Family planning should not be considered something coercive and a hard task, but more likely as any other thing that could happen in your life: a decision stage. We might (or not) find our soul mate and decide (or not) to start a family. And in our mind, we should not only consider buying a house, ask for a mortgage, buying a new car, change or find a new job. But maybe we can even ask ourselves “Do we have the minimum idea to have children” apart from having plants or a pet?
Consider the situation that you are in a stable relationship, both of you have done blood exams to detect any possible STI (yeah, love is not enough), what is the next stage?
Or let consider you already had children and you would like to enjoy your sexual life without be scared to feed another mouth, what are my options? Or let consider that you might have an history of previous miscarriages and the possibility of another one could heavily affect your mental health. What can I do? Well, the next step is to sit down with your GP, or your Gynaecologist/Obstetric or your sexual health advisor and, discuss about the different contraceptive methods available in the market. It is important to discuss it with a medical doctor, first of all because the doctor is the one that can prescribe it (apart from the Emergency contraception, but we will discuss it further another time) and secondly to consider pro and cons, any risk factors based on your clinical records and more.
But let start first with listing the most common types:
–Barrier methods of contraception: condom, diaphragm, female condom
–Hormonal pill contraception: in this category we have the estroprogestin pill, mini pill (only oestrogen), patch, ring, injective contraception, spiral
– Emergency contraception: the next day pill, Intrauterine device (IUD) with copper,
– Implanted methods of contraception: copper IUD
– Chemical contraception: spermicide (ova, spray, or gel)
– Natural contraception: Ogino-Knauss methods, billings method, temperature-based method, interrupted coitus
– Abortive method: RU-486 pill
As you can see there are many options and the decision for one instead of another should be based on:
- risk of STI
- stable partner or not
- possibility of having an undesired pregnancy
- general health
- contraindications
- practicality
Our sexual life is our personal life and of no one issue. We should be free to live as we want. But taking in consideration a protection and/or contraceptive method, especially if we are not ready to have and grow another human being, is definitely an act of maturity. So, take your time and choose wisely! Even with that the perfect contraceptive method does not exist. Oh yeah but it does not mean… abstinence! But hey, there we live just once in a lifetime!
We will talk in more depth of the types listed above so stay tuned!
The Feminist Health CIC 