Contraception (birth control options)
Contraception allows you to control your fertility, with the aim of helping to prevent unplanned pregnancies. Some types of contraception also protect against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
Various types of contraception are available, including barrier methods such as condoms, diaphragms and caps; hormonal methods such as the pill, patch, injection or implant; as well as implants in the womb, such as the intrauterine device (IUD) or intruterine system (IUS).
Which contraceptive method is most suitable?
The type of contraception that suits you best will depend on your age, health, medical history, sex life and family planning priorities. Based on these factors, a GP will recommend which methods are most suitable for you.
Most methods of contraception also involve regular action on your part — whether remembering to take a pill every day, to use a condom at every act of sexual intercourse, or to insert a diaphragm or cap and spermacide.
Some methods require action less often. The contraceptive patch, for example, should be replaced weekly, while contraceptive injections should be repeated every 12 weeks and the IUD can remain in situ for three to 10 years.
Which contraceptive is most reliable?
Given all these variants and differing levels of interaction required, deciding which contraceptive to use will also be a personal decision based on your own preferences, your diligence about remembering to use contraceptives and your lifestyle.
It's important to remember that no contraceptive is 100% reliable. User error (such as forgetting to take the pill at the right time each day) can also make a contraceptive method much less reliable, giving an actual failure rate that's much higher than the stated failure rates for perfect use.
Different methods have different failure rates
For example, the Progesterone implant has a perfect-use failure rate of 0.05 percent and the same typical-use failure rate of 0.05 percent1, because it only needs to be replaced every three years so there is almost no margin for user error.
In contrast, both the progesterone only pill and the combined pill have a perfect-use failure rate of 0.3 percent but a typical-use failure rate of eight percent1, while condoms have a perfect-use failure rate of two percent but a typical-use failure rate as high as 15 percent1.
The much higher failure rates in these instances are down to inconsistent or incorrect use of the contraceptive method by the user. So determining which is the right contraceptive for you will depend on your reliability in using contraception and how important it is for you to avoid pregnancy.
Preventing pregnancy, or STDs too
It's important to remember that a condom is the only contraceptive considered highly effective in reducing the risk of sexually transmitted diseases such as Chlamydia and HPV (which can cause genital warts and cervical cancer) as well as Herpes, Gonorrhoea, Syphilis, Hepatitis and HIV2.
You may therefore need to change your method of contraception if your sexual lifestyle changes, for example if you become single again after being in a long-term relationship, or if you begin a sexual relationship with a new partner.
Even if you are using a different method of contraception to prevent pregnancy, you should still use condoms to protect yourself from STDs unless you're in a mutually monogamous relationship and have both been screened for any infections you may have contracted in the past.
