History of Contraception |
How contraception is evolved? Dr. Paola Bordoni, Obstetrician and Gynecologist with Baptist Health South Florida, talks about the history of birth control and the Comstock Act in 1873 in the United States, which prohibited the discussion and education of any types of birth control products.
Transcript
Can you talk to us about the history of contraception how its evolved and where we to where we are now so birth control has been around for as long as there’s been sex so if you think about this back about 3,000 BC so this is 3000 years before Christ there were using many things such as vinegars lemons the intestines of animals to create condoms so there were many numerous things that people use there were actually even almost witchcraft people that were very well trained regarding leaves and plants and things that they would insert in certain parts of the body right around pregnancy or even medications that they would take to prevent pregnancy so that’s many many years ago so then fast forward to what would we would call more modern times in the 1800s when we start seeing true condoms being created condoms and diaphragms of course imagine you will you don’t go to a store and buy these things right you would have one condom and that was the one that you used with all your sexual encounters so and then fast-forward a little bit further and in in the United States the history of birth control is very interesting so back in about 1873 we had the Comstock Act which basically prohibited the discussion the creation of the selling the education of any types of birth control products so everything was hush-hush got black-market of birth control it was it definitely was and if people wanted to discuss birth control it had to be either behind closed doors or it had to be for other reasons okay for menstrual irregularities or something like that you.