Pregnancy Prevention Methods

You have plenty of choices to help avoid pregnancy.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, reports that almost 50 percent of pregnancies in the country are unintentional. Yet, statistics indicate that only 2 percent of women who have had sexual intercourse at least once have never used birth control. The importance of avoiding unplanned pregnancies is clear, and numerous options are available to men and women who prefer not to conceive.

Abstinence

Although there are many ways to avoid unintended pregnancy, the only technique that is 100 percent effective every time is abstinence. A lifestyle of abstinence means never engaging in sexual activity that involves anal sex, oral sex or vaginal sex. This method is also the most foolproof way to avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs.

Natural Family Planning

Also called fertility awareness, natural family planning involves monitoring a woman's fertility cycle to determine when sex is permissible (infertile periods) and when the activity should be avoided (fertile periods). Women who have a regular menstrual cycle can predict the days that they are fertile and infertile and then abstain from sex or use birth control to prevent pregnancy during that time. An ovulation kit or cervical mucus monitoring can track fertile times.

Contraceptives

Contraceptives are the various devices and drugs designed to help individuals prevent conception. They are divided into three categories: barrier methods (condoms, diaphragms and spermicides); hormonal methods (oral contraceptives, NuvaRing vaginal insert, progestin and estrogen patches, progestin implants and progestin injections); and intrauterine devices or IUDs (Copper T IUD and Mirena intrauterine system).

Sterilization Methods

Contraceptives are reversible approaches to avoiding pregnancy, meaning the ability to conceive usually returns when individuals stop using them. Sterilization is the permanent alternative, and after such procedures are performed, there is no turning back, although they occasionally fail to achieve the desired result.

The two popular techniques for female sterilization are tubal ligation, commonly called tying the tubes, and transcervical sterilization. Both methods cause obstructions in the fallopian tubes to prohibit eggs from reaching the uterus, where fertilization occurs. Men can achieve a similar outcome with a simpler outpatient operation called a vasectomy, which removes sperm.

Effectiveness of Contraceptives

Birth control pills are the most popular form of hormonal contraceptive and birth control in general--with 11.6 million women using them in 2002. The CDC indicates that hormonal and IUD methods are effective at preventing pregnancy 92 to 99 percent of the time, as opposed to barrier methods, which have a lower rate of effectiveness that ranges from 71 percent (spermicides) to 98 percent (male condoms). The agency also states that the effectiveness of natural family planning ranges from 75 to 99 percent, while both female and male sterilization produce a success rate of more than 99 percent.

Resources

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Unintended Pregnancy Prevention