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• Posted January 12, 2026

A Self-Injectable Birth Control Med Is Available, But Most Doctors Don't Prescribe It

Young women could be injecting long-lasting birth control meds themselves, but few have been told by their doctor that it’s an option, a new study says.

Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) can prevent pregnancy for up to three months, and is available in a form that can be self-injected under the skin, researchers reported in the February issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

But only a third of doctors who regularly prescribe birth control offer this option, even though most know about it, researchers found.

“It’s safe, effective and puts the control in patients’ own hands,” senior researcher Dr. Jennifer Karlin, an associate professor of family and community medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, said in a news release. “We should be talking about and offering it to patients without biases.”

DMPA is available in two injectable forms, researchers said.

One, an intramuscular injection, is sold under the name Depo-Provera and can only be administered by a health care provider.

But the other form can be easily self-injected, in the same way that GLP-1 weight loss drugs are taken, researchers said.

This self-injectable version was approved in 2004 and is officially labeled for administration by a clinician, but doctors have been training patients to self-inject the drug safely for years, researchers said.

It became more widely used in the U.S. during the COVID pandemic, researchers said.

For the new study, researchers surveyed more than 400 doctors and found that 3 in 4 (75%) were aware that this version of DMPA is available.  

More than half learned about this option between 2020 and 2022, during the pandemic.

However, only 35% actively prescribe this option to patients, the survey found.

Doctors surveyed expressed concerns about their patients’ ability to self-inject, the medication’s availability at pharmacies, and the lack of standardized approaches to counsel patients or prescribe the drug, researchers said.

Doctors with a background in reproductive medicine or who treat more young women were more likely to know of the self-injectable DMPA option, the survey found.

On the other hand, doctors in states with restrictions on abortion access were less likely to prescribe it.

Researchers recommended an education campaign to make doctors aware of these self-administered injectable contraceptives, and for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve a version of this self-injectable drug.

“FDA approval for DMPA-SC for self-administration is a key policy and system-level barrier,” researchers wrote. “Approval would increase professional confidence and expand insurance coverage, reducing economic barriers. Increased demand through expanded prescribing could also improve pharmacy stock availability, further enhancing access.”

More information

The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association has more on self-injectable DMPA.

SOURCES: University of California-San Francisco, news release, Jan. 8, 2026; Obstetrics & Gynecology, February 2026