Reproductive Health and Birth Control: Quick Revision

A brief note on Reproductive Health and Birth Control. Read it before a test. Try each question at the end before you open its answer.

Reproductive health and population

• Reproductive health: total well-being in all aspects of reproduction: physical, emotional, behavioural and social (WHO).
• India: family planning began in 1951. The wider programme of today is Reproductive and Child Health Care (RCH).
• Strategies: awareness, sex education in schools, care of mother and child, medical facilities, and a statutory ban on amniocentesis for sex determination.
• Growth: the world population rose from about 2 billion in 1900 to about 6 billion in 2000. India had about 350 million at independence and crossed 1.2 billion in 2011.
• Causes: a fall in the death rate, the MMR and the IMR, and more people of reproducible age.
• Marriage age by law: 18 years for a female and 21 years for a male.

Methods of birth control

• Natural: periodic abstinence (days 10 to 17), withdrawal, lactational amenorrhea (up to six months).
• Barrier: condoms (used once, also protect against STIs), diaphragms, cervical caps and vaults (reusable), spermicides.
• IUDs: Lippes loop (non-medicated), CuT, Cu7 and Multiload 375 (copper), Progestasert and LNG-20 (hormone).
• Pills: progestogen alone or with estrogen, 21 days and then a gap of 7 days. Saheli is a weekly, non-steroidal pill.
• Injectables and implants: like the pills, with a longer effect.
• Emergency: within 72 hours of coitus.
• Surgical: vasectomy (vas deferens, cut on the scrotum) and tubectomy (fallopian tubes, cut in the abdomen or through the vagina). Reversal is poor.

A worked example

A population of 100 grows by 2 per cent a year. About how long does it take to double?

1. The rule of 70 gives $70 \div 2$.
2. The answer is about 35 years.

Practice with new numbers

A program to try

The program finds the fertile days of the model for a cycle, and counts those outside days 10 to 17.

Mistakes to avoid

• Saying that a condom is used again. It is used once.
• Mixing up the male and the female operation. Vasectomy cuts the vas deferens. Tubectomy cuts the fallopian tubes.
• Saying that the pill is taken for 28 days. The pills are taken for 21 days, and the gap is 7 days.
• Giving the pill a role in preventing infection. Among these methods, only the condom protects against STIs.

Check yourself

1. Which days are the fertile period in a cycle of 28 days?

2. How do copper ions from an IUD help to prevent a pregnancy?

3. What is the time limit for an emergency contraceptive?

4. Which method is a once a week, non-steroidal pill?

Sources

• NCERT (2023). Biology, Textbook for Class XII, chapter 3.
• World Health Organization and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (2018). Family Planning: A Global Handbook for Providers, 3rd edition.