Contraception for women: an evidence based overview.

Contraception allows parents to choose the number and spacing of children. Each year, family planning programmes prevent an estimated 187 million unintended pregnancies, including 60 million unplanned births and 105 million abortions, and avert an estimated 2.7 million infant deaths and 215 000 pregnancy related deaths.1 The prevalence of contraceptive use differs across the world owing to differences in desired number of children, awareness, funding, and service delivery, with an overall prevalence of use worldwide of 63%. Female sterilisation and intrauterine devices account for nearly 40% in less developed regions, and pills, intrauterine devices, and condoms for the same proportion in more developed regions.2 This article reviews evidence based information on contraceptive methods currently available for women.