The Grown-Up's Guide to Birth Control

It seems as though every week another celebrity is talking about her quest to have a baby. There's so much focus on infertility in the media these days that it's easy to forget you can get pregnant right up until menopause. In fact, women over the age of 40 have a slightly higher proportion of unintended pregnancies than women in their 30s. One possible reason for that? They might be skipping contraception.

"Many perimenopausal women think they can't conceive," says ob-gyn Andrew M. Kaunitz, MD, of the University of Florida College of Medicine, in Jacksonville. "That's not true." And even if you're not done having kids, you may not be using the best birth-control method for you. Unless you have a medical issue, the smartest way to choose contraception is by considering where you are in life right now.