Birth Control Throughout The Ages…

The act of preventing conception dates back to thousands of years ago… and with good reason. Think about it — a woman may be fertile right up to the age of forty and unless women generally don’t mind being baby-making machines (and men, fathers to football teams of kids) for the better part of their lives, the desire to control this ability to procreate has and always will be necessary.

Birth control methods throughout history have come a long way from ritualistic, mythical and sometimes plain outrageous, to practical and effective. Let’s sieve through time to see how the generations before us took on this delicate matter of controlling the ability to multiply.

Condoms
Condoms, although as popular as ever today, are by no means a modern-day method to prevent pregnancies or diseases. Records are dating back to 3000 B.C. indicating that King Minos (son of Zeus) used goats’ bladders during intercourse. In 1000 B.C. linen sheaths were used by the Egyptians to halt the spread of diseases. During the 1500s, Gabriel Fallopius (an anatomist whom the fallopian tubes were named after) created a linen condom which he found to be even more effective when soaked in a chemical solution (spermicide).

The 1800s saw the tire company Goodyear mass-producing condoms as part of their product line. By 1930s latex condoms were in widespread use. In the United States, 1.5 million condoms were being produced each day. To this day, condoms remain the most popular (and colorful!) form of contraceptive used worldwide.

Intrauterine device (IUD)
Records indicate that around 400 B.C. a hollow tube filled with mutton-fat was inserted in a woman’s womb to keep the cervix open and to prevent pregnancy. Meanwhile, in an ancient New Zealand method, small rocks were placed in a woman’s uterus to make her “as sterile as a stone” where else during the ninth century, a Persian physician came up with dipping tightly wrapped rod-shaped papers in ginger water and inserting it into women’s cervixes as a means to prevent pregnancy.

As far back as history can show us, IUDs were never a popular method — they were found to be uncomfortable and there was always the risk of infections. Then in 1909 came a German physician who created the first modern IUD made of a silk suture after which the continued improvement of intrauterine devices carried on throughout the 20th century and proceeded to become a relatively good contraceptive method today.

Female Barrier Methods
In the Ebers papyrus, a 20 meter-long scroll was found between the legs of a mummy dating back to 1550 B.C., In this scroll, it was written that a pessary soaked in donkey’s milk was a notable method of preventing pregnancy among ancient Egyptian women. Women were also known to use a resinous gum-like material to smear over the cervix as a barrier method. Further contraceptives methods stated in the scroll were pessaries made of dung and fermented leaves of the acacia tree. Where else in Ancient Rome it was documented that honey and sodium carbonate were used to help create a thick, foam-like fluid to effectively block the cervix.

The Pill
Not necessarily in the form of pills, oral contraception has also been around for centuries. According to Greek mythology, for instance, Persephone, the goddess of spring, ate only pomegranate seeds to prevent her from conceiving her captor’s (The God of Death’s) child. In the ancient Greek era, women were said to consume vitex, pine, pomegranate, and pennyroyal to prevent conception.

Around 7 B.C., a flower called silphium which was found primarily in Northern Africa was found to be capable of halting conception. The high demand for this flower at the time was said to be the reason why it has become extinct.

Peter of Spain, who was later elected Pope John XXI in 1276, wrote a controversial book covering extensive information on the prevention of pregnancy and some believe, the termination of pregnancies too.

There is very little recorded documentation of oral contraceptive methods during the 1500s, probably due to the heavy issue of witchcraft and persecution if any such publications were discovered.

In the mid-1900s, Margaret Sanger, a nurse, researched and discovered an effective hormonal pill. With the financial backing of Katharine Dexter McCormick, a longtime supporter of women’s rights, Sanger was able to continue her research and work on synthetic hormones and manage a clinical trial on the first oral contraceptive pill (OCP). In 1960, Enovid, the first of its kind in OCP, was released for public consumption by G.D. Searle and Company.

Herbs, Rituals and Heavy Superstitions
In Ancient Greece, it was believed that if a woman desired pregnancy, a product providing a sweet odor was placed in the vagina where else if the woman did not desire a child, a foul-smelling odor was pushed into the vagina.

In Ancient Rome, women wore amulets and necklaces that helped to control their fertility. There were also superstitious practices of spitting into a frog’s mouth three times after intercourse to prevent pregnancy or even wearing a leather pouch filled with a cat’s liver on the left foot to prevent conception.

Soranus, a Greek gynecologist during 200 A.D. was said to have come up with some pretty outrageous suggestions for the prevention of pregnancy. These include a woman having to hold her breath during intercourse and jumping up and down to prevent ejaculate from entering the womb.

Some early clever and wise men, including Hippocrates and Dioscorides, described mysterious potions and spermicides for temporary infertility. In some of these early writings, it was even suggested that women make violent movements with their bodies after intercourse to prevent the male ejaculations from reaching the uterus.

In the 10th century in Persia, women were told to jump backward seven or nine times after intercourse to halt any procreation that may happen. It was believed that the numbers seven and nine held magical qualities and those particular numbers would either aid in preventing pregnancy or cause the termination of early pregnancy.

Hardly a ritual or superstition, but a practice called Coitus Interruptus, (withdrawal just before ejaculation) was condemned by religious leaders. Although this method is not fool-proof, it has been widely utilized throughout history.

22 historical facts on the matters of birth control:

1. The year 1500 B.C. — Egyptian experts recommend mixing ground dates, acacia bark, and honey as a spermicide and crocodile dung as an anti-pregnancy suppository.
2. The year 1000 — Contraception gets medieval as European women are wearing bones from the right sides of black cats around their necks to avoid pregnancy.
3. The year 1554 — John Calvin deems Coitus interruptus (withdrawal) monstrous, for it “extinguishes an offspring before it is even birthed”.
4. The year 1727 — In “Conjugal Lewdness: or, Matrimonial Whoredom”, Daniel Defoe compares contraception to infanticide.
5. The year 1839 — Condoms and diaphragms took a revolutionary turn with Charles Goodyear’s invention of vulcanized rubber.
6. The year 1873 — Postal inspector Anthony Comstock crusades against birth control. The Comstock Act, which prohibits mailing contraceptives or information about them, remains in effect until 1965.
7. The year 1933 — Nazi Germany outlaws abortion and bans contraceptive ads… However, 400,000 Germans labeled “inferior” undergo forced sterilization.
8. The year 1959 — President Eisenhower is against promoting birth control. He changes his mind nine years later: “Governments must act…Failure would limit the expectations of future generations to abject poverty and suffering”.
9. The year 1960 — FDA approves the pill.
10. The year 1973 — Contraceptive use in the US peaks, with 70% of married women using some form.
11. The year 1974 — The Dalkon Shield IUD is found to be toxic. (It was later discovered to be dumped, unsterilised, on developing countries).
12. The year 1976 — Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi forces millions of poor men to be sterilized.
13. The year 1979 — China introduces its “one-child” policy, leading to compulsory birth control and abortions.
14. The year 1986 — President Reagan rejects Surgeon General C. Everett Koop’s recommendations for a massive condom PR push and the expansion of sex ed.
15. The year 1988 — To ‘repent’ for taking the pill, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar “asked God to bless them with as many children as he saw fit”. They have 19.
16. The year 1988 — China is the first country to license mifepristone as an abortion pill. In 2000, the FDA approves it as RU-486.
17. The year 1991 — Fox airs the nation’s first condom ad ten days after Magic Johnson announces he has HIV.
18. The year 2002 — The rock group Kiss unveils its line of condoms, including Love Gun Protection.
19. The year 2006 — Australia tries to revive flagging birth rates with the slogan “One for mum, one for dad, one for the country”.
20. The year 2009 — President Bush enacts regulation that lets pharmacists decline to sell birth control.
21. The year 2009 — The Austrian co-inventor of the pill, Carl Djerassi, laments low birth rates caused by childless Europeans who want “to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it”.
22. The year 2010 — 100,000 condoms handed out to Olympians in Vancouver ran out in less than two weeks; a last-minute shipment provided additional coverage.