The pill and women’s sexuality

The author of this piece has pointed out a glaringly overlooked area in women's health. In primary care we are the main providers of contraceptive care for women, yet one area that we do not commonly consider is sexual wellbeing when prescribing or reviewing contraceptives. As the author points out it is an issue that has been highly thought about when researching male contraceptives, and yet there is a significant lack of research in this area for women. There is a still a taboo element to women's sexual wellbeing, both in research and clinical care. While further research is being done in this area, perhaps we should be directly asking our patients about this in our contraceptive consultations as part of the routine discussion about side effects and risks. Therefore opening up the discussion about sexual wellbeing with our patients and recognising the implications of this on the use and acceptability of contraceptives.