[Prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies in Great Britain]

The encouragement to use condoms meant by the late 1980's, this method of contraception had come to reveal the contraceptive pill as the leading method in the United Kingdom. This swing from a medicalized method to a very readily available, non-medicalized method was superimposed on a trend of shift in contraceptive provision by family planning clinics to provision by general family doctors. The rate of women attending community family planning centres declined, and among those attending these clinics, the rate of condom users increased. Simultaneously, in England and Wales (where statistics on abortions are done every year) the number of unwanted pregnancies increased, the acceleration being noticeable in the mid-1980s. Two studies show that these unwanted pregnancies are frequent in young women using condoms; those women are likely to abandon condom use after such experience. The pill-condom, "Double Dutch", should reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.