I read an interesting article in The Economist recently about the comparison between America’s teenage pregnancy rate and that of Switzerland saying the American rate is 7 times higher.  The article compared the effectiveness of various contraceptive devices noting that the failure rate of the Pill is 9%, and 18% for condoms whereas an IUD, which is used in much higher numbers in Europe and China, has only a 0,2% failure rate.  The article pointed out that if more women used IUD’s there would be less unplanned pregnancies and that a large part of the problem is that young pregnancies are more and more common especially amongst poor families. Medical practitioners are actually trained that they are meant to recommend an IUD first, but a number of medical practitioners did not even know the guidelines.  

We obviously don’t have statistics on most of these things in South Africa, but it is interesting to note that in the State of Colorado for example, that one they started assisting with IUD’s and implants, in only two years teenage births fell by 26% and abortions by 34%.  That had direct savings on the benefits that the State would have had to pay out for unplanned pregnancies, so they worked out for every $1 dollar they spent on IUD devices, and they are relatively expensive, the State saved $6 dollars even for mothers who already had one child, giving them an IUD afterwards showed dramatic results – and those without an IUD fall pregnant again within a year at 20% of the time and within two years 47% of the time.  The bottom line, as the article ultimately said, is that coils and implants work.