The Challenge of Accessing Birth Control in the Military

While she was deployed in Somalia and Iraq as a colonel in the army, Elspeth Cameron Ritchie handled her period with limited privacy, often in isolated or flooded bathrooms for five tours, sometimes as the only woman in her unit. It was “difficult and sticky and kind of embarrassing,” she says.

If women in the armed forces don’t want to deal with their periods at all while in the field, the technology is available. as well as long acting reversible contraceptives ()—which include intrauterine devices (IUDs) as well as the birth-control implant, which goes in the upper arm—often reduce or eliminate periods. What’s more, LARCs are also the most reliable form of contraception. But indicate that some active-duty women struggle to receive birth control pills and LARCs. The extent of the issue, however, is unknown. The Department of Defense keeps very little data on birth control and doesn’t often share the information with researchers. Regardless, this problem is only going to spread —all military to women on January 1, 2016.