Ayurvedic Contraceptive (Ancient Approach)

Contraceptives have become one of the basic need in todays world. Due to the excessive population growth everyone desires to have less child preferably one or two. In today’s world there are various contraceptives that are employed by couples for family planning. Most of the temporary contraceptives used are hormones  that have adverse side effect. So the world is looking forward for contraceptives that have minimal side effect. Now, the concept of herbal contraceptive has started. The use of herbal contraceptive is believed to have minimal side effect in comparision to hormonal contraceptive.Here is a small article regarding concept contraceptives in ayurveda.

Now a days description or advice of contraceptive is one of the integral part of postnatal management. Induction of abortion is also considered as one of the methods to limit the family. Though need of contraceptive is sometimes felt by recently married couples, however, now-a-days when marriage of fully mature individuals take place, its necessity is felt only after delivery.

In ayurveda, none of caraka, susruta, vagbhata, kasyapa, sarngadhara, bhela and harita.etc have mentioned contraceptive  or methods of contraception in equivalent term. With the description  of four factors.i.e  ritu(ovulation period), ksetra(reproductive organs), bija(sperm and ovum) and ambu(nutrients) essential for conception,it can be indirectly inferred that if these factors are influenced artificially conception will not take place. All the methods of contraception available today influence one or the other factor out of these four. With the description  of ritukala the inference for safe period can be drawn, similarly contraindication of various postures of women during coitus probably hints for the incomplete coitus.

Some of the contraceptives as illustrated by Bhavaprakash and Yogratnakar are illustrated here.

External or local contraceptives:

1. The woman having coitus after placing in the vaginal canal a piece of rock salt moistened with oil, never conceives.
2. The woman who after ritukala properly fumigates her vaginal canal with the wood of nimbi never conceives.
3. There is no chance of conception to the woman having coitus after tieing in the waist the root of dhatura uprooted on fourteenth day of first fortnight of lunar month. Once she removes ths root, she conceives.
4. Filling of vaginal canal with the powder of above mentioned root of dahtura before coitus also prevents conception.All the above method are to be used at every coitus. These might be acting as mechanical barriers and spermicidial agents. It is difficult to explain mode of action of the drug tied in the waist.

Internal contraceptives:

1. The woman who uses equal quantity of powdered pipplai, vidanga and tankana with water or milk during ritukala never conceives.
2. The menstruating women who used flowers of japa mixed with kanj followed by one hundred years old jaggery in the dose of one pala for three consecutive days never conceives.
3. Use of root of tanduliyaka pestled with washing of rice for three consecutive days after menstruation makes the women infertile.
4. Use of equal quantity of powdered leaves of talisa and gairika in the dose of one karsha with cold water on fourth day of menstruation acts as contraceptive.

Above mentioned preparations might be preventing conception by acting as antiovulatory, antizygotic or antiimplantation agents besides these also might be producing  some such changes in the cervical mucus that it becomes hostile to sperm penetrating. However, all these are hypothetical possibilities, experiments have shown that most of the drugs prevent conception by preventing implantation of fertilized egg.

(An extract from Ayurvediya Prasutitantra Evam Striroga By Prof.Premvati Tiwari, 2nd Edition)