Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

Meet Emo, the AI robot that can predict your smile

Speaker Johnson: deploy National Guard to Columbia

Man arrested at Yellowstone for allegedly kicking bison while drunk

Southwest passengers now get a $75 voucher for big flight disruptions

The Rick Steves guide to life

The delusions behind Biden’s plan for Middle East peace 

Middle East conflict live updates: Blinken meets Netanyahu in Jerusalem; U.S. presses Israel on Gaza aid

Is Bougainville the next battleground between China and the U.S.?

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

I learned to heal my sadness by cradling dying chickens 

Brave Little Hunter is free: Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

UnitedHealth grew very big. Now, some lawmakers want to chop it down.

The new face of flooding

How celebrity tequilas are changing the very nature of tequila

Biden is aiming increasingly personal and sarcastic jabs at Trump

Views of the campus protests are too broad — and too narrow

Attorney general moves to reclassify marijuana as lower-risk drug

Chance to move over .500 slips away as Nats lose to reigning champs

T.J. Oshie, the heart of the Caps, wants to keep playing. He’s not sure if he can.

Nationals sweep away the Marlins to get back to .500

Use these 6 points to say no to a college you and your kid can’t afford

How this new rule protects retirement savers from costly advice

Borrowers, don’t miss this important student loan forgiveness deadline

Biden’s internet-for-all program needs Musk’s help

Microsoft’s “responsible AI” chief worries about the open web

How the push to ban TikTok spurred a new Washington influence machine

I coach my son’s sports team. Why is he so disrespectful during practice?

Miss Manners: How to decline donation requests at checkout

Ask Amy: My friends took my advice, but they’re doing it wrong

A murder plot that cannot be ignored: India must come clean at last

How to confront antisemitism, deal with protests — and respect free speech

Is student loan debt an emergency? Take our quiz.

 Donald Trump Speaks During A Campaign Rally In Green Bay Wisconsin

For many women this college graduation season, the primary reason to see a doctor soon after graduation may be to get birth control.

They may want to stick with whatever they’ve been using, whether that’s the pill or the patch or the vaginal ring. Or they may want to consider a broad menu of options that vary with regard to ease of use, side effects and duration of protection.

The most popular kind of birth control on campus is condoms, with 61 percent of women reporting that they used that method the last time they had sex. The pill came in a close second, with 58 percent, followed by withdrawal at 33 percent, according to a 2016 report by the American College Health Association from a survey of 80,129 undergraduate students. (Survey respondents often reported more than one method used.)

And yet, these commonly used contraceptive methods have failure rates that may give one pause. For 100 women over the course of a year, there would be nine pregnancies with the pill, 18 with condom use and 22 with the withdrawal method.

The top two birth control options in terms of effectiveness are intrauterine devices (IUDs) and progestin implants. With these methods, the failure rate is less than one pregnancy per 100 women in a year.

These two methods have another advantage for users, which earns them the moniker long-acting reversible contraceptives, or LARCs. After a one-time procedure, women are protected from getting pregnant for at least three years or up to 10 years, depending on the product.

There are fewer or milder side effects with these long-acting methods, compared with birth control pills. Copper IUDs such as Paragard can increase menstrual pain and flow, especially in the first year of use. Hormone-releasing IUDs, such as Mirena and Skyla, can cause spotting or irregular bleeding, especially in the first six months of use.

The hormones released by IUDs stay locally in the uterus, says Kristyn Brandi, an OB/GYN at Boston University. “So you don’t get the same side effects as taking the pill, such as changes in mood and breast tenderness,” she says.

A birth control implant can cause spotting throughout the monthly cycle. And its slowly released hormone distributes through the whole body, so hormonal side effects can occur, but “less so than the pill,” Brandi says.

With implants and hormonal IUDs, often menstrual periods become much lighter and in some women disappear altogether — a side effect that many view as a benefit.

Why don’t more young women use these long-acting, super-effective methods? In that survey of college students, IUDs were reported to be used by 9 percent of females and implants by 6 percent.

One reason is lingering myths about their safety in young women. “It’s a myth that you can’t have an IUD if you haven’t had a child,” says Krishna Upadhya, a Johns Hopkins pediatrician who specializes in adolescent health.

Older versions of IUDs were thought to be too large for some young women, but that’s no longer a concern, says Joanne Brown, a nurse practitioner at the University of Kentucky’s health service. “The newer IUDs are very small.”

Another reason more young women don’t use IUDs or implants is access, particularly on campus. Whereas 98 percent of campus health services provide birth control pills, only 40 percent provide the implant or IUDs. “It can depend on the size of a college, how many providers or what level of services they have,” says Brown, who works with the American College Health Association on sexual health issues.

Implants and IUDs require a procedure, not just a consultation and a prescription.

Cost can be a barrier, as well. The Affordable Care Act required health insurers to cover birth control, but that doesn’t mean that every plan covers every birth control method. Getting an IUD can cost several hundred dollars and as high as $1,000, including a medical exam and insertion.

Even if you’re paying some of the cost, IUDs are the most cost-effective birth control method, Brandi says. The non-hormonal IUD Paragard is good for 10 years and cost-wise beats paying $20 per month for birth control pills.

A relatively new IUD called Liletta is made by a nonprofit company with the aim of making them cost-friendly. “It costs $50 for a clinic to use,” Brandi says.

Birth control implants, which last three years, are generally cheaper than IUDs, at a couple of hundred dollars, but can run as high as $800, including insertion.

Upadhya, who sees patients up to age 25, says she helps them explore all the options -- not just effectiveness and side effects, but how a particular option fits in with their lives. Comfort level can play a role, she says. “The pill is the thing that everyone has heard of. People are very comfortable with the idea of it.”

As Brandi puts it: “The most effective form of birth control is the one people practice. Some people are good pill takers.”

The bottom line is there are a lot of options: the LARCs, the pill, the patch, the ring and the shot. “Even if you’ve had a problem with other kinds of birth control, Brandi advises, “talk to you doctor; she’ll help you figure out how to find something that will work.”

Jill U. Adams

The Washington Post

Health Care

Medical Mysteries

Science

Well+Being

Health

prism://prism.query/site,/health&limit=20

The Washington Post health section provides coverage and analysis of health, healthcare, nutrition and fitness news.