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The induction of amenorrhoea.

A survey has shown that many women favour eliminating menstruation and it has been suggested that therapeutic induction of amenorrhoea might be an advantage in female personnel mobilised for war. The traditional method has been to take the oral contraceptive pill continuously. This produces weight gain and other side-effects; spotting and breakthrough bleeding can be a problem initially. The method is however cheap. The Gonadotrophin Releasing Hormone (GnRH) analogue, goserelin, is extremely effective, produces less side-effects, but it is very expensive. Two synthetic steroids, danazol and gestrinone, are moderately effective, have a variety of prominent side-effects and are also quite expensive. With all these drugs normal menstruation resumes in the cycle after they are discontinued. Although goserelin has many advantages over the continuously taken contraceptive pill, its cost precludes it from consideration as a means of eliminating menstruation.

Amenorrhea↗

Family planning clinics: facing higher costs and sicker patients.

Family planning clinics throughout the United States are facing a variety of obstacles that threaten their ability to provide necessary contraceptive services to low-income women and teenagers, according to interviews with clinic administrators. In the last few years, the proportion of patients coming to family planning agencies in need of screening or treatment for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) has increased dramatically. Many providers report that 10-15 percent of their clients are infected with chlamydia, the most prevalent STD. The increasing costs of Pap tests and contraceptives are also major problems: As a result of recent federal legislation, the price of Pap tests has risen substantially, and that of contraceptives is beginning to increase steeply. Finally, Title X funding for family planning services has decreased 66 percent over the last decade if both cuts and inflation are taken into account. As a result of the squeeze between increased costs and decreased public funding, clinics have been forced to charge higher fees, maintain long waiting lists for appointments and curtail community outreach. In addition, growth of the family planning patient population has slowed dramatically, and even declined, in some places.

Cost Control↗

Contraceptive use and fertility in Honduras, 1981-84.

This paper presents data on contraceptive use and fertility in Honduras obtained from a household survey conducted in 1984, and compares these data with similar information obtained from surveys carried out in 1981 and 1983. About half of the increase that has taken place in contraceptive use in Honduras is accounted for by sterilization. In 1981, 27 percent of women in union aged 15-49 years were practicing contraception; in 1984, the percentage of those 15-44 was 35 percent. The increase in urban areas was smaller (from 47 percent to 51 percent) than in rural areas (from 16 percent to 24 percent). Also, fertility remained almost unchanged in urban areas while declining in rural areas. Information from questions on place of purchase, price, and brand of contraceptive (for orals) was used to determine source of supply. The use of multiple questions to determine source results in a higher percentage of contraceptive use attributed to the Honduran Family Planning Association as compared with answers to a single question. The duration of breastfeeding in Honduras has increased, with the greatest changes occurring among women in urban areas and women with the highest levels of education. Efforts have been made to promote breastfeeding in urban areas and these results suggest that the efforts have been successful.

Adolescent↗

Past and present contraceptive behavior of new Soviet immigrant women in Israel.

This exploratory research investigated past and current use of contraceptives among a purposive sample of 117 new immigrant women from the Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union). The findings confirm the widespread use of induced abortion (IA) as a method of birth control before immigration. Fifty-eight percent of the sample had had at least one IA, and the average was 2.7 IA. The most commonly used types of contraception before immigration were the pill, safe days, withdrawal, and the IUD. Currently used types of contraception were the IUD, safe days, withdrawal, and condoms; however only 45% of the sample were currently using any type of contraception. Of particular interest were the relatively high reported use of the pill before immigration and low current use, and the former low level of condom use and its increase in popularity in Israel. Despite the availability of more effective methods of birth control, safe days and withdrawal remain commonly used. The high cost of the pill was mentioned as a deterrent to its current use. Despite the high prior level of IA, the majority of women in this sample (84%) preferred today to use other birth control methods, and would like the opportunity to receive professional advice. These findings support the need for educational efforts directed toward new immigrant women from CIS.

Abortion, Induced↗

The costs of contraception.

The cost of contraception is one factor that affects the choice of a birth control method. An analysis of the first-year costs for the various methods, based on fees charged by private physicians and supplies purchased at drugstores, shows that the cost can be considerable and that there are large differences in cost between methods. Prescription contraceptives--the pill, IUD and diaphragm--are by far the most expensive of the reversible methods because they require medical supervision, but supplies alone are also more expensive for prescription methods than for nonprescription methods. First-year cost is highest for the pill-$172, compared with $160 for the diaphragm and $131 for the IUD. The mean of $154 for these three prescription methods is almost four times the mean first-year cost of $40 for condoms and foam. Sterilization necessitates the largest initial expenditure, and the cost of tubal ligation-$1,180-is almost five times the cost of vasectomy-$241. However, sterilization represents a one-time cost, while the other methods involve recurring expenses that may add up to more than the cost of sterilization over time. The methods that are associated with the lowest failure rates-sterilization, the pill and the IUD-are among the most expensive. To offset the costs of contraception, 4.6 million American women obtained low-cost care from subsidized family planning clinics in 1980.

Contraception↗

Evaluation of the effect of contraceptive prices on demand in eight Western European countries.

Wide differences exist among European countries as regards national reimbursement schemes and the resulting individual expenditure on contraception. In this current research project annual expenditure and costs in the first year of use were calculated, taking into account existing reimbursement levels, for oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices, condoms, and sterilization in eight Western European countries: Italy, France, United Kingdom, Spain, West Germany, Austria, Sweden and Denmark. The costs were expressed in Swiss francs. For users of oral contraceptives it emerged that the annual expenditure on contraception ranged from nil in the United Kingdom to 172.32 Swiss francs in Austria. In the case of condoms, the cost to users was lowest in the United Kingdom (57.44 Swiss francs) and highest in Spain (105.95 Swiss francs). Expenditure on the use of an intrauterine device in the first year ranged from nil in the United Kingdom and Sweden to 449.87 Swiss francs in Austria, while sterilization was carried out free of charge in France, West Germany and Denmark, as compared with a cost of 677.57 Swiss francs in Italy. The variation in expenditure was largely explained by the extent to which contraception costs are reimbursed in the respective countries. Correlation of the calculated expenditure on a method and its use did not show any statistically significant trend. This suggests that the wide differences in the choice of contraceptive methods between countries are not related to differences in national reimbursement schemes and resulting costs to users, and that other factors must be involved.

Adolescent↗

Internet availability of contraceptives.

OBJECTIVE: To measure the accessibility of contraceptive supplies over the Internet. METHODS: We performed an Internet search with the use of search engines and key words. We posed as consumers purchasing both prescription and over-the-counter contraceptive supplies. The number of clicks or web pages accessed, costs, shipping time, barriers to access, and prescription requirements were compared for selected birth control supplies. RESULTS: More than 200 web sites were visited to locate at least one site where we could purchase each selected product. Contraceptive supplies, including male and female condoms, spermicides, vaginal sponges, intrauterine devices (IUDs), diaphragms, and cervical caps, were easily obtained without a prescription from foreign web sites. Oral contraceptive pills (OCs) were readily available online in November 1999; some sites had discontinued sales by February 2000, but OCs could still be purchased with no prescription in August 2000. None of the four prescription sites supplied physician or prescriber credentials. The contraceptive costs varied by vendor and product. A type of copper IUD could be purchased for less than $50.00, whereas a single package of emergency contraceptive pills cost $141.00 from one vendor because of prescription and shipping fees. Some emergency contraceptive pills ordered arrived after 72 hours or did not arrive and the purchase was not refunded. A levonorgestrel IUD was shipped without difficulty in December 1999, but a second device, ordered in February 2000, was temporarily impounded by United States Customs. CONCLUSION: This method of contraceptive purchase is accessible, expensive, erratically regulated, and rapidly changing.

Contraceptive Agents↗

Contraceptive delivery in the developing world.

A strong demand for family planning exists in most developing countries and family size is falling rapidly in many of them. Effective family planning programmes offer a world-wide range of choices (including voluntary sterilisation and abortion) through a variety of distribution channels. Universal access to voluntary family planning can be achieved easily and cheaply by the turn of the century, but only if conservative medical policies are overcome and funding is greatly expanded. The international community faces a genuine choice: if it responds to current opportunities the global population will stabilize at approximately 10 billion or fewer; if it fails, population may grow to 14 billion or more. The difference between these two projections (approximately equal to the present world population of 5.4 billion) may well determine the future of the planet.

Contraception↗

Practical problems which women encounter with available contraception in Australia.

Australian women face major difficulties with contraception because of the limited range of choices, the need for meticulous attention to compliance with most available methods and because of cost limitations for a significant minority of the population. The most commonly used methods are oral contraceptive pills and barrier methods, and each has substantial compliance problems which can be minimized with care and counselling. There is an urgent need for a wider range of options in Australia and for good information and publicity about them. Present progress in this direction gives some hope for the near future.

Australia↗