Female Condom and Vaginal Sponge Reality® - the female condom developed by the Wisconsin Pharmacal Company — became available in drugstores in the U.S. in 1994, but it was not the first vaginal contraceptive designed to catch semen to prevent it from causing pregnancy (Grady, 1998).
Throughout history women have used various substances to block the way to the uterus and absorb semen. Vegetable seedpods were used in
South Africa, plugs of grass and crushed roots were used in other parts of Africa, wads of seaweed, moss, and bamboo were used in Japan, China, and the South Sea Islands, and empty halves of pomegranates were used in ancient Greece (London, 1998; Riddle, 1992; Tone, 2001).
Sponges were perhaps the most commonly used substances to block and absorb semen. The oldest reference to using sponges for contraception is from the Talmud (Bullough & Bullough, 1990). The Talmud recommends that a sponge soaked in vinegar - mokh - be used if
· a girl was too young to survive a pregnancy
· a woman was pregnant - it was believed that semen could cause a miscarriage
· a woman was nursing - if she became pregnant, she would have to wean her child prematurely (Bullough & Bullough, 1990).
During the 17th century, the French used the method of wetting a sponge with brandy to weaken the sperm (Keown, 1977). In the early 20th century, British birth control crusader Marie Stopes prescribed sponges moistened with olive oil for 2,000 of her indigent patients - she recorded no unintended pregnancies in the follow-up visits (London, 1998).
A contraceptive sponge was introduced to the American market in 1983 and quickly became one of the most popular over-the-counter barrier methods. The Today® Sponge was designed to block, more than absorb, semen. It also contained a spermicide that could immobilize sperm. The manufacturer - Whitehall Robins - voluntarily ceased production in
1995. One of the reasons the company cited was that meeting increasingly stringent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines for its manufacture would be too costly (Leary, 1999). Allendale Pharmaceuticals purchased the rights to the sponge in early 1999 and is waiting for FDA inspection of the plant that will manufacture the sponge. On April 22, 2005, the FDA approved the return of the Today Sponge to the U.S. market (Allendale Pharmaceuticals, 2005).
Eye opener. 
