ibis

For birth control that states it is effective 99% of the time, is this 99% of the time woman can actually get pregnant or 99% of her entire cycle?

Say you were to have sex 3 times a week, for en entire year. That's about 156 times a year. So if a birth control method is 99% effective, wouldn't that mean (by average) you'd get pregnant within a year?

Also, when my girlfriend and I've had sex, I've knoticed alot of precum in the condom. What's the chance of this leaking from the top of the condom (I'll usually check the condom afterwards for tears) and actually making it into the vagina.

Sorry for sounding like a paranoid 13 year old

Thanks!

stevie667

A-Yes, statistically you should get pregnant, but practically, nah, it won't happen unless your very unlikely.

B-unlikely, but be careful all the same.

Munku

Your math is flawed. It doesn't mean 1 of every 100 times is a guaranteed pregnancy, it is usually a 99.7% effectiveness. Which means you have a .3% chance of it happening. This is each individual time, and you can't link each act to another.

It's like trying to roll a 1 on a die. You can roll it six times and not get a 1.

Averett

Munku has it right.

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Mango

I ad sex wih my GF approx 1500 times while she was on the pill and she never got pregnant.

ibis

Of course there's a chance of NEVER rolling a 1. But statistically, after rolling a die six times you have a very high chance of rolling a 1.

If I'm still wrong - please correct me. I just don't understand how you're saying my math is flawed.

For more info go here:
http://www-math.bgsu.edu/~albert/m11...y/relfreq.html

Dilbert1234567

i do belive the pill is over 99% effective, there are many factors to consider, it sounds like you are using a condom and the pill so i think you are very safe.

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brianna

when you roll a die for each roll you have a 1 in 6 (~17%) chance of rolling any certain number (in this example a 1) this chance does not compound, each roll is independent. it may *Seem* like you're more likely to roll a 1 if you haven't rolled one the last 5 times but statistically you are ALWAYS going to roll a 1 17% of the time. birth control works in the same way, the number of time you have sex has no baring on the likelihood of pregnancy. you're not using up your freebie and you're no more likely to get pregnant on time 1007 than on time 4 (unless of course you somehow screw up the birth control on time 1007, then all bets are off.).

Acetylene

The statistic is interpreted by the manufacturer as "one pregnancy per year per 100 women" which I interpreted as "one pregnancy per 100 years per woman." So if you live to a very ripe old age and keep at it the whole time, then you'll end up with a baby at some point. Otherwise, no.

However, if you're using a condom as your main form of birth control, I would not trust these statistics and start using a hormonal birth control right away. The 99% statistic is putting way too much faith in the power of condoms to stay intact, stay positioned, and stay effective. Plus condoms are nasty.

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The.Lunatic

IUD...

It's like putting a blender in you're uterus!!!

j/k nothing like that and 100% effective unless some unforeseen incident were too happy like it getting dislodged or something.

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phyzix525

well I have never thought about it much, but I figured that they cannot say that it is 100% efective because the one time that someone does get pregnant we are talking lawsuit. so you say 99% so when those do happen you can say "well its only 99% effective."

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It's hard to remember we're alive for the last time
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TheBrit

That is true. However, the chances of rolling a 1 in 6 rolls are higher than rolling a 1 in 1 roll. Therefore the chance of getting pregnant after having sex 200 times is higher than the chance of getting pregnant of having pregnant after 1 time.
You are confusing the likelihood of rolling 1 on a specific roll with rolling a 1 on any roll out of the 6.

xepherys

Okay, the issue is that statistics isn't really the same as math (even though it falls under "math and logic").

The rolling of a die is a very practical, logical thing. If the die is perfectly molded then, on average, you'll get each number once out of every six rolls. Of course, even a perfectly even die won't give you these results. This is called chance.

Now, the human body is nothing at all like rolling a die. Biology is not predictable under basic logic and chance. This would be much like warping the die out of a perfect shape. But that shape cahnges EVERY time the die is cast. What then are your odds of rolling a 1? 1 in 6? maybe on that last roll is was 1 in 3, the next roll it's 1 in 10000 due to the altered form of the die.

Now with something like pregnancy, take both of those together... chance and unpredicatbale biology. The chance part is the chance of the condom failing outright. That's the ~99.7%... well, the inverse. There's approximately a 3 in 1000 chance that the condom will fail. But that's also going to be a greater than actual chance to cover the arses of the condom manufacturers. If it so happens to fail, there's still a random and fairly slim chance that during any given period of intercourse, the female will become pregnant. This depends on where she is in her cycle, various aspects of the males anatomy at that particular time and other aspects of hers as well. Hence many couple when they TRY to conceive will go at it to or three times a day for WEEKS with no luck.

The end result is, be careful, but don't be paranoid. If you truly are not in a situation where a pregnancy is an option, period, then you probably shouldn't be having sex at all. I know that sounds sort of lame, but it's true.

My son is 8 and I'm 27. His mom is 25. We're not together now (though we get along) and NEITHER of us were in a good position to have a child. I'm not saying it because it's easy to just abstain. I'm not saying it out of principal. I'm saying it out of experience!


-Jesse

xepherys

Actually, that's only partly true. It sounds like it should be true, but mathematically it is not. a 1-in-6 chance is a 1-in-6 chance whether you rolls once, six times or fifty times. Besides, as my previous post stated, there are more things than a single, simple chance at work regarding this issue.

TheBrit

Yes, it's a 1/6 chance of the event happening at a certain time. If you roll 50 times, the chance of a particular roll out of that 50 rolling a 1 is 1/6. The chance of any roll out of that 50 is much greater.

xepherys

Actually, the chance of rolling any certain number on a six-sided die within fifty rolls is also exactly 1 in 6... *shrug*