Birth Control

2 Pages 593 Words

Womens health concerns
Birth control is a way to prevent pregnancy. While there are many different types of birth control, they all fall into two different categories: barrier and hormonal. Barrier methods basically block the sperm from getting to the egg. Condoms (both male and female), diaphragms and cervical caps are all barrier methods of birth control. Hormonal methods basically change the menstrual and ovulation cycle to prevent a female from releasing an egg from her ovaries, known as ovulation. That makes it nearly impossible for a pregnancy to happen. Birth control pills (the Pill), Depo-Provera (the shot), and the birth control patch are all hormonal methods of birth control.
Certain types of birth control, like Depo-Provera and The Pill, are 98 to 99 percent effective. But, only if they’re used properly. Human error is a huge factor in whether birth control works. It’s so important that manufacturers actually have two different rates of effectiveness. One is with perfect use in a laboratory, where there’s no room for mistakes. The other is the “real world” rate, which takes into account the occasional broken condom and the couple of nights you forgot your pill. Of course, the perfect use rate is always higher. Condoms are 98 percent effective at preventing pregnancy when used correctly. That drops to 86 percent with "typical" use, which means making mistakes, not using them every single time. So you have to use them right, every single time you have sex, to get that kind of pregnancy protection. Condoms protect people from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) that are spread through body fluids —semen and vaginal fluids. That includes HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis.
Some STIs, like herpes and genital warts, are spread through skin-to-skin contact. A condom may not cover areas of the skin that are infected, such as the scrotum, labia, or even the inside of the thigh. So condoms can’t protect aga...