40 Fun Facts About Birth Control

Which disinfectant, hinted in 1930s ads to prevent pregnancy, was once America's leading douche?

Lysol stayed a popular birth control method from the Great Depression through the 1960s, though it never worked. Douching with it does not prevent pregnancy, and some women died from using it.

Egypt's Kahun Papyrus, from about 1850 BC, describes a contraceptive pessary of which animal's dung?

Crocodile dung is among the oldest written contraceptive recipes, listed beside a honey mixture and gummy pastes meant to cover the 'mouth of the womb'.

A 2008 Ig Nobel Prize honoured rival studies finding which soft drink both is and is not a spermicide?

Coca-Cola split the joke prize between one team that reported it was an effective spermicide and another that proved it was not. Sperm swim out of reach of any douche within about 90 seconds anyway.

Chemist Russell Marker made the progesterone behind the first birth control pills from which Mexican plant?

Yam species contain diosgenin, which Marker turned into progesterone in a process named Marker degradation. It founded a whole steroid industry in Mexico.

Which country singer's 1975 single 'The Pill' was refused airplay by a number of radio stations?

Loretta Lynn recorded the song in 1972, but her label held it back for three years. Rural doctors later told her it had done more to spread word of birth control than all their leaflets.

Rubber condoms relied on vulcanization, patented by which American inventor whose name now sells tires?

Charles Goodyear never founded the tire company that carries his name. His 1844 patent came first, the first rubber condom followed in 1855, and the early ones were reusable.

Which metal coats the hormone-free IUD, also the most effective emergency contraception within five days?

Copper ions kill sperm directly, so the device needs no hormones and leaves the timing of the menstrual cycle alone. Chilean doctor Jaime Zipper added the metal to a plastic T that had been failing.

Which country approved the birth control pill only in 1999, becoming the last UN member state to do so?

Japan's medical association had kept the pill off the market for nearly 40 years. Approval came only after regulators cleared Viagra in six months and women's groups cried foul.

In a classic Seinfeld episode, Elaine hoards which contraceptive after it is taken off the market?

The sponge really had just left American shelves, which inspired writer Peter Mehlman. Elaine postpones sex until she has vetted whether her boyfriend is 'sponge-worthy'.

Which nurse was arrested nine days after opening America's first birth control clinic, in Brooklyn?

Margaret Sanger was arrested eight times in all for defying laws against sharing contraceptive advice. Her offence at the clinic was handing a pamphlet to an undercover policewoman.

Combined birth control pills mainly prevent which process, normally set off by a surge of the hormone LH?

Ovulation is switched off because the pill's steady hormones hold back the signals that tell an ovary to release an egg. With no egg waiting, sperm have nothing to fertilize.

The contraceptive implant, a rod about the size of a matchstick, sits under the skin of which body part?

Upper arm placement is usually on the inner side of the arm a woman does not write with. Once fitted, the implant is among the most effective methods, with nothing to remember each day.

Which tubes, cut or blocked during male sterilization, normally carry sperm away from the testicles?

The vas deferens gives the vasectomy its name. Once each tube is cut or blocked, sperm can no longer leave the body and cause a pregnancy.

Which reading, charted on waking in fertility awareness, rises slightly once an egg is released?

Body temperature climbs by about four-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit once the egg is released. It has to be taken before getting out of bed, and days count as safe only after the rise has held for three days.

Combined birth control pills slightly raise the risk of which condition, affecting up to 1 in 1,000 users?

Blood clots are rare but serious, because one can lodge in a leg or lung or cause a heart attack or stroke. That is why the combined pill may be ruled out for smokers aged 35 or over.

A diaphragm, a silicone cup used with spermicide, blocks sperm by covering which part of the body?

Cervix cover is the diaphragm's whole job: a barrier that keeps sperm from joining an egg. The saucer-shaped cup is bent in half to be inserted.

Which state's ban on using contraceptives fell in 1965 after Estelle Griswold opened a birth control clinic there?

Connecticut's law dated from 1879 and bound even married couples until the Supreme Court struck it down 7–2 on privacy grounds. Griswold's group had been helping women travel out of state by bus.

Which 18th-century adventurer wrote in his memoirs of inflating condoms to check them for holes?

Giacomo Casanova's test is the first recorded inspection of condom quality. He knew the sheaths as 'assurance caps' and used them to avoid impregnating his mistresses.

Which condom brand, launched in London in 1929, went on to introduce the first lubricated condom in 1957?

Durex is a contraction of 'durability, reliability and excellence'. Its maker, the London Rubber Company, became Europe's first manufacturer of latex condoms in 1932.

Which herbal remedy, long used for low mood, can make birth control pills less effective?

St John's wort speeds up the way the body breaks down many medicines, the pill's hormones among them. Breakthrough bleeding is another reported effect of mixing the two.

After a vasectomy, which test confirms the operation has worked, usually two to four months later?

Semen analysis is needed because sperm linger beyond the cut for at least two months. Until a lab finds none, men are told to keep using another method of birth control.

Which activity, done at least every four hours by day, can work as birth control for six months after childbirth?

Breastfeeding only works this way if the baby gets nothing but breast milk, including a feed every six hours at night. Even then, about 2 in 100 mothers relying on it become pregnant.

Which contraceptive is given as an injection about every three months instead of a daily pill?

Depo-Provera can linger: it may take up to 10 months after the last shot wears off before pregnancy is possible again. Reduced bone density is another known drawback.

Which drug is the active ingredient in Plan B One-Step, the morning-after pill taken within 72 hours?

Levonorgestrel works by delaying the release of an egg, so it does nothing once the egg is out and cannot stop a fertilized egg implanting. Europe's regulators changed its label in 2013 to say so.

On which Caribbean island did the first large-scale trials of the birth control pill begin in 1956?

Puerto Rico was picked partly because it had a network of birth control clinics and liberal laws on family planning advice. Physician Edris Rice-Wray headed the trials.

Which pope's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae restated Catholic opposition to artificial contraception?

Paul VI set aside the conclusions of a birth control commission that his predecessor had created and he himself had expanded. Humanae Vitae was the last of his seven encyclicals.

Which postal inspector and anti-vice crusader gave his name to an 1873 US law against mailing contraceptives?

Anthony Comstock's censorship drive gave English the word 'comstockery'. The law he pushed through Congress treated birth control sent by mail as obscene material.

Feminists aboard the 1971 'Contraceptive Train' carried banned condoms past customs in which country?

Ireland had outlawed contraception since 1935, so the women shopped in Belfast. Unable to get the pill there without a prescription, some swallowed aspirin at customs instead, pretending it was the pill.

Which arts and crafts chain won a 2014 Supreme Court case over covering contraceptives in staff health plans?

Hobby Lobby's owners, the evangelical Green family, objected on religious grounds to four contraceptive methods. The court ruled 5–4 that privately held companies could be exempt from covering them.

Which brand became the first daily oral contraceptive the FDA approved for sale without a prescription?

Opill's ingredient, norgestrel, was first cleared for prescription use back in 1973. Half a century passed before the FDA's 2023 decision put the same pill on the open shelf.

Which International Harvester heiress funded most of the research behind the first birth control pill?

Katharine McCormick understood the science she was paying for, having earned a biology degree from MIT in 1904. She had also campaigned for women's right to vote.

Which American biologist, known for in vitro fertilization in rabbits, co-invented the birth control pill?

Gregory Pincus co-founded the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in 1944, the private Massachusetts laboratory where the pill research was done.

Which tuberculosis antibiotic, known for turning urine and tears orange, can make birth control pills fail?

Rifampin is one of the few antibiotics known to weaken the pill, so women taking it may be told to add condoms. Reviews have not found the same effect for common broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Which IUD, sold from 1971, drew more than 327,000 claims and pushed its maker A.H. Robins into bankruptcy?

Dalkon Shield tail strings could let bacteria climb into the uterus and cause severe infections. The scandal helped bring in the 1976 law that first made the FDA regulate medical devices.

Which Italian anatomist, namesake of a pair of tubes near the womb, described a linen sheath against syphilis?

Gabriele Falloppio claimed to have tried the sheath on 1,100 men, none of whom caught the disease. His account is the earliest uncontested description of condom use.

Which plant, stamped on Cyrene's coins and possibly used as a contraceptive, was reported extinct in Roman times?

Silphium was said to be worth its weight in gold, and Pliny wrote that the last known stalk went to Emperor Nero as a curiosity. Accounts of its contraceptive power are probably exaggerated.

In which country are condoms nicknamed 'mechais' after family planning activist Mechai Viravaidya?

Thailand has called him 'Mr. Condom' since the 1970s. His humorous publicity stunts took the embarrassment out of birth control and won him the 1994 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service.

Which communist country's Decree 770 of 1966 restricted abortion and contraception to drive up births?

Romania nicknamed the children born in the years just after the decree 'decreței'. Until then, its abortion policy had been one of the most liberal in Europe.

Past users of birth control pills are 30% to 50% less likely to develop which cancer, a benefit lasting decades?

Ovarian cancer protection grows the longer the pill is taken and can last up to 30 years after stopping. Breast cancer risk moves the other way, rising slightly among users.

Which drug, approved in 1957 for menstrual disorders, became America's first birth control pill in 1960?

Enovid had been in general use for three years by then, and at least half a million women had taken it. Its maker, Searle, had earlier refused to fund the research that led to the pill.