During perimenopause, undesired pregnancies occur at ratios similar to or even higher than younger age groups, and almost half of these pregnancies will be terminated. In the United States, roughly one-third of pregnancies occurring in the 40- to 45-year age cohort are unintended. However, perimenopausal women may use contraception less consistently than younger women, possibly due to a lower perceived risk of pregnancy. Clinicians should continue to offer pregnancy prevention counseling and services to patients until…Read more…

The new 2024 US Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use (MEC) and the US Selected Practice Guidelines (SPR) were both just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each brings new recommendations and updates to previous recommendations. The new MEC brings in new contraceptive methods, new doses or formulations of the contraceptive stand-by’s of pills, patches, rings, IUDs. Key revisions include recommendations for chronic kidney disease, breastfeeding, postpartum, postabortion, obesity, major surgery, deep venous thromboses and pulmonary embolism, thrombophilia Read more..

We call it contraceptive failure when someone uses a method correctly and consistently but gets pregnant nonetheless. We understand that a medication someone takes for a medical condition can alter the effectiveness of hormonal contraceptives in many ways. Some contraceptive methods have been studied extensively to determine the interactions that diminish effectiveness, but other methods have had little study. For example, Interactions between POPs and other drugs have not been well studied. In the absence of a high degree of evidence, it is reasonable… Read more…