Blog posts examine different contraceptive methods

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog features an ongoing series titled "What's Your Method?" that provides posts about many of the contraceptive options for women and girls worldwide and how different organizations are working to ensure these methods become accessible options for women who want and need them. The following is a summary of several posts from the series.

• Pamela Barnes, "Removing the Stigma From Female Sterilization": Barnes, president and CEO of EngenderHealth, writes, "Ensuring that female sterilization is made available involves overcoming several barriers, including limited capacity and commitment among health providers, a lack of dedicated space and time in overcrowded facilities, the up-front cost of the procedure, and a dearth of accurate information" (2/20).
• Laneta Dorflinger, Markus Steiner, and Heather Vahdat, "The Evolution of Implants": The authors, all with FHI 360, discuss the progress of contraceptive implant technologies and write, "The strong partnerships that have formed to lower prices and increase access continue to give more women in developing countries the ability to plan their families" (2/20).
• Victoria Jennings and Elaine Murphy, "Keeping an Open Mind: What the Evidence Tells Us About the Standard Days Method": Jennings, the director of the Institute for Reproductive Health, and Murphy, a visiting scholar at the Population Reference Bureau, describe the Standard Days Method, writing it is "another choice in a basket of effective options for women and couples who wish to avoid pregnancy; particular advantages include its low cost and lack of side effects" (2/19).
• Tewodros Melesse, "A Pill of Choice": Melesse, director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, writes, "The Pill is a reliable method that empowers women and gives them the choices to define not only their own lives, but of their whole family," adding, "In order to be truly effective, family planning has to be rights-based, consistently available, appropriate, affordable and ... accountable [for] all who need it (2/20).