Birth control means the ability of a women to become pregnant or to prevent pregnancy at will. It is a complete control on the process of bearing children. It is not only the prevention, but also the facilitation of pregnancy when the latter is considered desirable.
It is wrong to believe that the purpose of birth COf1trol is ruthlessly to suppress all pregnancies. Birth control does not mean only that. It also means the CtH1lrary. Children are absolutely necessary for the happy life of millions of couples. As Daniel A. Lord writes in his book Speaking of Birth Control, children are a sort of human enterprise in which the mother and father are partners and sharers".
Thus, the aims of birth control are both negative and positive. They help us in building happy homes and healthy families. It is a method of scientifically controlled parenthood.
Apart from the controversy that the concept of birth control provoked in the earlier part of this century, the term itself is considered to be scientifically inexact-at any rate it is not a happy one. For, it does not so much control births as conception. This term was coined by Margarct Sanger, the American piol1eer and champion of the practice of birth control, in 1914 in Woman Rebel. Since then it has come into vogue and has been popularly used. Latterly: however, terms like planned parenthood or f3mily planning have also come into popular usage.
Right to Procreate
Thus wrote Havelock Ellis in his authoritative work, Studies in the Psycology of sex: "...the right to marry...in no way involves the right to procreate. For while marriage per se only affects the two individuals concerned and in no way affects the State, procreation, on the other hand, primarily affects the community which is ultimately made up of procreated persons, and only secondarily affects t he two individuals who are the instruments of procreation. So just as the individual couple has the first right in the question of marriage the State has the first right in the question of procreation."
The Need for Birth Control
The need for. birth control or family planning arises at two different levels, viz, the individual family level and the level of the nation or the state. At the family level, it is necessary because the number of children in the family should be so restricted that they can be properly brought up, fed and educated and provided .with all other material comforts to which they are entitled. Thus, the family should not have more children than it can afford to sustain at a minimum decent level of living. Similarly, at the larger national plane, the nation should not have more child than it can feed, give shelter to, employ and sustain consistent with the accepted levels of living.
The population of the world is rising at a very fast rate. More than 5,000 children are born every hour, i.e., about 45 million a year. Obviously, the material resources of the world must increase faster than this rate of increase of its population if poverty, squalor and human misery have to be got rid of. Even if that happens, the problem of sheer space, the problem of accommodation would remain. Despite modern scientific and technological advances a bid for capturing other planets, the pressure of population on land cannot be ignored lightly.
In
It is this staggering increase in population in
Methods of Birth Control
The need for family planning brings into focus the variety of methods prescribed for the purpose. Most of the pu1ar method. have already been described in Chapter IX. In some detail. Here we shall discuss some of the other method which are generally believed to prevent conception from occurring, indicating in each case the efficacy of the method concerned. We shall also discuss some of the common fallacies associated with birth control.
The Cold Woman
Some ladies have the notion that they can avoid conception if they remain cold during the sexual intercourse and restrain their excitement, thereby avoiding the climax.. The doctors have found this to be a mistaken notion.
So, no woman should remain under the delusion that she cannot be impregnated if she remains cold to her husband during the sex act. Medical scientists have established it that a woman can conceive irrespective of whether she is highly sexed or not. The cold approach is a sort of mechanical approach to sex. It is well known that in the case of less educated and illiterate women sex is a mere mechanical process. It is generally these women who have more children than the educated sophisticated ones who practice all the refinements and the arts of sex. It is futile, therefore, to depend on this method for the prevention of conception.
The Suckling Method
Menstruation remains suspended for varying periods after child-birth. It is a common belief that it remains suspended while the child is being suckled but it is a wrong idea. In this belief some women continue breastfeeding for a long time with a view to .avoiding child-birth but they arc often disillusioned, because this method is very unreliable for the simple reason that the period of little protection against conception by afforded prolonged suckling varies from woman to woman.
In general however, we may say that while women are suckling their babies, they are less likely to conceive than at other times. Further it is known that when children are suckled for longer than nine months, and in any case for 10nger than their first year after birth, the womb shrinks and becomes flaccid, ovulation and menstruation cease either permanently or for some time, and sterility results; but it is at least equally certain that a considerable percentage of nursing mothers begin to menstruate again before their babies are weaned. Indeed, a fresh impregnation only too often occurs during lactation, and before the reappearance of the warning signal of renewed ovarian activity. There is always this possibility so .long as protected suckling has not led to genital atrophy, and such genital atrophy. which may be permanent. is too high a price for both partners to pay for effecting contraception.
We may sum up by stating that during normal lactation, there is little likelihood of pregnancy occurring. But it is impossible to rely on lactation alone. when it is necessary that a fresh conception should not take place. As soon as fresh menstruation has set in once more, all chances of immunity arc over.
Anti-Birth Vaccination
In inoculation dead germs of the diseases arc injected into the blood and the system elaborates "antibodies" to destroy them. These antibodies destroy live germs of the diseases also if introduced into the body.
The male germ resembles the other disease germs like those of the small-pox, cholera, typhoid, etc. But no doctor h3S yet been able to find vaccination to immunize a woman against the effect of a male germ. Many doctors, like Norman Haire, have unsuccessfully tried the experiment to prepare vaccination from the male germs and inject them into a group of married women, but not one of them was able to withstand the attack of pregnancy.
Pregnancy preventing Pill
Dr. B. F. Sieve prepared tablets of a drug manufactured quite cheaply from orange peel and now known as Phosphorylated Hesperidin. He gave the tablets to three hundred married couples from three months to three years on 8n average. He found that not. a single pregnancy case took place.
The Gold Pin
The gold pin and Grafenberg Ring can prevent pregnancy but these have numerous disadvantages:
First, these appliances are expensive and well-nigh beyond the pocket of an ordinary married person. Secondly, these are difficult to fit and require a medical- specialist to do the job satisfactorily. Thirdly, they cause irritation in the female passage.
Birth Control Jelly
''Preceptin" is a birth control jelly and one of the better known products of its kind. It gives effective protection from pregnancy. This is one of the few chemical products which can be recommended for' use alone without any other birth control appliance or any other precaution. It is introduced into the female passage by means of an applicator. The intercourse should begin within an hour thereafter, because its effect gradually wears off. If it gives rise to irritation, its use should be discontinued.
Male Continence
The best method of birth control is, of course, self-control. Male continence does not generate any harmful effect 3S proved by the Oneida community in upper New York State, whose leader, a deeply religious man called Noyes, originated this method. In effect, this method is nothing but prolonged or reserved coitus, with or without u1timate orgasm.
