Having kids isn’t where you’re at right now. You want to join the 65% of women in the United States between the ages of 15 and 49 who are taking steps to prevent an unplanned pregnancy. The good news is that you have lots of birth control options. And that’s also the bad news — there are so many options that choosing one can be challenging.
To give you an overview of your family planning options, Dr. Fernando Otero and our team at Women’s Clinic of the Rio Grande Valley pulled together a list of points to consider when choosing birth control.
A great place to start is to compare efficacy rates of the different birth control options because, after all, you want your birth control to do its job well. Here, we list a few popular options along with their corresponding protection rates:
For a more comprehensive list, check out this link.
Another factor to plug into your equation is how easy the birth control is to use. For example, if you’re prone to forgetting things, taking a daily pill might not be the best idea, because if you miss birth control pills, your protection drops considerably. Instead, you might consider an IUD that offers 3-10 years of protection against pregnancy, and you don’t have to do anything.
There are birth control options that require some effort on your part and others you don’t have to think about, and this can be an important consideration.
Many birth control options rely on hormones to control your ovulation to prevent you from getting pregnant. While hormonal birth control methods are effective, some women don’t like the idea of regulating hormones. Others are more sensitive to hormone controls and run into side effects.
So, figuring out whether you want a hormonal method is one of the first decisions you need to make.
There are only two birth control methods that prevent sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancy at the same time: abstinence and condoms.
If you have irregular or heavy and uncomfortable periods, hormonal birth control methods can help regulate your menstrual cycles at the same time as they protect against unplanned pregnancy.
You’re not ready now to build a family, but you can see a time in the not-too-distant future in which kids would be welcome. So, you want to be ready for that time with an easily reversible birth control option.
The good news is that most of the options we offer are easily reversed, with the exception of tubal ligation. For example, all we have to do is to remove your IUD and you’re ready to get pregnant. Or, you simply stop taking your birth control pills and your ovulation should get back on track fairly quickly.
If you’re still unsure about which birth control option is best for your needs, goals, and lifestyle, we’re happy to help. For all of your family planning needs, please contact one of our offices in McAllen or Edinburg, Texas, to schedule an appointment.
