Barrier methods used in the vagina have a long history of their own, by the way.

Other materials are known from antiquity: oiled paper, linen, plants, and more.

Sometimes they were intended to prevent sexually transmitted diseases or parasites, like bilharzia in Egypt.

We know now that these condoms can prevent pregnancy but arent reliable protection against STDs.

The word condom dates from around this time, first appearing in an 1875 dictionary of London slang.

But theyve also been politicized, with religious groups promotingmisinformationabout how condoms work.

(Spoiler: they work pretty well, actually.)

Margaret Sanger, of Planned Parenthood fame, helped secure funding for the research that developed Enovid.

In 1960, it was approved as the first oral contraceptive.

The amount of estrogen in the pill was also three to five times higher than modern pills.

Aftercongressional hearings in 1970, the doses were lowered, and rates of side effects and complications dropped.

Besides pills, there are other methods that use the same kind of pharmaceutical hormones.

IUDs

Intrauterine devices, or IUDs, are also a twentieth-century invention.

Some of the following versions were made with wire.

The popularity of the IUD in the United States was suddenly squelched in the early 1970s.

That means its perfect-use and typical-use efficacy rates are nearly identical.

Surgical sterilization

If you want something more permanent than an IUD, theres always surgery.

(This is known as tubal ligation.)

The ligation could be done at the same time as a c-section.

If you had it done as a standalone procedure, it would require a five- to seven-day recovery period.

Laparoscopic tubal sterilization, introduced in 1967, made the incisions smaller and the procedure quicker to recover from.

Vasectomy, meanwhile, has a shorter and simpler history.

It became popular during and after World War II.

Vasectomies areless popular, but still a common method.

Anestimated 70,000 Americans were sterilized in the years that followedthe decision.

Early attempts to use this as a form of contraception included the OK method and the rhythm method.

While the idea was sound, menstrual cycles dont always operate like clockwork.

It can also be affected by other aspects of a persons health.

And ultimately, the designation of certain days as fertile or not is a judgment call.

The rhythm method wasnt particularly effective.

To make the method more reliable, other measurements came into play.

Unfortunately for the people who used it, douching is not an effective emergency contraceptive.

There was already research on administering estrogen after sex to prevent pregnancy, mainly in animals.

It wasnt until 2013 that emergency contraception became legally available over the counter for everyone.

Ulipristal acetate (Ella) was introduced in 2010.

Itworks by blocking progesterone receptors in the ovaries and endometrium, and may be more effective than levonorgestrel EC.

In 1873,the Comstock Acteffectively outlawed the shipping or advertising of any sort of contraception by mail.

State laws also restricted access to birth control for many people in the early twentieth century.

As a result, states could not outlaw contraception for married couples.

It wasnt until 1972 thatEisenstadt v. Bairdextended that right to people who are not married.

They show up to argue againstover-the-counter birth control pillsand over-the-counter emergency contraception, to name a few.

Since 2012, that category has alsoincluded 17 methods of birth control, including IUDs and emergency contraception.