Contraception

Birth control, also known as contraception and fertility control, is a method or device used to prevent pregnancy.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Contraceptive Patch

The oral contraceptive pill was used widely because of its high efficacy. However, poor patient compliance inevitably led to higher-than-ideal pregnancy rates, as users often forgot to take the pill at the right time, to take it every day, or had gastrointestinal conditions which interfered with its digestion and absorption.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Contraceptive Implant

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Contraceptive Vaginal Ring

Do Contraceptive Injections Affect Bones?

How Does the Progestogen-only Pill Work?

Natural Family Planning: an Overview

Natural Family Planning: Advantages and Disadvantages

Contraception and STIs

Contraception in Over 50s

Long-Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) Types

Female Sterilization

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Progestogen-Only Pill (POP)

See more featured articles »

IUD: Advantages and Disadvantages

IUS: Advantages and Disadvantages

Intrauterine Device (IUD) and Intrauterine System (IUS) Differences

How Does the Contraceptive Vaginal Ring Work?

How Does the Contraceptive Implant Work?

How is the Contraceptive Implant Put in and Taken Out?

How Effective are Different Types of Contraception?

How to insert a diaphragm, cap or vaginal ring

How to Use the Patch

What is the Contraceptive Patch?

Types of Contraception

Types of Combined Birth Control Pills

Male Condom versus Female Condom

How Does The Combined Pill Work?

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Combined Pill

Emergency Contraception

Does Breastfeeding Act as a Contraceptive?

Condoms for Oral and Anal Sex

Condoms - Advantages and Disadvantages

How Effective are Condoms?

Combined Pill FAQs

Blood Clot Risk and the Oral Contraceptive Pill

Latest Contraception News and Research

Fertility apps often inaccurate, study shows

People are tracking their own health more and more using mobile health applications and other personal digital health informatics. One such app line involves tracking menstruation and fertility. However, a new study published in the BMJ of Sexual and Reproductive Health in April 2020 throws doubt on the accuracy of these apps.

6 Apr 2020

Experiences of women who had negative effects when using hormonal contraception

A study of women who experienced mental ill-health from a hormonal contraception indicates they value their mental well-being higher than a satisfactory sex life. Their experiences can influence their choice of contraception.

31 Mar 2020

Patients using copper IUDs have lower cervical cancer risk compared to LNG-IUS users

Patients who used copper intrauterine devices (Cu IUD) were found to have a lower risk of high-grade cervical neoplasms (cervical cancer) compared to users of the levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG-IUS), according to a Columbia study recently published in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

10 Mar 2020

HHS removed images of condoms from HIV/AIDS awareness fliers

The Department of Health and Human Services stripped from a government website HIV/AIDS educational material that featured condoms, calling the images "unapproved," according to official correspondence obtained by Kaiser Health News.

2 Mar 2020

Telehealth interventions could lead to improved obstetric outcomes

Telehealth interventions are associated with improved obstetric outcomes, according to a review published from physician-researchers at the George Washington University.

11 Feb 2020

Study to evaluate safety of PrEP and dapivirine ring in pregnant women

A woman who is eight-months pregnant is the first participant to be enrolled into a study evaluating the safety and acceptability of two different HIV prevention approaches when used during pregnancy -- the monthly dapivirine vaginal ring, which is currently under regulatory review, and a daily antiretroviral (ARV) pill called Truvada, an approach already approved in several countries and commonly referred to as PrEP, short for pre-exposure prophylaxis.

10 Feb 2020

Trelleborg experts discuss combination devices at Pharmapack

As specialists in silicone-based combination devices, Trelleborg’s healthcare and medical operation will be attending Pharmapack this year, with experts available to support medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies in this booming technology.

From Trelleborg AB 5 Feb 2020

Investigational HIV vaccine not effective in preventing HIV

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), part of the National Institutes of Health, has stopped administration of vaccinations in its HVTN 702 clinical trial of an investigational HIV vaccine.

3 Feb 2020

Robotic search for drugs that block sperm motility

The hunt for the first male contraceptive pill is on, and scientists at Dundee University may have the needed tool to find it – a robotic screening system.

29 Jan 2020

When aid-in-dying is legal, but the medicine is out of reach

The call came the last week of September, when Neil Mahoney could still stagger from his bed to the porch of his mobile home to let out his boisterous yellow Lab, Ryder.

29 Jan 2020

Three big AI projects in medicine to watch in 2020

Artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to touch medicine in many different ways, from making diagnoses to triaging patients. Many AI enterprises will make headlines in 2020:

24 Jan 2020

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: SCOTUS punts on ACA case — for now

The Supreme Court has declined to take up immediately a case out of Texas that could overturn the entire Affordable Care Act. But that is not likely to stop the case from becoming a major political issue in the 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns.

23 Jan 2020

Millions of 'outdated' tests performed on healthy young women, study finds

Pelvic examinations and cervical cancer screenings are no longer recommended for most females under age 21 during routine health visits, but a new study has found that millions of young women are unnecessarily undergoing the tests, which can lead to false-positive testing, over-treatment, anxiety and needless cost.

6 Jan 2020

Cyber bullying predicts increased risky sexual behaviors in boys

A collaboration of researchers at Louisiana State University, University of Missouri, and University of Tennessee found that peer victimization is associated with adverse psychological and behavioral problems, including depression and risky health behaviors such as substance use and unprotected sex with multiple partners.

6 Jan 2020

Long-acting reversible contraceptives are highly effective, but restricted by some hospitals

Long-acting reversible contraceptives like intrauterine implants have greatly reduced unintended pregnancies and abortions, but government protections allowing religious hospitals to restrict care are limiting access to health care consumers, according to an expert at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

17 Dec 2019

Women with low preference to avoid pregnancy still use contraceptive methods

A new study from the University of California San Francisco and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health challenges assumptions that women with the highest preference against pregnancy use more effective contraceptive methods and that women who might welcome pregnancy do not use contraception.

16 Dec 2019

A 'once a month' birth control pill

Birth control pills in their present form need to be taken once a day each day for the whole menstrual cycle. Other options such as Intra-Uterine devices (IUDs) or implanted progesterone offer a longer coverage, but most women prefer the pills due to their reliability and cheaper, easier and safer usage profile.

5 Dec 2019

Study finds key region of the brain is smaller in women who use oral contraceptives

A brain imaging study has shown that the hypothalamus was smaller among women taking oral contraceptives.

4 Dec 2019

Study shows perinatal outcomes following bariatric surgery between pregnancies

During 2002-2014, there was a 13-fold increase in weight loss surgeries among women aged 15-44 years in New South Wales, Australia, and undergoing such surgery between a first and second pregnancy was associated with lower risks of hypertension, preterm birth, and other outcomes in the second pregnancy.

2 Dec 2019

Klobuchar leans in on support for Roe v. Wade, planned parenthood

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar trotted out statistics at the November Democratic presidential candidates' debate — suggesting that sweeping majorities oppose some of the abortion and reproductive health care policies backed by the Trump administration.

22 Nov 2019