Rehab Medical

Health information

Family planning

Choosing contraception is a matching problem, not a ranking: the most effective method on paper is useless if you stop it in three months. Egypt's fertility rate has fallen to about 2.9 children per woman, and the national survey's clearest finding is not that people lack methods — it is how many stop using one because of side effects nobody warned them about. So the useful visit is the one where we go through your health history, what you have tried, what you disliked, and what you actually want over the next few years.

When it cannot wait

Signs that mean today

These are not reasons to book an appointment. They are reasons to be seen now, or to call an ambulance on 123.

  • Severe one-sided pelvic pain with a late period, faintness, or shoulder-tip pain — ectopic pregnancy is an emergency, and it can happen with a coil in place.
  • Calf pain and swelling, sudden breathlessness, or chest pain while on a combined hormonal method — a clot must be excluded the same day.
  • A sudden severe headache, weakness on one side, or loss of vision or speech on a combined method — treat as a stroke and call 123.
  • Fever with pelvic pain and offensive discharge in the weeks after a coil is fitted.

When to book

Reasons to be seen

  • You want to start, change or stop a method — including stopping because you are ready to conceive.
  • Your current method is giving you side effects. There is almost always another option; stopping without a replacement is what leads to an unplanned pregnancy.
  • You have just had a baby and want to space the next pregnancy — the timing of when a method can start depends on breastfeeding and how many weeks it has been.
  • You have migraine with aura, high blood pressure, a clotting history, or you smoke and are over 35 — those genuinely change which methods are safe for you.

What a visit looks like

What a visit for this involves

  • 25–30 minutesClinic visitAt the clinic, unhurried
  • 20 minutesVideo consultationFrom anywhere in Egypt
  • 15 minutesFollow-upAfter a recent visit, same complaint

In the room

What the doctor checks

  1. A medical eligibility check against your own history — blood pressure, migraine, clots, liver disease, breastfeeding — because that, not preference alone, rules some methods in and out.
  2. The real numbers: how effective each method is with typical use, not perfect use, and how quickly fertility returns after stopping it.
  3. The side effects named in advance — spotting in the first three months, weight, mood, bleeding pattern — so that if they happen you know they were expected and temporary, or that they are the signal to switch.
  4. Blood pressure and weight measured before a hormonal method is started, and a plan for when to check them again.

Come prepared

What to bring

  • The name of anything you have used before and exactly why you stopped — that single sentence usually decides the whole consultation.
  • The date of your last period, and whether there is any chance you are pregnant now.
  • Your partner, if the decision is a shared one and you would like it to be discussed together.

Next step

Tell us what's happening and we'll arrange the right kind of visit.

Message the clinic on WhatsApp. We reply with the times that are free and what the visit costs, before you agree to anything.

Book on WhatsApp

At home

Between visits

  • Give a new method three months before judging it. Most early side effects settle, and switching at week two usually means starting the same three months again with something else.
  • If you miss pills or are late for an injection, look up what to do rather than guessing — and use condoms until you have.
  • Emergency contraception works better the sooner it is taken, and it is not a method — if you have needed it, that is the moment to sort out a regular one.

Before you write

Questions patients ask

Written and clinically reviewed by Dr. Rehab Ahmed, MBBCh, Ain Shams University · Diploma in Family Medicine. Last reviewed August 2026.

What this page is based on

This page is general information written by the practice. It is not a diagnosis and does not replace seeing a doctor. In an emergency, call 123.

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