birth control
Dealing With Doctors: Taking Control of Your Health Care Destiny
After Contraception or Commitment, Why You Still Gotta Rock Safer Sex
We sometimes deal with a tough situation in direct service: a user comes in, and reports having contracted an STI; a user who also isn't a first-time user of our site or services, and who, in a previous conversation with us about pregnancy risks, blew off also talking about STIs and safer sex and turned down help we offered to them to reduce their STI risks, not just pregnancy risks.
This is one of those things where there's no joy or pride in being right: it stinks to be right about someone getting any kind of illness and being unhappy.
Implanon Part 3: The Upgrade
Since the first time I had it inserted, the technology of the implant has changed a little bit, for the better. When it was developed, Implanon was a thin plastic rod that couldn't be seen on x-rays - so if there was a question about whether it had been placed in the right spot, there wasn't really a way to tell. The insertion device was also pretty intimidating-looking.
Nexplanon, the newer version, has fixed both of those issues.
Sex, Etc.
The Testing Diaries: Robin
Ten years ago, I knew about using lube, about making first-time intercourse comfortable, and about pregnancy prevention options, but it seems I didn’t know much about sexually transmitted infections.
My partner at the time — I’m still with him — offered to get tested for STIs before our first meeting in person.
I turned him down.
I think I must have decided that he didn't have an STI.
Someone told me once that I was more powerful than electricity. If that is true, which I highly doubt it is, I must be truly powerful indeed, to conduct blood and urine analyses over the phone or Internet, and with no scientific or medical training at that!
Fear of pregnancy? Ready for sex?
I am almost 18. My long distance boyfriend is 22. I have decided he is the man I want to lose my virginity to. Seeing as he is 1500 miles away means that he is not going to be doing it anytime soon. However, I am going to where he lives for Thanksgiving and we are planning on doing it then....
UK Hurdles to Emergency Contraception
It's been a few months now since Heather posted "Back Up Your Birth Control Backup Day" making it crystal clear that, despite some pretty unethical misinformation given to young people seeking it, emergency contraception in the US is totally legal to sell to people 17+ without prescription.
It was few days later over here in the UK that I read a blog-post from a student in London that she had been refused emergency contraception, but not because of her age.
Which had me asking myself what the law actually is in the UK.
Morning-After Misunderstandings
Labels inside every box of morning-after pills, drugs widely used to prevent pregnancy after sex, say they may work by blocking fertilized eggs from implanting in a woman's uterus.
But an examination by The New York Times has found that the federally approved labels and medical websites do not reflect what the science shows. Studies have not established that emergency contraceptive pills prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb, leading scientists say. Rather, the pills delay ovulation, the release of eggs from ovaries that occurs before eggs are fertilized, and some pills also thicken cervical mucus so sperm have trouble swimming.
New Study Finds Long-Acting Contraceptives Much More Effective Than Pills (Especially for Those Under 21)
From Reuters, today:
A large real-life test of birth control methods found more U.S. women got pregnant while using short-acting methods such as pills, patches and vaginal rings — and the failure rate was highest when they were used by women under 21.
“We found that participants using oral contraceptive pills, a transdermal patch or a vaginal ring had a risk of contraceptive failure that was 20 times as high as the risk among those using long-acting reversible contraception,” said the research team.