Implant is the most RELIABLE form of contraception

[watervole]

I was listening to a radio 4 statistics programme last night, and they made exactly the same point that Ben Goldacre is making here.  Namely that all contraceptives have failures and the question is not "How many women using it become pregnant?", but "What percentage of women using it become pregnant?"

As soon as you ask the second question, the contraceptive implant wins hands down.

Comments

[epistrophia]

But is that "What percentage of women using it WHO HAVE IT CORRECTLY INSERTED become pregnant?", or not? Because, as someone who is a) not at all ready to have children, at least not in the near future, and b) trying to find contraception which is as effective as possible and as easy as possible, the story about the six hundred-odd women who got pregnant made me feel slightly sick.

[cdybedahl]

Unfortunately the proportion of women who get really bad side-effects from the implant seems to be rather high. I haven't seen any actual research, but among my friends almost half had to have it taken out again for various reasons.

[gipsy-dreamer.livejournal.com]

Where do the mirena and sterilisation come in this survey (if sterilisation counts)?

I think my sister has the implant; I have the mirena thanks to a hormone imbalance but I'm also sterilised for various reasons.

If you can elaborate a bit, this sounds really interesting :)

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

From what I can deduce the problem with the implants was the implanting rather than the method or anything else. Since the implanting is a variable based on the person performing the implant it is going to be subject to variations.

The best way of reducing the pregnancy rate for implants is to improve the method of applying it to the person, to reduce the variability in the process and thus in the result.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, the results of the infections is horrendous.

[elmyra.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking that since the story started and I have to keep reminding myself that apparently it isn't obvious to most people. There's something wrong with an education system that leaves people unable to evaluate and contextualise basic information.