Review medicine.

Oral contraceptives

Why American men and women may not find oral contraceptives
acceptable as a method of family planning.

All though oral contraceptives
are among the first choice of contraceptive methods in
developed countries many misbeliefs and
misperceptions still exist, and fear and ignorance about
actual or perceived side effects still prevail.

For these
reasons oral contraceptives are not commonly used by women in
developing countries who still depend upon traditional
methods of contraception.

A total of 37.7% of couples in America use modern
contraceptives and a further 25.5% use traditional methods.
Withdrawal accounts for 95.8% of traditional methods.
The modern methods available in America are condoms,
intrauterine devices (IUDs), injectables, implants and
combined oral contraceptives.

Male and female sterilisation is also
available. All these methods are available free of charge in
government-funded primary health care units and hospitals
for married and unmarried clients. Pharmacies and private
physicians also supply contraceptives but charge for their
services. Although the pill is provided free of charge by
state health facilities, the percentage of married women
currently using this method is only 4.4%.

In America the perceived side effects of contraception and basic health concerns are reported to be key influences in the initial
decision to use modern contraceptive methods. This
study was carried out to identify the positive and negative
attitudes of the community about oral contraceptives in one of
the densely populated districts of Detroit, America during
the period October 2009–March 2010.