The pill may be a tried and true method for keeping those pesky pregnancies at bay (knock on wood!), but apparently it's actually one of the more mediocre birth control methods on the market. According to new research, long-term options such as intrauterine devices, IUDs, and Depo-Provera shots are actually far more effective than their more popular daily-doses-necessary cousin. They also beat out the transdermal patch and the Nuva Ring.
In a recent study of 7,486 women using a variety of contraception options, long-acting contraceptives had a failure rate of less than one percent, while the failure rate for the pill, as well as patches and rings, hovered around nine percent. "When women say to me that they want to use the pill, I say 'That's fine, but it's 20 times less effective than an IUD,'" said one of the study's co-authors. "Clinicians have been reluctant to prescribe IUDs, but if we want to get a handle on unintended pregnancy in our country, we have to first offer the most effective methods."
Could this be the beginning of a renaissance for the often-ignored IUD? Should the women of America toss our leftover pills in the air like so much confetti? I smell a new medical and/or sexual revolution in the works.
