For how we live.
In a double-blind trial of 65 etonogestrel-implant users with frequent or prolonged bleeding, a five-day course of tranexamic acid worked no better than placebo on any bleeding measure.
Consistent condom use cuts HIV transmission by about 80% and sharply reduces genital HPV, but offers only about 30% protection against genital herpes. The gap is about how each infection spreads.
In 370 nulliparous women, instilling mepivacaine into the uterus before IUD placement lowered pain by about 15 mm on a 100-mm scale versus saline. It is a real effect, not a cure for the procedure.
Two systematic reviews point the same way: for the pill, IUDs, implants and most methods, about 8 in 10 women conceive within a year of stopping — similar to using no method at all.
Pulling out is better than no method but among the least reliable in common use: US data put its first-year failure at 20%. Pre-ejaculatory fluid carried motile sperm in a substantial minority of men studied.
A daily testosterone-and-progestin gel is in a 52-week efficacy trial in 462 couples. A non-hormonal pill cleared its first safety study in 16 men. Neither is approved.
Modern techniques fail less than 1% of the time. The best meta-analysis found no link to aggressive or fatal prostate cancer; a 2-million-man registry still sees a small excess, most likely from extra testing.
In the 571-woman ECLIPSE trial, the hormonal coil improved quality-of-life scores more than standard tablets over two years, and far more women stuck with it. A Cochrane review reaches the same conclusion.
Trials put the pregnancy rate after emergency contraceptive pills at roughly 1-3%. But the risk rose more than threefold in obese women, and the levonorgestrel pill fared worst of all.
In a study of 543,167 cycles, calendar-based apps misclassified a fertile day as safe in two-thirds of cycles. Apps that track a real biological signal do better, but plain calendar apps remain the most common kind.
In a 22,785-user study of one temperature-based app, typical use failed 6.9 per 100 woman-years and perfect use 1.0 — but the study came from the maker, and traditional methods vary widely.
A million-woman Danish cohort found a modest rise in antidepressant use among hormonal contraceptive users. A Cochrane review of weight found no evidence the pill causes weight gain.
The numbers most methods advertise are perfect-use figures from clinical trials. In everyday use the pill fails about seven users in 100 a year, the condom about 13, withdrawal about 20.
A double-blind trial found a lidocaine paracervical block lowered pain during IUD placement, most in women who had never given birth. A separate meta-analysis found the benefit hinges on the drug and route.
A national pharmaceutical database analysis found out-of-pocket purchases accounted for 78-86% of contraceptive use, with emergency contraception priced up to 25 times higher than the insured rate.