How to Pick a Birth Control Method

Transcript My name is Michelle Francis. I’m an OB/GYN physician, and I love to talk about birth control. I’ve been a practicing OB/GYN physician for over nine years, and I really enjoy helping women through all phases of their life, from starting their periods and not knowing what they need to know about their bodies …

Transcript The birth control Patch is a small patch that you place on your arm, on your hip, or on your buttock. You change the patch once a week for three weeks, and then you have a patch-free week, and that week is when you get your menses or your period. Now, the birth control …

Transcript The birth control sponge is a product that is soaked with spermicide. That sponge is placed into your vagina before you have sex and must stay in your vagina for a few hours after sex before you remove it. It’s probably one of my least favorite forms of birth control because it is not …

Transcript What are the most popular birth control methods? I find that in my private office most of my patients are on oral birth control pills. They are easy to use. The contraceptive effectiveness is excellent, and there’s a lot of benefits for using the birth control pill aside from preventing pregnancy. Although birth control …

Transcript Probably my favorite or one of my most favorite forms of birth control is the IUD, and the Mirena IUD is definitely one of my top two favorites. The Mirena IUD is a small T-shaped device that I insert, or a nurse practitioner inserts in the office, and that T-shaped device has progesterone in …

Transcript The IUD is a highly effective and safe form of birth control. One of the best things that we’ve done as OB/GYNs is to make this unit available to all patients, whether or not they’ve had babies or not. So, if you’re considering a form of birth control and you’re not doing well with …

Transcript Another one of my favorite forms of birth control is the IUD, or the Intrauterine Device. This is a small, T-shaped form of birth control that is placed into your uterus by a nurse practitioner or a physician. This form of birth control, once it is inserted, is one of the most effective forms …

Transcript The vaginal ring is one of my personal favorites, as far as birth control options. It is a plastic ring that has both estrogen and progesterone. The ring is placed into your vagina, and that estrogen and progesterone is absorbed by your vagina, and that’s how it prevents pregnancy. It is a highly effective …

Transcript The Morning After Pill, or the Plan B, is a progesterone pill that you take once, o, depending on the formulation, you take it twice, once every 12 hours. And what that does is it prevents pregnancy only if you’ve had an accident, meaning that you’ve had a contraceptive failure. This is not an …

Transcript So spermicide is a product that is usually placed in the vagina to kill the sperm before the sperm meets the egg. Spermicide comes in various forms. It can be a little tablet. It can be a cream or a gel, and it can be in a small, thin film. All of these are …

Transcript Birth control pills are probably one of the most well-known forms of birth control that we prescribe in the office. It is a highly effective form of birth control, but it requires motivation on the part of the user to take the pills correctly. Birth control pills come in a pack. It can be …

Transcript So the sponge is a form of birth control that is basically a sponge. It’s soaked with spermicide, which is a product that kills the sperm. You place that sponge as far into your vagina as possible. You put that in your vagina before you have sex, and then a few hours after sex, …

Transcript Spermicide is a product that’s available at the pharmacy, and it’s used to prevent pregnancy by killing the sperm before the sperm and the egg meet. This product comes in several forms. It comes in a cream or a gel. It comes in a film, and it can come in a little tablet. All …

Transcript The shot is a highly effective form of birth control. It is an injection that’s given into your arm or into your buttock, and it’s usually administered by a physician or a nurse practitioner. This injection must be given once every 12 weeks to get the most benefit from this form of birth control. …

Transcript Yasmin is a form of birth control pill that has estrogen and drospirenone. Now, the regular birth control pills that you’re familiar with have estrogen and a form of progesterone. So instead of having progesterone or a form of progesterone in the Yasmin, the drug is called drospirenone, which is different than the progesterone …

Transcript Some of you may be wondering about mail-order prescription plans. This may be a convenient way to get your birth control instead of going to the pharmacy every month to get your pills, to get your NuvaRing, or to get your patch. Now, you may not have this option available through your insurance, but …

Transcript The birth control implant is a highly effective form of birth control. The rod gets placed into your arm for three years, so it gives you the same contraceptive effectiveness for those three years. This birth control implant is very safe as it prevents pregnancy, and because it doesn’t have any estrogen, you’re not …

Transcript Spermicide is a product that kills the sperm before the sperm and the egg meet. It comes in various forms. It can come as a cream or a gel. It can come in a film, and it can also come in a little pellet. When you use the pellet and the film, you have …

Transcript The birth control patch is a small patch that you place on your arm, on your hip, or on your buttock. You use that for a week, and then you change it every week for three weeks. The fourth week is a patch-free week, and that is the week that you get your period. …

Transcript Seasonale is a highly effective form of oral birth control pill. It has estrogen and progesterone in each active pill, and there’s an interval where you don’t take any hormones, and in that interval, you get your menses or your period. The difference between Seasonale and the conventional birth control pills you’re familiar with …

Transcript So what is the withdrawal method or pull-out method? I would define the pull-out method as an ineffective form of birth control. If you are trying to prevent pregnancy, this is not the way to do it. Technically, what you are supposed to do is pull the penis out of the vagina before your …

Transcript The birth control shot is an injection that is usually done in your arm or in your buttock, and it contains progesterone only. This form of birth control needs to be given once every 12 weeks, and is an excellent form of birth control for patients who are not good at taking a pill …

Transcript Birth control pills are an effective form of contraception. They usually come in a round pack or a rectangular pack, and it’s up to you, the user, to make sure that you take the pills on a consistent basis in order for them to be effective. Unfortunately, all forms of birth control have side …

Transcript The NuvaRing is a highly effective and safe form of birth control. It’s a plastic ring that has estrogen and progesterone. You take that plastic ring and put it into your vagina, where the vagina will absorb those hormones and prevent you from getting pregnant. The NuvaRing is placed into your vagina by the …

Transcript Plan B is a progesterone pill that you take to prevent pregnancies if you’ve had an accident. In other words, if you forgot to take your pills two or three days in a row and you’ve had unprotected sex, this is a great option for you to use to prevent pregnancy. If you use …

Transcript So, is breast feeding an effective form of birth control? You would think “yes” or “no” would be the simplest answers, but it’s not. It’s actually a little bit more complicated than that. How often are you breast feeding? Are you giving supplements with formula? Are you having problems with your breast milk production? …

Transcript A diaphragm is a latex ring that has a cup attached to it, and that cup is a reservoir for spermicide. What you do with this cup is that you fill it with spermicide, and you have to carefully place that into your vagina so that the cup covers the cervix, and that is …

Transcript The birth control implant is a small plastic rod that gets placed into your arm, and it lasts for three years. One of the most common side effects of this form of birth control is breakthrough bleeding. You may notice that when you have this implant placed that your periods will no longer be …

Transcript One of the most common questions my patients ask me in our discussions regarding birth control is: “Dr. Francis, which birth control pill is best for me?” And I have to admit, I don’t know. The problem is that what pill works for you may not be the pill that works for your friend …

Transcript So what is a condom? Most patients that are sexually active are familiar with condoms. It is the most readily available form of birth control that does not require a prescription. Although condoms are not used as widely as they should, it is the only form of birth control that prevents sexually transmitted infections, …

Transcript The IUD is a small, T-shaped device that’s placed into your uterus by your nurse practitioner or your physician, and depending on the type of IUD that you choose, it can be effective for five to ten years after the unit has been placed. The side effect profile for the IUD changes between the …

Transcript Yaz is a combined birth control pill that has both estrogen and drospirenone. You may not be familiar with the name drospirenone, but it causes the same effect on the lining of the uterus as progesterone, but the medication is different. If you are considering Yaz as a form of birth control, talk to …

Transcript The vaginal ring is a ring that has estrogen and progesterone. It is placed into your vagina. The hormones get absorbed by your vagina for 21 days. After 21 days, you remove the NuvaRing, and during that interval you should get your period. It is a safe and effective form of birth control, equally …

Transcript The diaphragm is a silicone cup with a ring attached to it. The silicone cup needs to be filled with spermicide before you use this form of birth control. The cup with the spermicide gets placed carefully into the vagina, so that the ring and the cup are covering the cervix with the spermicide. …

Transcript So the morning-after pill, or the Plan B, is a progesterone only form of preventing pregnancy. This method of preventing pregnancy is designed to be used only after you’ve had an accident. In other words, if you’ve had a contraceptive failure with birth control pills, or the ring, or the shot, or you’ve had …

Transcript The sponge is a product that is soaked with a spermicide. This spermicide soaked product is pushed as far into your vagina as possible before you have sex. After you have sex, you need to keep the sponge in for a few hours before you remove it, in order to reap the contraceptive effectiveness. …

Transcript The diaphragm is a silicone cup with a firm ring attached to it. This cup is filled with spermicide and placed into your vagina before the act of sex. Now although it is an effective and safe form of birth control, you need to follow some very important steps in order for you to …

Transcript Birth control pills are an effective and safe form of contraception. Your birth control pills come in a pack. The pack can be round, it can be rectangular, and it usually contains about 28 pills per pack. Some packs have 21 pills for the week that you take off and you don’t take any …

Transcript The birth control patch is an effective form of birth control. It is a small patch that you put on your arm, or on your hip, or on your buttock, and you change that patch once a week for three weeks, and then you have a patch-free week. The benefit of this form of …

Transcript Some of my patients come to the office and ask me, “Dr. Francis, I would like a low-dose birth control pill.” Well, the truth is that all the options that are available today are low-dose birth control pills. Low-dose birth control pills are pills with an estrogen content of 35 micrograms or less. At …

Transcript Seasonique is a highly effective form of oral birth control pills. Seasonique has estrogen and progesterone in the active pills, and the formula is a little bit different than the Seasonale in that the hormone balance is different. The other difference between the Seasonale and the Seasonique is that in the week that you …

Transcript The birth control shot is a highly effective form of birth control. It is progesterone only and is usually administered by a doctor or a nurse practitioner. The injection is usually given into your arm or in your buttock once every 12 weeks. While this is an excellent and highly effective form of birth …

Transcript You call your doctor and you say, “Doc, I’m going on vacation with my boyfriend. How do I prevent my period from coming? I’m in that phase of my cycle where if I take my placebo pills, I’m going to get my period.” Well, this is one of my favorite questions to answer because …

Transcript The birth control implant is a small plastic rod. It’s about this big, and it gets placed into your arm. That can be done in a doctor’s office or a nurse practitioner’s office. This rod has progesterone only. It does not have any estrogen. When it’s placed into your arm, it gives you about …

Transcript Aside from preventing pregnancy, depending on the birth control option that you use, there are lots of benefits related to birth control use. Some of the pills that you use will make your periods very, very short and very light and predictable. They prevent endometrial and ovarian cancer. And if you’re going on a …

Transcript The most effective forms of birth control are the ones that you will use consistently. My patients ask me that all the time, especially when they’re starting birth control for the first time. To be honest with you, every form of birth control that we offer in our office is effective. The hardest part …