Reproductive Planning: Contraceptive Counseling and Nonhormonal Methods

More than 65% of US women ages 15 to 49 years use contraception every year, many of whom seek care with family medicine. Family physicians are well equipped to provide comprehensive contraceptive counseling to patients in the primary care setting. When discussing options and providing education to patients, clinicians should consider patient preferences, patient autonomy, and adverse effect concerns, and should use a patient-centered approach that upholds the principles of reproductive justice. Nonhormonal methods of contraception include barrier methods and spermicides, fertility awareness-based methods, and (in postpartum individuals) lactational amenorrhea. With barrier methods, spermicides, and fertility awareness-based methods, 13 to 29 out of 100 women may become pregnant. Permanent forms of contraception include female and male sterilization procedures, which are some of the most effective (more than 99% effective) and most commonly used methods in the United States.