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Condom Failure Rates - WTF @ manufacturer numbers!
thisisatemp011
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Registered User new member
So I went ahead and bought my first box of condoms today pending possible playfulness later tonight, and I'm a sucker for literature, so I looked at this little brochure Durex so thoughtfully included within the box describing failure rates for various types of birth control. Something caught my eye.
"Male Latex Condom - Typical Use Rate of Pregnancy 14%, Lowest Expected Rate 3%"
What the fuck? Typical use is pretty self-defined here compared to expected rate (condoms break, not taking the pill at the same time every day) but how the hell did they come up with a 3% number assuming you're wearing the thing correctly and it dosen't break / leak / ect. ? Assuming none of these things happen (and I know that's not necessarily a given!), you should be covered 100%, right?
"Male Latex Condom - Typical Use Rate of Pregnancy 14%, Lowest Expected Rate 3%"
What the fuck? Typical use is pretty self-defined here compared to expected rate (condoms break, not taking the pill at the same time every day) but how the hell did they come up with a 3% number assuming you're wearing the thing correctly and it dosen't break / leak / ect. ? Assuming none of these things happen (and I know that's not necessarily a given!), you should be covered 100%, right?
thisisatemp011 on
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no contraceptive is 100% effective
That's pretty much what the 3% covers. It's rare, but condoms can and do break even if you use them correctly.
And those percentages are over a year of use, not each time, FYI.
Really? So you were perfectly fine with the typical use rate of pregnancy at 14%?
The pill and condoms have a pretty equal rate of failure actually, so unless you're using both, one isn't really better than the other in terms of preventing pregnancy.
Just get condoms with spermicidal lube, or get some spermicide and use it. Make sure you're using it properly and you'll be fine. I've been doing that for 7 years and no babies :-P. Two methods of birth control lowers your risk to what I would consider a manageable level...
Now, this is stats, which is why you're probably freaking out. Statistics does not mean "if I have sex with my special lady 100 times, we will have 3 pregnancies." It means that in each case, there is a 3% chance that she will be pregnant.
"Perfect Use" is the lower number, which means you put it on before any foreplay, it doesn't slip off, you hold the "roll" at the end of your penis when you're finished, and you keep it on until you're away from your special lady. In other words, "use as directed." Now, a lot of people don't do that -- they slip the condom off at the end and ejaculate on their special lady's stomach, or they rub their penis on her vulva before putting a condom on, or even slip in during foreplay because "I'm not going to come so it's OK."
All of that increases the risk. And yes, they do sometimes break or slip off and you may not notice.
That can't possibly be right. If 100 women had sex once with no condom, I doubt more than a few would get pregnant. I think it probably applies to a whole year.
Typical Use means "You're a doofus and failed sex ed." But even people who are obsessive over birth control won't achieve the Lowest Expected numbers. Both numbers are the chance of pregnancy over a year of use. I'm not sure what they mean by "one year of use", as far as frequency of sexual activity. Are people doing it every day or every week? I'm fairly certain that the percentage was obtained as part of a meta-study, so you won't have the same amount of sexual activity among the subjects in each individual study.
The latest FDA numbers are found here (2003):
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1997/babytabl.html
edit: what hahnsoo said
Untrue. Condoms vs Pill with perfect use are 97% vs 99.8%, which is a huge huge difference, when talking about the numbers of people having sex. If you add that being unprotected by pill is detectable, you can effectively remove yourself from that portion of the statistic. Also, considering that perfect use for a condom requires technique, where pill use pretty much requires only a time of day, it is bar none, the most effective (non-intrusive) form of preventing pregnancy.
Perfect use for the pill is not average use which is much lower. Most women do not take the pill at the same time everyday thereby lowering the effective rate to 92%.
In other words, unless your girlfriends is one of the girls who sets an alarm and takes her pill at the same time everyday you're not getting that 99% effective rate at all.
Yes. She is in fact one of those girls.
Still though, thats like saying condoms don't work because men carry them in their wallets for too long. You either know what you're doing or you don't. If you don't know how to properly work a condom, the failure rate is brutal.
I know it's been stated already, but it seems important to point out that this is completely wrong.
Where contraceptives 3% failure rate means that out of 100 average sexually active women using the contraceptive in question (condom, pill, whatever), three will become pregnant. The stats quoted are usually average use, not 'perfect use'.
I was too focused on the statistical part, which is still confusing to many people. The stats are just descriptive of what happened among a population, they are not indicative of what will happen for each sexually active couple.
Exactly. The 14% includes people who don't always use birth control.
If the condom worked how it's supposed to every time, no one would ever get pregnant using one, since no semen would come in contact with any lady parts.
Secret Satan
Edit (all of those things combined) just one would be no guarantee.
Personally I'm always skeptical of the people (well, my cousins) who claim they only had sex once and got a kid out of the deal. I always figure they have to confess to having sex at least one time, so they just leave it at that ;D
Think of it this way. When you're playing Final Fantasy Tactics and Ramza's bravery is 97 and he's got Blade Grasp, whenever he gets physically attacked there's a 3% chance of getting hit. So every 100 attacks, he should get hit a few times, but he never does!.
Let's say that 3% of women who use condoms as their only means of contraception for a year get pregnant. What does this mean? If you take 100 women who are only using condoms for a year, then you'd expect 3 to get pregnant.
Now, this doesn't actually tell you much about how good condoms are. You don't know the compliance rate (so how many of those 3 women got pregnant because they were too wankered to make sure their partner put on a condom or whatever), what the age and makeup of the group was, or even how many would have got pregnant without using any contraception.
Of course it could be that that 3% represents 3% of the women who would have got pregnant if they hadn't been using any contraception. So that would undoubtedly be rather less than 3 per hundred (as there is no way 100 out of 100 women having sex for a year will get pregnant).
Someone should hunt down the paper the condom makers are referring to.
(I'm not a statistician, so this could all be wrong. :winky:)
If you're super paranoid you could also pull out if you're disciplined enough.