It is commonly known that condoms are used to prevent pregnancy. Besides, condoms are also used to protect yourself from being infected by sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs in short. The natural question follows is: Do they perform well for these two purposes?

In fact, it will be just useless to use a condom if they cannot perform well for protecting you and your partner. First of all, we can take a look at the effectiveness of condoms on pregnancy prevention. Without any surprise, using condoms is one of the most effective ways to prevent pregnancy.

However, you should not expect that it is 100% effective. Nothing will be perfect in the world. And it is also true for contraception methods. Yet the condoms can only prevent pregnancy effectively if they are used correctly.

At the point you may understand that you should use condoms correctly and consistently if you want to use them to really protect you and your partner. Indeed, nine out of ten times the reason for a condom fails to protect you and your partner is that it is not used correctly. One of the most serious mistake when using condoms is that some people will apply oil based lubricant on latex condoms.

Applying oil based lubricant on latex condoms is a big NO NO. They will weaken the latex and make the condom break easily. Besides, you should never put the condoms under the sun light or in a hot condition since the sunlight and heat will also weaken the latex. Again, condoms are very reliable if you can store and use them correctly.

You may be very curious whether condoms can really protect you from being infected by STDs. Just like their ability to prevent pregnancy, condoms are also very reliable for protecting you from infection of sexually transmitted diseases. This is confirmed by various academic studies.

There are people who think that thinner condoms are less reliable. Yet they would like to use them since a thick condom will lower the sensation. It seems that is a serious dilemma. However, it is not totally true. Theoretically, the reliability of the thick and thin condoms should be the same. They have been undergone the same tests and they should be proved to be the same otherwise they will not be sold in shops.

However, the fact is that a thinner condom can be broken easier compared to a thicker one when you are holding it with your hands. You should beware that you do not break the condom with your fingernails. Besides this both a thin and a thick condom should be equally good.