I am not going to list all the contraceptive methods that women have suffered in history. And I say suffered, because throughout history man has decided even the most intimate of a woman. The easiest and most frequent was the introduction of foreign bodies in the uterus to plug the seminal fluid. In the proceedings of the National Medical Association 123 types of intrauterine devices can be found. In a newspaper it was published...
These junk fill the vagina like it's a 100-pound store.
Nowadays, and thanks to research, there are more effective and less radical methods:pill, IUD, patches... But if we go back to ancient Egypt, we will find the first female contraceptive method:a mixture made with Nile crocodile droppings and honey. Women applied a thin layer of this plaster to the cervix, which acted as a barrier (due to the viscosity of the honey) and, in addition, it has been proven that crocodile feces are a powerful spermicide due to their high acidity.
Honey, when you come back from working on the pyramids, go to the river because today my head doesn't hurt.
The Egyptians were also the first to use tampons, in this case made with flax fluff and acacia resin (our gum arabic) to make this absorbent compact.
The morning after pill is a female emergency contraceptive used to prevent unwanted pregnancies. It must be taken within a maximum period of 72 hours after risky intercourse and is more than 90% effective in the first 24 hours after sexual intercourse. Over time, this effectiveness begins to decline. And although it has been in the 21st century when it has been commercialized, we would be wrong to think that we are the pioneers.
The silphium It was a wild plant that only grew in the vicinity of the Greek city of Cyrene, in the Mediterranean area of present-day Libya. According to Pliny the Elder, the plant was wild and impossible to cultivate, with strong and abundant roots and a stem similar to that of the asafetida and of similar thickness. The Latin name of the plant was laserpicium , the laser was extracted from it, which was the aromatic resin that the plant exuded and that had medicinal and culinary properties. But among all the uses that silphium had, the one that concerns us today was that of a contraceptive method, similar to our "morning after pill", or as an abortifacient due to its estrogenic properties. And to add insult to injury, modern studies with plants closely related to asafoetida show a success rate of nearly 100% efficacy when administered within three days of mating… to rats.
Overexploitation, the small coastal strip where it grew and the impossibility of cultivating it led to its extinction in the 1st century.
A single stalk sent to Nero is all that has been found (in Cyrenaica) in the memory of our generation (...) since then no other laser has been imported than that of Persia, Media and Armenia, where it grows in abundance although much less to that of Cyrenaica and is also adulterated with gum, sacopenium or ground beans… (Naturalis Historia – Pliny the Elder)