Monday, November 17, 2014

Dear World: Contraceptive Failure is to Be Expected

Triplets, not so much.

The New York Times recently published an article about contraceptive failure rates. (Blogged about it here.)

With typical use, 61 out of 100 women will get pregnant with the Pill, over a ten year period.

With perfect use, the numbers go down to 3 in 100 or about 1 in 30.

1 in 30 doesn't sound like a lot, but when you multiply that number by millions, that's a lot. If a million women use the Pill perfectly, 30 000 of them will get pregnant over the course of their reproductive lifetimes.

But we know that nobody uses their contraception perfectly over the course of a lifetime.

And most women don't use the Pill for three decades straight.

Showing once again that we invest too much faith in contraception to prevent pregnancy.