What Is The Most Effective Type Of Female Birth Control?
The most effective type of birth control for both men and women is sterilization.
Sterilization may not be available to everyone. This is especially true if you’re young. Side note – this would be a great place to talk about how we police people’s bodies when it comes to preventing pregnancy. And not just women’s bodies. But that’s not going to be the focus of this post. If you want me to address it in the future, please submit a question.
Many people do not choose sterilization. Often because of the fact that it’s considered permanent.
In looking at non-permanent options, hormonal methods are going to be more effective than most non-hormonal methods. But, and this is going to be a really big but, a method is only effective if you use it consistently and correctly.
Statistically speaking, the methods that we refer to as LARCs are the most effective. LARCs are Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives. These are the hormonal IUD and the implant. The good news about these methods is that there aren’t a lot of issues with using them consistently and correctly. That’s because once they’re in, they’re in for years. The consistently and correctly part mostly becomes an issue when it’s time to remove it. The key here is not to leave the method in for longer than its designed.
After the hormonal IUD and the implant, the other hormonal methods are generally going to be more effective than the non-hormonal ones. There is one exception though. The non-hormonal IUD is really effective even when compared to some of the hormonal options.
I know the question asked about birth control for women, but I want to address the issue for men to. Personally I don’t think we have enough options for men. There’s currently no hormonal method for men, so the only options are nonhormonal ones. The most reliable birth control option for men are external condoms (what we used to call male condoms).
But no matter your gender, the key here is to use a method, or combination of methods, consistently and correctly.
And while we’re talking about combining methods, I think it’s really important to mention that hormonal methods for women do not provide any protection from STIs. And while the question was about birth control, I work with enough populations at high risk for STIs that I wanted to make sure to mention it. If you want to try and protect yourself from both pregnancy and STIs, you can combine methods. Using a hormonal method and a condom would provide protection against both pregnancy and STIs.
Until next time, be safe and have fun!
Have a question you want answered? Submit it here: https://milsteinhealthconsulting.com/heydrsue
