If you’re fed up of modern-day contraceptives, spare a thought for the ancient Romans.
While nowadays you can get your hands on a range of birth control options – with condoms and oral contraceptives like the pill being the most popular choices in the UK.
About 2,500 years ago it wasn’t unheard of for couples to use something very different to prevent pregnancy.
According to Roman literature, a goat’s bladder would be used as a “sheath” during sex. (Happy Valentine’s week to you too.)
The World History Encyclopedia suggests that because not everyone in Roman society wanted a family, or wanted to limit the number of children they had, there were several other methods of birth control on offer, too.
There was the pretty normal option of avoiding sex during the times when they thought conceiving was most likely (so basically, keeping abreast of their menstrual cycle and ovulation).
But the others were a bit more adventurous.
One method involved “smearing the entrance to the uterus with old olive oil, honey or sap from a cedar or balsam tree”. Sticky.
According to Soranus, an ancient doctor who recommended the technique, it would “cause the entrance of the uterus to close”.
Another technique involved putting “a lock of fine wool into the opening of the uterus” to prevent conception.
Sometimes this would be mixed with honey and oil to create a plug of sorts, with a view to blocking any sperm from getting past.
Meanwhile 5,000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians managed to devise their very own pregnancy test – and it’s pretty clever.
As Harvard wrote on their Science In The News blog: “In the first known pregnancy tests, ancient Egyptian women urinated on barley or wheat seeds: quickly sprouting seeds indicated pregnancy.”
While it doesn’t sound medically sound, a 1963 study on the topic found that the tests were actually pretty accurate ― in fact, they were about 70-85% correct.