It’s important if you’re using birth control to prevent pregnancy, that you are aware of how it does its job, and also, how good it is at doing its job, right? To make things a bit easier for you, we’ve ranked the different methods of birth control by their effectiveness, so you can focus on getting down with your other half.
We’ve ranked the methods by how effective they are at preventing pregnancy with ‘Typical Use‘ which takes into account human error (for example, the fact that women might forget the pill or take it at an incorrect time, or that they may not correctly use a condom.). It’s important to understand the difference between ‘Perfect Use Effectiveness‘ (Basically, if you never forgot to change the patch on time, or if you were 100% consistent with how you take the pill, all the time), and ‘Typical Use’ which is more realistic, given the pressures and realities of, well, real life. We know that not everyone uses birth control to prevent pregnancy, but we hope you find this info handy!
And, because you should also be thinking about staying healthy and protecting yourselves against sexually transmitted infections (‘STI’s), we’ve added that below too, so you know if you’re protected or not!
| Method Name | Method Type | Effectiveness – TYPICAL Use | Effectiveness – PERFECT Use | Protects against STIs | Frequency of use | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Source for data on effectiveness: Trussell J. Contraceptive Efficacy. Efficacy at typical and correct use figures. In: Hatcher RA, Trussell J, Nelson AL, Cates W, Kowal D, Policar M. Contraceptive Technology: Twentieth Revised Edition. New York NY: Ardent Media, 2011.
Are you using any of these birth control methods? If yes, we’d love to hear from you!If you’d like to be featured in our Real Women | Real Experiences series, please contact us at info@fourfiveoh.com
If you’d like to share your own experience and tell us what side effects you felt, and whether you recommend any of these methods to others, head over to Share your Experience
