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Provider Perspective

September 1st 2010

Whoops! Birth Control You Can Use After Sex

- Provider Perspective

There are lots of reasons the best laid plans for using birth control don’t work out:

I completely forgot to take my pill (!)…
I just didn’t have enough money to pay for the ring this month…
The condom broke….
We’d had some drinks and got carried away…

Something like this happens to most of us at some point. If you’ve had unprotected sex for any reason, you can still prevent pregnancy by using emergency contraception (EC). Some types of EC are also called ‘the morning after pill’, and all EC prevents pregnancy after sex.

July 30th 2010

Getting the Snip – Should It Be Me Or My Partner?

- Provider Perspective

Done having kids or sure you never want any? If you answer yes, you might be thinking about permanent birth control, also called sterilization. Sterilization can be done for women or men. For women, it is often called “getting your tubes tied” or “tubal ligation.” For men, it is called a vasectomy. Sterilization is a very common type of birth control. In fact, in the United States, sterilization is the most common form of birth control, with 37% of couples using it [1].

If you’re thinking about sterilization, how do you decide who gets it done—you or your partner? To make this decision, you can both consider the safety, effectiveness, reversibility, and cost of each method.

June 25th 2010

The Ring – It Won’t Get Lost in There!

- Provider Perspective

The vaginal contraceptive ring, a.k.a. the Ring or NuvaRing, is an easy to use, safe, and effective birth control option. It’s a soft, flexible ring that you change once a month. When I discuss vaginal contraception with my patients, some are initially wary about using a vaginal birth control method and have lots of questions about it. These are the most common questions I hear, and my answers.

May 28th 2010

Secret Birth Control: Know Your Privacy Settings

- Provider Perspective

Modern birth control methods have done wonders to give women control of their lives. You might be like me--one of contraception’s biggest fans, shouting its praises from the rooftops.

But sometimes, you just want to keep your birth control on the down low. You could be worried about your little brother finding your pills and flushing them one-by-one down the toilet. Or maybe your younger sister thinks your NuvaRing is a jelly bracelet. Sometimes privacy around use of birth control is no laughing matter. Controlling parents or partners who find out about your birth control may get angry. If you need to keep your birth control method private for any reason, check out these options.

April 30th 2010

The Contraception Learning Curve

- Provider Perspective

Not everybody’s doing it: about half of U.S. women younger than 20 are sexually active. But among women who are having sex, younger women are more likely to experience an unintended pregnancy. What’s the deal?

First let’s look at the numbers. A new report shows that, compared to older women, sexually active women aged 15-19 are more than twice as likely to have an unintended pregnancy.

March 26th 2010

Infertility: Birth control=Rubber, STIs=Glue

- Provider Perspective

Women under 30 years old are incredibly fertile – their ability to get pregnant is at its peak. In the U.S., about three in four sexually active women under 30 are using some type of birth control. But many of them ask me, does using birth control now hurt my chances of getting pregnant in the future? Sigh of relief: it does not.

All reversible birth control methods will help prevent pregnancy while you’re using them, but none have long-lasting effects on your ability to get pregnant when you stop. That’s why women who use the Pill but accidentally forget to take it for a few days can get pregnant that month.

February 26th 2010

Womb Service — Is It Really Okay to Skip Periods?

- Provider Perspective

A number of birth control methods hold the promise of lighter periods, fewer periods, or none at all, namely the Mirena intrauterine device, the Depo Provera shot, the single-rod implant Implanon, or continuous use of the pill or NuvaRing. To some of us, the idea of effective contraception and no periods sounds like menstrual nirvana. But for others there is a niggling worry: is it really okay to skip periods?

January 29th 2010

ParaGard Dukes It Out With Mirena

- Provider Perspective

At the end of each month, SexReally will feature a post discussing contraception, sex, and related topics from the perspective of a healthcare provider. The posts will be written by several different medical professionals, so scroll down to read the bio of this month’s author!

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Here’s a secret you may not know about doctors: female doctors use IUDs 2-5 times more often than women who aren’t doctors. Maybe it’s because doctors know the intrauterine device (IUD) is safe, low-maintenance, and super-effective.