The London Summit on Family Planning held in July marked a commitment by Melinda Gates to improve access to affordable contraception in the world’s poorest countries by 2020. Some of these countries are on our doorstep. In Papua New Guinea only one in five women uses a modern method of contraception compared to almost three quarters of Australian women.
I have seen the challenges of providing effective contraception in Papua New Guinea first-hand. Just over four years ago I was lucky enough to visit the very beautiful and remote Highlands and was naively delighted to come across a village health centre well supplied with boxes and boxes of female condoms. The female condom is useful not just for contraception but also to prevent sexually transmissible infections. A combination of myths, misunderstandings and a simple lack of information meant they ended up being used for an altogether different purpose. The female condom is, I discovered, a very neat way to catch small fish!
This is an extreme example but misconceptions and myths about contraception not only happen in Port Moresby but also in Port Macquarie, Sydney and Dubbo. Some of the more common myths in the field of contraception relate to its effect on future fertility, the risk of cancer and its effect on body weight. I was recently asked whether contraceptive implants can migrate from the arm to some distant part of the body resulting in infertility later on. The short answer is: no. The contraceptive implant, a 4-centimetre flexible rod, is inserted just under the skin of the upper inner arm where it stays in place for up to three years and can be readily located and removed when required.
