Family planning - Oxford

Family planning involves various techniques and methods to promote a positive view of sexuality and to help people make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health. Family planning services include various reproductive health information, clinical services, education trainings and researches. The Oxford-Family Planning Association is one of these organizations that help people to plan when to have children, what kind of birth control methods to use, how to prevent and manage sexually transmitted infections and how to manage their infertility. Their services are primarily educational, and focused on medical and social aspects of life.

Research

The Oxford-Family Planning Association is well-known for their global contraceptive study conducted in a period between 1968 and 1974. This large study was conducted on 17.000 women recruited from seventeen clinics in England and Scotland. The motive of the study was to determine benefits and risks of the regular use of oral contraceptives and to establish official guidelines for their use. The Medical Research Council, an organization encourages and supports research aimed to preserve and improve human health, supported the study until 1989, when it was finally terminated.

Subjects of the study were divided into three categories. The first group involved women using oral contraceptive pills. This was the largest group embracing 56.6% of subjects. The second group was composed of women using a diaphragm as a contraceptive method. This group included 24.8% of subjects. The third group was made of women having an intrauterine device (IUD), and it had 18.6% of subjects.

The results of the study were very informative and provided an outlook on various issues such as the effects of different contraceptive methods, their popularity across various age groups, factors affecting the fertility, and relationship between oral contraceptive pills and chronic inflammatory bowel disease.

Modern pregnancy planning centers in Oxford

Today, there are many family planning clinics and centers in Oxford. Most of them offer contraception, emergency contraception, pregnancy and cervical smear tests, as well as professional advices for pregnant women and couples struggling with unwanted pregnancies. Services of various family planning centers in Oxford are anonymous and their doors are open every day without any need to make the appointment for a first visit. Advice is also easily obtained over the telephone, and all consultations are strictly confidential.

Citizens of Oxford can also get health advices for getting pregnant, advices on sexual problems and psychosexual counseling. These consultations are also confidential and people do not have to be referred by a general practitioner.