regulating menstrual cycles, cramps, and preventing ovarian cancer, infections, pelvic inflammatory diseases, and other gynecological concerns. In choosing the right method, you must select a method that addresses the problems you have.
Deciding on the Right Birth Control
When choosing birth control, you have several basic types available:
• Barriers
• Hormonal
• Intrauterine devices
• Sterilization
• Behavioral
Before you decide on what is best for you, you must answer some basic questions for yourself:
• Do you ever want to get pregnant?
• Do you want to get pregnant in the next 12 months?
• Do you have health conditions that birth control medications can help treat?
Your answer to these questions will help you decide whether you want a temporary or a permanent solution to pregnancy prevention and whether you need more than a barrier. It also tells you whether you want something that will have long-lasting effects on your fertility or something that you can stop using it when you decide to have a baby.
Barriers: Birth Control That Blocks Out Sperm
Barriers prevent sperm from entering the uterus to fertilize the egg. Popular barriers include condoms, female condoms, dental dams, contraceptive sponges, and diaphragms, among others. All of these methods are temporary methods to prevent pregnancy and some, such as condoms, reduce the chance of sexually transmitted diseases. Once you know how to use these devices correctly, they have an average 90% effectiveness rate. The advantage is that if you decide that you want to become pregnant, you can stop usage immediately and have unprotected sex. Barriers are the only over-the-counter birth control.
Hormonal: Birth Control That Blocks Ovulation
For highly effective protection against ovulation, hormonal birth control methods, such as the pill, patch, ring, and injection offer a trouble-free approach to preventing pregnancy. While not effective in preventing sexually transmitted diseases, the hormones they contain may be effective in treating other conditions such as acne, bad menstrual cramps, anemia, cysts in breasts and ovaries, pelvic inflammatory disease, and many other problems. In some women, hormonal products are linked to blood clots, heart attacks, strokes, and high pressure, which makes it important to have annual checkups.
Once you stop using hormonal forms of birth control, you may have to wait two or more months for your cycle to get back to normal before you can become pregnant.
Intrauterine Devices: Long Term Pregnancy Blockers
When you want long-term pregnancy blockers, intrauterine devices or IUDs can be placed in your uterus. While these devices are not protective against sexually transmitted diseases, they offer a trouble-free birth control that can be virtually fool-proof. The IUD introduces no hormones in your body that could prevent immediate pregnancy, so when you are ready to try for pregnancy, simply have your physician remove the device, and you can begin immediately.
For some women, the intensity of menstrual cramps increases, but other side effects of modern IUDs are rare. Damian artt poker game. A small percentage of women get pregnant while fitted with an IUD, and have a risk of ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy that develops outside the womb, often in the fallopian tubes).
Sterilization: No Longer Able to Conceive
If you have completed your family, want no children, or have a medical reason not to get pregnant, sterilization for the female through tubal ligation or the male through a vasectomy is an appropriate solution. Reversal of these processes is difficult, often ineffective, and costly. Sterilization offers no protection against sexually transmitted diseases and is seldom recommended for those under 35 due to the possibility of later regret.
Birth Control Roulette Videos
Behavioral Solutions: Contraceptive Roulette
Some sexual partners rely on behavioral techniques such as withdrawal (coitis interruptus) or fertility awareness to prevent pregnancy. Most of these methods have a much lower success rate, while offering no protection against STDs.
If you want help in determining the best method for you, Rocky Mountain Women's Health Center can help you make the best choice. Complete a Contraception Assessment and then make an appointment with one of the specialists for prescription or a fitting.
Questions About Your Birth Control Options In Salt Lake?
Contact a Rocky Mountain Women's Health Center provider near you for more information about contraceptives and their usages.
Related reading:
Women have long lamented the unequal burden they shoulder in the area of contraception. Today researchers are reportedly close to perfecting a male contraceptive that is free of side effects, easy to take, and reversible. But do women really want a male birth control pill?
Power is the reward which comes with responsibility. For example, during the Cold War Americans complained about the money and manpower spent protecting a reputedly ungrateful world from communism. Yet these sacrifices also helped give the United States great geopolitical power, with its attendant perks and privileges.
Similarly, while women legitimately complain that biology has condemned them to bear the burden of contraception, this burden also gives women control over one of the most important parts of any human being's life – reproduction. The male birth control pill will shift much of that control from women to men. Is the following conversation far away?
Woman #1: 'My [husband, boyfriend, significant other] is selfish. He's on the pill and won't get off. I've asked him to stop taking it but he always says he's not ready. He just won't grow up. I don't know what to do.'
Woman #2: 'That's what the pill has given men – a right to be perpetual adolescents. It's given them veto power over women who want to have children.'
Despite the stigma that will develop against men who take the pill, the pill will be a success. While most women are responsible and want to have children with a willing, committed partner, studies show that lack of reproductive control can be a major problem for men today. For example, the National Scruples and Lies Survey 2004 polled 5,000 women in the United Kingdom for That's Life! magazine. According to that survey, 42% of women claim they would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, regardless of the wishes of their partners. Jo Checkley, the editor of That's Life!, is correct when she says 'to deliberately get pregnant when your partner doesn't want a baby is playing Russian roulette with other people's lives.'
According to research conducted by Joyce Abma of the National Center for Health Statistics and Linda Piccinino of Cornell University, over a million American births each year result from pregnancies which men did not intend.
The male pill will fill a genuine economic need. Child support levels are rising, generally comprising 15–25% of take-home pay for one child, in addition to add-ons for child care, health care, and other costs. There is also a trend towards extending child support obligations beyond the age of 18, and child support enforcement is increasingly wide-ranging and effective.
Moreover, most men realize that it's difficult to remain a part of their children's lives once the relationship with the children's mother has broken down, particularly if the children were born outside of marriage. The pill will help ensure that men only have children in the context that's best for men – a stable marriage.
The advent of the female birth control pill greatly aided women's struggle for autonomy and fulfillment. The male birth control pill will also create great changes, but these changes will not be to some women's liking. Be careful what you ask for – you might get it.
This column was first published in Newsday (4/11/05).
Birth Control Roulette Rules
April 22, 2005
