Pills, plants and pregnancy information

Hertfordshire County Council has produced a short animation film, to tie in with this week's World Contraception Day.

The video is designed to increase local women’s knowledge and understanding on the different methods of contraception available.

For some women, having a busy life means juggling work or studying pressures with things going on at home and in their social life. This can cause difficulties when trying to get into a regular routine with contraception and could lead to an unplanned pregnancy.

Long Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) such as the coil, implant or injection are methods of contraception, which you don’t need to use every day or each time you have sex.

Local research undertaken by Herts County Council found that 83 per cent of women had not heard of the term LARC, with 45 per cent not aware of this type of contraception when it was explained to them.

Although, Hertfordshire’s teenage pregnancy rate was at its third lowest level since 1998, 63 per cent of under 18 conceptions led to an abortion.

Rates of abortions are increasing among the older age groups and abortions among the over 35s account for an increasingly large proportion of women having terminations.

Councillor Teresa Heritage, cabinet member for public health, libraries and localism, said: “Access to all methods of contraception, including LARC methods and emergency hormonal contraception, continues to be available from locally commissioned sexual health services, GPs and pharmacies. We are pleased that there has been a significant decrease in teenage pregnancies, although the number of abortions remains high. We want to ensure women of all ages are able to access information about their available choices for contraception.”

See the video at www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/contraception