Injectable contraceptive : No tension for missing pills

Often there is a complain from young women especially who are working that they slept being too much tired and forgot to take the pills and the whole cycle they remain in additional stress, apart from the stress of their normal routine work. To overcome this inconvenience of daily compliance of oral pills a depot injection consisting of progestogens have been developed.

Types of injectable contraceptives

Generally there are two types of injectable contracetives used. Other types like once a month injections are derived from this two types. These are

DMPA or depot medroxy progesterone acetate

Depot medroxy progesterone acetate is given in microcrystalline aqueous suspension and is injected deep intramuscular. A monthly injection of 25 to 50mg DMPA combined with 5mg estradiol is sufficient to confer contraception. Some may even use higher dose like 150 mg DMPA or 300 mg which can provide a contraception for a period of 3 months and 6 months respectively. Pregnancy rate may be seen 1 per 100 with DMPA.

Norethisterone ethantate or NETO

Norethisterone ethantate or NETO is used in castor oil solution and is given deep intramuscular. A 200 mg of NETO is recommended every 2 months as a contraceptive measure. The advantage of NETO over DMPA is that the the contraceptive effect abolish more quickly than DMPA after the effect of the drug. Pregnancy rate is seen 0.6 per 100 women years with NETO.

Once a month injections for contraception

This is an injectable contraception having a combination of estrogen and progesterone and is available in some countries in the name of-

Mesigyna

This contains NET 50 mg and oestradiol valerate 5 mg in half ml of injection and is given deep intramuscular. The failure rate is much lower to 0.4 per 100 women year.

Cyclofem

Half ml of cyclofem consist of 25 mg DMPA and 5 mg oestradiol cypionate. The failure rate is even lower than mesigyna and other added advantage is that there is less menstrual irregularities than DMPA or NETO when used alone.

Other once a month injectables are Marvelon and Femovon both containing both progesterone with small quantity of estrogen.

When to administer injectable contraceptives

Injectable contraceptives are mainly preffered for lactating mother or in multipara even non lactating.
The ideal time of injection is within one month of delivery of the child if the mother is not lactating or one month after abortion.

In lactating women the injection may be delayed upto 10 weeks and may be given in the third month because there is lactating amenorrhoea and ovulation in such women is delayed for 10 weeks.

Where there is a good thing there are some bad things too as a complementary and the injectable contraceptives are not any exception, so there are several advantages and some disadvantages too. To know about them please refer to advantages and disadvantages of injectable contraceptives.
Now a days there are even some implants which is implanted beneath the skin in subdermal region which provides a long term contraception, may be upto 5 years. To know about them please see Dermal implants for Long term contraception.