Aside from abortifacients, herbal contraceptives in folklore have also included a few preventative measures. Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, known in Ayurveda as a contraceptive, may have antiestrogenic properties.^[7] Papaya seeds, rumored to be a male contraceptive, have recently been studied for their azoospermic effect on monkeys.^[8]

The fact that various effective methods of birth control were known in the ancient world sharply contrasts with a seeming ignorance of these methods in wide segments of the population of early modern Christian Europe. This ignorance continued far into the 20th century, and was paralleled by eminently high birth rates in European countries during the 18th and 19th centuries.^[9] Some historians have attributed this to a series of coercive measures enacted by the emerging modern state, in an effort to repopulate Europe after the population catastrophe of the Black Death, starting in 1348. According to this view, the witch hunts were the first measure the modern state took in an attempt to eliminate knowledge about birth control within the population, and monopolize it in the hands of state-employed male medical specialists (gynecologists). Prior to the witch hunts, male specialists were unheard of, because birth control was naturally a female domain.^[10]

Presenters at a family planning conference told a tale of Arab traders inserting small stones into the uteruses of their camels in order to prevent pregnancy, a concept very similar to the modern IUD. Although the story has been repeated as truth, it has no basis in history and was meant only for entertainment purposes.^[11] The first interuterine devices (which occupied both the vagina and the uterus) were first marketed around 1900. The first modern intrauterine device (contained entirely in the uterus) was described in a German publication in 1909. The Gräfenberg ring, the first IUD that was used by a significant number of women, was introduced in 1928.^[12]

The rhythm method (with a rather high method failure rate of ten percent per year) was developed in the early 20th century, as researchers discovered that a woman only ovulates once per menstrual cycle. Not until the 1950s, when scientists better understood the functioning of the menstrual cycle and the hormones that controlled it, were methods of hormonal contraception and modern methods of fertility awareness (also called natural family planning) developed.