How to Reduce Unwanted Pregnancy Risks

Even if you ultimately do want to have children, if you're not at a point in your life that you're ready for a pregnancy, you'll want one or more forms of reliable birth control to minimize your chances of an unwanted pregnancy. The only way to eliminate the risk is to abstain from sex, but if that's not a realistic or desirable option for you, you can take the following steps to make sure your pregnancy risk is as low as possible.

Things You'll Need

• Birth control pills or another physician-prescribed birth control device
• Condoms

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Instructions

• 1

  Schedule an appointment with your doctor to discuss prescription birth control methods. You will have the highest protection against pregnancy if you choose one of the many hormonal forms of birth control---such as birth control pills, patches, the Mirena intrauterine device (IUD) and others---or a copper IUD. Use of any of these options will be more than 99 percent effective in preventing unwanted pregnancy.

• 2

  Use your chosen form of birth control consistently and follow the usage instructions exactly as recommended by your physician. For example, if you are using birth control pills, make sure to take them at the same time every day and take care to not skip a day. If you are using a diaphragm, use it every time you have sex and leave it in place for the recommended amount of time afterward. All forms of birth control will have their highest possible effectiveness when used as indicated.

• 3

  Use female or male condoms each time you have sex as a backup form of birth control, particularly if you have missed one or more birth control pills during the month. You can also use spermicidal gels or foams before penetration to further reduce the odds of sperm meeting an egg and resulting in a pregnancy.

• 4

  Learn how your menstrual cycle functions and keep track of your menstrual cycle patterns so that you will always know when to expect your period. This allows you to detect any unwanted pregnancy as early as possible so that you can decide what to do. In addition, by having an idea of when you ovulate---assuming you're not using a form of birth control that blocks ovulation---you can choose to abstain from sex during the days of your menstrual cycle in which sex would have the highest odds of resulting in a pregnancy.

• 5

  Use emergency contraception in the event that you discover you have had birth control failure, such as a broken condom, or if you have had sex without protection. Emergency contraception works by blocking ovulation or changing the uterine lining so that a pregnancy is not likely to implant. Different brands of emergency contraception pills can work up to five days after unprotected sex. Check with your doctor or the pharmacist, if purchasing over-the-counter emergency contraception, to make sure the brand you have chosen fits the time frame of concern in your situation.