Unintended Pregnancy

Hello friends, I am Dr Shakuntala Kumar I am practising obstetrician and gynaecologist at New Life Hospital, North Delhi, I am also a visiting consultant at Fortis Hospital Shalimar Bagh. Friends we get a lot of enquiries about unwanted pregnancy, how to avoid unwanted pregnancy. Well, we have a lot of options available in the market but I believe there are a lot of myths surrounding those options that are available to you. First of all, I will be briefly talking about emergency contraception, what is emergency contraception? Initially, contraceptive was devised in cases where women had an emergency situation like if there was an intercourse against their will or if there was rape. Friends the purpose of emergency contraception is to avoid an emergency situation please remember that, that means ideally speaking there should not be an emergency they should not be seeking contraception in emergency, there should not be intake of more than twice in a year of an emergency contraception please remember that, that emergency contraception is not a regular contraceptive. It is effective if taken within 72 hours of an unwanted situation if there is unprotected intercourse or a woman is planning to protect herself, then if taken within 72 hours she will be protected. It is quite effective but please remember it is not hundred percent effective. When taken a woman may face some unwarranted bleeding within few days of intake of this particular pill and if she is facing any other problem or if she is not getting her period despite her waiting adequately say for example more than one week of the arrival of her last period, then it is advisable to seek help of a doctor and if we be briefly talking about oral contraceptive pills are normally started from the first day of the menstrual cycle and they are taken regularly almost same time every day for 21 days, as soon as the pill is over within 4 to 5 days the lady will experience some bleeding. The oral contraceptive pills ideally should not be forgotten but if forgotten as soon as the woman remembers she should take that pill and the next pill should be taken as per the schedule. So oral contraceptive is a great choice than the other choices are copper-containing devices or medicine containing devices called the long active reversible contraceptives. These are basically devices which are kept in the uterine cavity and you have to seek the help of your healthcare provider or your doctor for use of these devices. They can be copper-t or non-copper containing medicinal devices, then there are so many other choices available like the depo drug which is given as in the form of an injection which is effective for 3 months from the day of intake but so this depo injection which I just talked about can have some side effects like the lady may experience irregular bleeding or she may have the weakness of the bones if it is taken for long. Friends the contraceptive choices which I just enumerated that temporary contraceptive choices, if a woman has completed her family and she no longer wants any more children then there are permanent methods of sterilization also available. They can be done laparoscopic early or by opening a small hole in the abdomen and doing sterilization call tubectomy, that is there in the women, in men they can undergo vasectomy which is a very very easy procedure it is called a No-Scalpel vasectomy and or NSV. This is a very simple procedure than on an OPD basis and the man who has undergone this procedure can very soon after resume his normal daily life activities. So friends I briefly enumerated to you about the contraceptive choices that are available to you. In case you have any more query you are free to ask us on our regular working days or you can approach me through Lybrate and ask your questions. Dear friends, whatever method of contraceptive choices you are taking do not forget to visit your health care provider or on regular basis or if you have any queries feel free to ask us, thank you.