Table 2.

Contraceptive myths, misconceptions and vicarious experiences (N = number of women who were aware of this contraceptive method)

All hormonal contraception	“My mom always says it’s not safe…She has more belief that you got to count your days, more safer for your body.” (23y.o., mother of 3) “You know my mom and my sisters always told me horror stories of birth control so I was a little…um…reluctant…Just basically that it was synthetic hormones and if you’re not that active…that your body is never the same, a lot of women have issues that aren’t publicized.” (34y.o., mother of 1)
OCPs (N=30)	“So, my friend was using birth control pills, she took them every day, the same time and everything…but then she ended up pregnant a month later. So it really didn’t help her.” (19y.o., mother of 1) “And then the four periods of a year? My friend has that, and she don’t know if she’s pregnant right now! So I think some of it is good, and some of it is like, do you really want to risk it?” (27y.o., mother of 2)
OrthoEvra® (N=24)	“I heard it’s not a high, like the pills is 90-something percent, like I heard the percentage is really low, that you still have a chance of getting pregnant. And, with it [the patch] coming off, and I mean, I don’t know, it’s hard for me to trust it.” (26y.o., mother of 1) “The patch, well I have a sister-in-law that came out pregnant on the patch…I was like, I’m not going to be taken, I won’t be on the patch and get pregnant, when I don’t want to be pregnant.” (23y.o., mother of 3) “The patch, my sister had it and she said that, um…it would cause her, like, I mean I know birth control is different for every person, but for her it would cause her nausea, nauseating, and everything…and then I heard on TV too that that wasn’t good anymore because they found that it was cancerous or something like that? I don’t know, I heard something like that on TV.” (20y.o., mother of 2) “And then my cousin knew someone who was on the patch and she had the same symptoms that my friend had and she went to the hospital, and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, with her head. She ended up passing away, and they was supposed to do an autopsy to see if the patch had anything to do with it, but I never asked my cousin what happened about that, so I don’t really know.” (22y.o., mother of 1)
NuvaRing® (N=17)	“By just being in my body for awhile and in my, I just feel like, just me not being able to control it, it might be my lack of knowledge as well. But, I don’t, I don’t feel like I want anything to go wrong, it pops out of place or something comes loose.” (21y.o., mother of 1)
DepoProvera ® (N=23)	“I wasn’t into the Depo® because I seen the effects it did to other people. It was like, dang! She got excessive weight gain, she lost half of her hair…I like to know my body. I like to see my menstrual coming here, and I know these things, I’m happy with my body. And with the Depo®, I don’t know what’s going on with my body because I’m not bleeding or anything like that, so it’s like, what’s going on inside of me?! Anything could be going on and I don’t know!” (24y.o., mother of 2) “They have, the doctor has told me that the shot works really good, it’s every 3 months, but I have heard it actually gets you a little hungry, so it makes you gain, actually it doesn’t make you gain weight but it gets you hungry, you want to eat more. And the majority of girls gain weight. And I don’t want to gain weight after I have the weight I gained.” (23y.o., mother of 3) “And the shot doesn’t help you, doesn’t help certain people, like certain girls.” [i.e., some girls get pregnant using DMPA] (19y.o., mother of 1) “Because I had a friend who had that, and she got a rash. It’s a three-month thing, right? Yeah it’s a three-month thing, she said she got a rash around the injection area and she never got used to it. Another reason why I don’t do it.” (23y.o., mother of 1)
IUC (N=25)	“I was like, I didn’t know - you’re putting a - a little, it looked like copper, I don’t think it was the plastic flexible one, from what I can remember…I’m like, man that’s gonna get rusted, give me an infection, it can get moved.” (24y.o., mother of 3) “I haven’t tried the others but my friends have, and like, one got the UID [IUD] and she was like, it’s uncomfortable. She felt it was uncomfortable, and I’m like, I’m not into getting things inserted inside of me, you know?” (24y.o., mother of 2) “For one, I didn’t like the fact that it’s something that’s just automatically there, and it comes like with a string like a tampon, right? Kinda, sorta. So I don’t like that. And just seeing how some women say it can be irritating or can cause infection, from what I heard. So it wasn’t something I wanted to go through. Like urinary tract infections, it might give me a lot of those, and those are like the most annoying infections you could possibly get!” (31y.o., mother of 5) “Bad things! Just like the infections, also…my boyfriend was telling me…we were separated for awhile, and he went with some other girl that had the IUD, and he said that during sex he would even hurt her sometimes because she had the IUD in her. And it caused her bleeding sometimes through intercourse, and things like that. And I was like “oh, really! That sounds like fun! That sounds really good!” And it’s kinda irritating for most girls that are telling me, and just like the infections and that.” (26y.o., mother of 2)
Norplant® or Implanon® (N=11)	“My sister had that. And they ended up taking it out because it actually got tangled with one of her nerves, and she ended up getting pregnant off, when she was on it, and then they took it out and it caused her…because all the liquid it had in there, and they had to untangle one of her nerves, it caused something with the baby, so they ended up operating on her when she was 6 months pregnant. So that was dangerous for the baby.” (23y.o., mother of 3)