Implant (Nexplanon)

When getting the implant placed, you’ll be given an injection of numbing medicine through a small needle—that’s usually the worst part. Then your health care provider inserts the implant in your arm, which usually takes less than a minute. That area of your arm may be sore and bruised for a couple days.

Just like when it’s put in, your arm gets numbed before the implant is taken out. But that’s often the worst part and the whole thing usually only takes a couple minutes.

Not every method of birth control is safe to use right after giving birth, but many of them are. Breastfeeding consistently can be its own form of birth control, or there are a bunch of other methods you can use, including super-effective methods like the IUD and the implant that you can start right away.

It depends on the method. Some forms of birth control including the pill, patch, ring, shot, and implant are not effective immediately after you start using them, but most IUDs are (and so are methods that you only use when you have sex, like a condom). To be sure, check with a health care provider before having sex without another method of birth control.

Everybody responds to birth control differently. If you feel like your hormonal birth control is changing your mood, it’s time to talk to your health care provider. It might be a matter of switching methods or deciding whether to avoid hormonal birth control altogether, or you may choose to wait it out since some negative side effects go away with time.

All the available birth control devices have been rigorously tested for safety and are FDA-approved to use for years, so it’s safe to use the implant for years at a time. For some people, the implant can be harder to remove. If you can’t feel your implant, see a health care provider to have it checked, even if you aren’t ready to have it removed.

No, the implant is a medical device created by a pharmaceutical company that has no interest in tracking where you’re going.

The hormones in the implant are out of your body within a few days after it’s removed. Which means that your body will return to whatever level of fertility is normal for you. It may be easier for some people to get pregnant than others, but you can get pregnant soon after stopping the implant. If that’s not what you want, you can start a different method as soon as your implant is removed.

The implant is effective right away if you get it within 5 days of the start of your period. Otherwise, it’s not effective at preventing pregnancy for the first 7 days after you get it inserted and you’ll need to use a backup method, like condoms or internal condoms, during that time to prevent pregnancy.

Getting the implant inserted is pretty straightforward. Your health care provider will numb a small area on your upper arm, then use a special tool to insert the implant under your skin. That’s it! Your arm may be sore for a few days afterward, and you may have a bruise, but the insertion itself is quick and easy.

The hormonal IUDs, shot, implant, and progestin-only pill have all been shown to overall reduce periods for most people. For some people, that means they don’t get a period at all, but for others it can cause bleeding when you aren’t expecting it even if you have less total bleeding.

You can use the pill or the ring continuously to intentionally skip your period altogether.

If you have health insurance—whether it’s through your parents, school, job, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace, or Medicaid—chances are good that you’ll be able to get an implant with no out-of-pocket cost.

If you don’t have health insurance or have a plan that doesn’t cover birth control, the up-front cost of an implant can be high, but because the implant can last for five years even if you pay full price upfront, it ends up being pretty cheap over time.

If those aren’t options for you, the manufacturers of the implant offer discounts and you can also check with the family planning clinics around you and find out if they offer discounts or payment plans for the implant.