• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

The History Of Birth Control Goes Back Further Than You Might Think

November 26, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Birth control, contraception, family planning – whatever you call it, how long have people been coming up with ways to prevent (or strategically time) a pregnancy? The first oral contraceptive was approved in the US in 1960, but methods of contraception have been around much further back in history than that.

In the beginning

One of the earliest mentions of birth control comes from the Bible – specifically, chapter 38, verse 9 of the Book of Genesis. In this chapter, we meet Onan, whose brother’s death had left him in an awkward position: he was obliged to marry his brother’s wife.

Advertisement

Trouble was, that also meant that any children they had wouldn’t actually be considered Onan’s – they’d be deemed his brother’s – and he’d be skipped over in the line of inheritance.

“[S]o whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother,” the verse reads. In other words, Onan was using the pullout method.

Also known as the withdrawal method, or if we’re going to be fancy about it, coitus interruptus, this approach to birth control involves removing the penis from the vagina before ejaculation in order to try and prevent pregnancy. It’s a method still used globally by an estimated 53 million women aged between 15 and 49.

However, as Onan might’ve found out if he didn’t get bumped off by God for using it, withdrawal is also not one of the most effective methods of birth control. 

Advertisement

According to the World Health Organization, if done correctly every single time, then around one in 25 will get pregnant per year – but doing it perfectly every single time is easier said than done. As a result, it’s generally considered to be more like one in five people who use the withdrawal method will get pregnant each year.

Sperm killers

Nowadays, spermicides – substances that kill sperm, thereby acting as a form of birth control – can be found in all sorts of forms, including creams, gels, suppositories, and in condoms. However, their use might stretch back far beyond the modern age all the way to ancient Egypt.

The Ebers Papyrus, which dates back to around 1550 BCE, is believed to hold another of the oldest mentions of contraception, featuring a recipe for a pessary that we now know has ingredients with spermicidal properties.

In this text, it’s recommended that a wad of fabric be soaked in a mixture of honey and ground-up acacia, carob fruit, and dates, and then be placed into the vagina.

Advertisement

It turns out that whoever came up with this formula was on to something; research would later reveal that acacia spikes contain a gum that when fermented forms lactic acid, which is found in some modern spermicidal products. Similarly, a particular species of acacia, Acacia auriculiformis, has been found to contain compounds capable of immobilizing sperm.

Ancient Egyptians are also said to have used crocodile dung as a contraceptive agent – although we imagine a lack of pregnancy following its use might have had more to do with, y’know, poop being offputtingly stinky, rather than any spermicidal properties. 

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Lacking Company, A Dolphin In The Baltic Is Talking To Himself

Source Link: The History Of Birth Control Goes Back Further Than You Might Think

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • The Bizarre 1997 Experiment That Made A Frog Levitate
  • There’s A Very Good Reason Why October 1582 On Your Phone Is Missing 10 Days
  • Skynet-1A: Military Spacecraft Launched 56 Years Ago Has Been Moved By Persons Unknown
  • There’s A Simple Solution To Helping Avoid Erectile Dysfunction (But You’re Not Going To Like It)
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS May Be 10 Billion Years Old, This Rare Spider Is Half-Female, Half-Male Split Down The Middle, And Much More This Week
  • Why Do Trains Not Have Seatbelts? It’s Probably Not What You Think
  • World’s Driest Hot Desert Just Burst Into A Rare And Fleeting Desert Bloom
  • Theoretical Dark Matter Infernos Could Melt The Earth’s Core, Turning It Liquid
  • North America’s Largest Mammal Once Numbered 60 Million – Then Humans Nearly Drove It To Extinction
  • North America’s Largest Ever Land Animal Was A 21-Meter-Long Titan
  • A Two-Headed Fossil, 50/50 Spider, And World-First Butt Drag
  • Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Losing Buckets Of Water Every Second – And It’s Got Cyanide
  • “A Historic Shift”: Renewables Generated More Power Than Coal Globally For First Time
  • The World’s Oldest Known Snake In Captivity Became A Mom At 62 – No Dad Required
  • Biggest Ocean Current On Earth Is Set To Shift, Spelling Huge Changes For Ecosystems
  • Why Are The Continents All Bunched Up On One Side Of The Planet?
  • Why Can’t We Reach Absolute Zero?
  • “We Were Onto Something”: Highest Resolution Radio Arc Shows The Lowest Mass Dark Object Yet
  • How Headsets Made For Cyclists Are Giving Hearing And Hope To Kids With Glue Ear
  • It Was Thought Only One Mammal On Earth Had Iridescent Fur – Turns Out There’s More
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version