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Suitability, and why it is a conversation rather than a counter

The reason this one decision is not something you can safely make from a website.

Lesson 2 of 5

12 min Text

What this lesson says

  • Migraine with aura, some clotting histories, uncontrolled blood pressure and smoking over a certain age all affect what is safe
  • The WHO publishes medical eligibility criteria precisely because the answer is individual
  • Other medicines can make some methods less reliable
  • How quickly fertility returns differs by method
  • Nothing on AskHer can tell you which method suits you

This is general education. It is not advice about your own situation, and it does not replace seeing a clinician.

Written lesson.
  1. 1. This is the lesson where a course has to stop being useful and hand you over. Which contraceptive method is safe for you depends on facts about your body that nobody can assess from a description.
  2. 2. The World Health Organization publishes medical eligibility criteria for contraceptive use, which set out which conditions make a particular method unsuitable. Among the things that change the answer: migraine with aura, a history of blood clots, uncontrolled high blood pressure, certain liver conditions, smoking over a certain age, and some other medicines. FOGSI publishes its own recommendations on combined hormonal contraceptives for Indian practice.
  3. 3. Those documents exist because the answer is genuinely individual. This is why a blood pressure reading is usually taken before a combined method is prescribed, and it is why buying a method over a counter without that conversation skips the step that was protecting you.
  4. 4. Other medicines matter in both directions. Some reduce how reliable a hormonal method is; some hormonal methods affect other treatments. Bring a list of everything you take, including anything traditional or over the counter.
  5. 5. If you want children in the foreseeable future, say so — how quickly fertility returns differs by method, and after the injection it can take several months to a year.
  6. 6. Nothing on AskHer can tell you which method suits you, and this course is not going to pretend otherwise. What it can do is make sure you arrive knowing what the conversation is about.

All lessons in this course

  1. 1 What actually separates the methods 11 min
  2. 2 Suitability, and why it is a conversation rather than a counter 12 min Reading now
  3. 3 The first few months, and what your periods will do 10 min
  4. 4 Emergency contraception, and the windows 9 min
  5. 5 What the public health system provides 8 min

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