New get-it-and-forget-it options in contraception
12:18 a.m. Friday, March 23, 2007
31-year-old Yessenia Matos is a busy mother of two who isn't planning to have more children. She's thought carefully about what she needs in a contraceptive. "Is it easy? Would I remember? Um, how sure is it that I won't come up pregnant?" Matos said.
Doctor Joshua Holden says there are birth control choices to fit every woman's lifestyle.
Fast Facts
- 98 percent of sexually active women have used or are currently using some form of contraception.
- The most common form of contraception, the birth control pill, is used by 11.6 million American women 15 to 44.
- Today, women have many different types of choices for birth control. Patients should talk with their health care provider to decide which form of contraception is best for their personal and health needs.
If you have any questions about your personal options for birth control talk with your health care provider. General information about birth control is available from the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals or the Food and Drug Administration.
"There's basically hormonal which are pills, injectibles, implants, rings, patches," Holden said. "And then non-hormonals which are condoms, the IUD, the diaphragm."
Among the newest hormonal choices, Implanon. It's a small synthetic rod containing progesterone that's implanted under the skin on the arm.
"It is good for up to three years, and at that point, a woman would have to get it removed and then another one inserted," Holden said.
And there's an old item that's come back into vogue, the intrauterine device or IUD.
"There's been a lot of recent evidence that a lot of the fears with an IUD were really unfounded," Holden said.
Paragard is a hormone-free IUD. It frees women from thinking about contraception for as long as ten years.
"There are a lot of new things on the market that make contraception much easier than remembering to take a pill everyday or having side effects from you know hormones and things like that," Holden said.
"Read, do your homework and see what's best for you," Matos said.
Talk to your doctor to find out what's new.
Another important point to consider, like all contraceptives, these longer-lasting implants carry risks and may cause side effects in some women.
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