Let’s talk sex

Science and Technology - Briefs

FOOD SCIENCES Buttery assault

Impatient to sterilise

Young women, most in their 20s, lie on the floor like corpses at a community health centre (CHC) in Bikaner’s Kolayat block in Rajasthan. Flies hover over the bandages on the fresh wounds they received after undergoing operation for sterilisation. As they lie unconscious on a thin mat spread on the floor, relatives use cardboard pieces to fan themselves, and at times the patients. With temperature lingering close to 40°C, one cooler in the room is insufficient. Small children play with their slippers and feeding bottles and other belongings close to their mothers.

Contraceptive chaos

EMERGENCY contraception has become synonymous with the morning-after pill. But use of intrauterine devices (IUDs), popularly known as Copper-T in India, can be more effective. A review of studies of IUDs for emergency contraception has found that IUDs inserted within five days of unprotected intercourse prevented pregnancy 999 times out of 1,000—a failure rate below 0.1 per cent.

Science and Technology - Briefs

ZOOLOGY Dog was made in China

‘Dual contraception is a must to avert HIV infection’

How does use of hormonal contraceptives affect a woman’s health? Interviewee:  Jared Baeten

Out of control

ON OCTOBER 31 when Nargis, a newborn in Uttar Pradesh, was declared the world’s seven billionth person, the event made the global population look as if it is rising as fast as ever. Rather, the event came as the world undergoes a demographic shift: population is stabilising in countries that are home to almost half of the humanity.

Birth control pangs

THE Union health ministry is again considering introducing injectable contraceptives in the family planning programme. The ministry has asked its Drug Technical Advisory Body (DTAB) to allow use of Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate (DMPA) in the programme. An earlier attempt to introduce it was withdrawn in 1995 after Supreme Court’s intervention.

Science and Technology - Briefs

ENVIRONMENT Super socks to check pollution runoff

Not the morning after remedy

Overuse of emergency contraceptives can kill A 21-year-old came to the Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi, bleeding profusely. She had had an emergency contraceptive pill within three days of unprotected intercourse. She thought the bleeding was a side effect of the pill. But she was informed she was pregnant and the foetus had implanted in her fallopian tube. The doctor prepared for an abortion.