Lybrel-Birth-Control.com

What types of birth control methods did women use before the Pill?

And was the condom popular?

Public Comments

1. Diaphram was popular, rhythm method, foam, cervical caps (rare), abstinence and abortion.
2. The "Honey, pls, don't come in me" method but I think it never work...we r now more than 3 billion ppl.
3. Withdrawal, diaphragms, sponges, condoms. I think condoms were the most common.
4. Saying no and having a male relative who knew weaponry.
5. The ancient Egyptians used dried crocodile dung as a type of diaphragm. Something about the mix of the dried dung and the body works as a type of spermicide. Historians have looked at it and it actually works....oddly enough. Not something I would recommend trying, of course. Just a little interesting tid-bit of info.
6. Saying no and using a rolling pin if required
7. Feresha....can I say ewwwww! I was just going to mention a lot of herbs used were just a likely to kill the woman as any infants.
8. The Romans had a high opinion of squirting cucumber as an oral contraceptive - from what we know of its use it seems to have worked fairly well for them. They also had a long list of early-pregnancy abortificients (including raspberry leaves). We have fairly clear ideas of Roman pregnancy levels in the time of Julius Caesar and later - levels of fertility are far below what one might have expected. This was particularly the case in Rome itself, where divorce was easy and marriage offered significant disadvantages to a woman of knightly rank or above. Unsurprisingly large numbers of Patrician women became divorcees and took lovers. There are multiple Roman laws from the Lex Canuleia on trying to force women to have more legitimate children. But you can't tell women what to do - unless they are willing to listen to you.
9. the said no
10. In the Victorian age, we had "pessaries" which were basically diapragms. Condoms were to avoid STDs more than babies, and married couples didn't often use them. Women also used spermicides after the fact, such as vinegar or lemon juice (with so-so results)Withdrawl was somewhat popular, as was the calendar method of guessing at an ovulation date and avoiding it. Mainly, however, women "used" poor nutrition and breastfeeding. Both of these things supress ovulation. In fact, a woman who breastfeeds the baby at least once at night often will have children naturally spaced 2-3 years apart. This is why wet-nursing was so hard for women- they often were pregnant again within months of delivery, which is not healthy for them.
11. My grandma told me about girls she knew would shake up a coke bottle and let it over flow into her vagina after sex, kinda like a really cheap, douche with out the embarrassment of actually buying a douche at the drug store, although it wasn't very effective.
12. Yes condoms were very popular, accd to my mom. Then there was coitus interruptus, and the much overdone hysterectomy of the fifties and sixties.
13. Diaphram, IUD, condoms, and the rhythm method which often lead to the mommy dance.
14. Condoms have been around since the ancient Egyptians, so that was probably the first - along with spermicides (usually crocodile dung back then.)
15. The diaphragm was the most effective form of contraception available to women before the pill. However, I understand it was difficult up until the 1960s for unmarried women to get them, as most doctors wouldn't perscribe then to single women. It would generally have been more usual for the man to use a condom if he was having sex with a single woman.