Oral Contraceptives (OCs) (Nursing)

00:00 Hi, welcome to our video series on Women's Health. In this one, we're going to focus on oral contraceptives. Now, the goal of contraception is the intentional use of hormones to prevent pregnancy. So that's our goal. We're going to use hormones so that you don't get pregnant. Now, oral contraceptives, we're going to use the term OC then just make it a little shorter. They're either combination or minipills. Now, combination oral contraceptives have progestin and estrogen.

00:32 Minipills have progestin only. So before we even get rolling to this, make sure you have in mind we're going to talk about combination OCs, which are progestin and estrogen or minipills as we call them with progestin only. Okay. Now, so how do you pick which birth control, how do you know which one to use for oral contraceptives? Well, you want it to be safe, you want it to be effective obviously or you wouldn't be taking birth control pills, and you have to be able to stick to the regimen. Hey, consistency equals effectiveness when we're talking about oral birth control. So we've provided this chart for you just to kind of get a feel for the effectiveness of the different types of birth control. Now start at the top. The type of birth control you have hormonal implant and progestin IUD. Those have a really low failure rate. Now, failure rate is translated as percentage of unplanned pregnancies in the first year of use. Look at that, 0.01 or 0.1 to 0.4%. Those are pretty low failure rates. The reason for that is, look I don't have to remember to do anything. Right? I don't have to take a pill at the same time, I don't have to take it everyday. So the hormonal implant is right here in my arm usually, I don't have to remember anything, that's why it's so effective. Now, for a progestin IUD, that's implanted inside my body in the uterus. Again, I don't have to remember anything. Progestin shot jumps up to about a 4% failure rate, but look at the oral contraceptives. We've got about a 7% failure rate. Lots of reasons for that and that's because usually it's the adherence to the plan. Do you remember to take it at the same time everyday? Do you take it everyday? What if you miss one? So it's a little more complex and there's a lot more room for not sticking to the plan. If I've got an implant or an IUD, I don't have to remember anything. But taking a pill involves your patient. So it's important for lots of reasons that you explain this to your patient. First of all, they are taking contraceptive because they don't want to get pregnant right now. So they need to understand if they're going to go with oral contraceptives, they play a big role in the effectiveness of this choice. Also, you always want your patients to see the options that are available to them so they can make an educated decision.