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Across Australia, nine out of every 100 women using the pill will fall pregnant accidentally – so why aren’t more people using long-term contraceptives?

Studies show the pill is only effective 91 per cent of the time.

But the number of unplanned pregnancies could decrease if more women were using the long-term options like IUDs and implants. One of the main reasons the long-acting contraceptives are more effective is because they eliminate human error. So should doctors be discussing the alternatives more with women?

While medical research has come a long way since 1960 when ‘The Pill’ was approved for use, contraceptive research hasn’t. Most of the contraceptives developed since the pill use the same method, which is to stop a woman from ovulating. 

Laureate Professor John Aitken from the University of Newcastle’s Priority Research Centre in Reproductive Science is developing a new contraceptive that stops pregnancy and the transmission of STIs at the same time.

The major difference with his contraceptive is that it only becomes bio-chemically active during intercourse.


MORE ON Professor Aitken’s world-leading reproductive research: A Fertile Mind