"Marie Stopes had championed her ‘Pro-Race’ version of the rubber cervical cap because the diaphragm ‘must be worn so as to cover the whole of the end of the vagina and depends on stretching the vaginal walls to stay in position…[so] certain movements of physiological value (particularly to the man) which ideally the woman should make are then impossible’. Van de Velde agreed with Stopes that the diaphragm limited vaginal movements but he commented dismissively that most ‘women to-day are not able to operate their pelvic muscles voluntarily to the best advantage in coitus, so the inability to do so would not represent any appreciable loss to them’. It is possible that the sexual upbringings of women over generations ensured they were unaware of the range of movement the muscles associated with vagina were capable of."
"As only one underpowered study was identified, we cannot distinguish between the contraceptive effectiveness of the diaphragm with and without spermicide. We cannot draw any conclusion at this point, further research is needed. However, the study provides no evidence to change the commonly recommended practice of using the diaphragm with spermicide."
"Giovanni Giacomo Casanova takes credit in his autobiography for inventing a primitive version of the diaphragm/cervical cap (Suitters, 1967). He placed the partly squeezed halves of lemons over his lovers’ cervices. Casanova was exaggerating his own inventiveness. Similar devices had been used for centuries around the world. Asian sex workers applied oiled paper discs to their cervices. The women of Easter Island used algae and seaweed (Himes, 1963). Sponge, tissue paper, beeswax, rubber, wool, pepper, seeds, silver, tree roots, rock salt, fruits, vegetables, and even balls of opium have all been used to cover the cervix in an attempt to prevent unintended pregnancy (Himes, 1963; London, 1998; Skuy, 1995). In 1838, German gynecologist Friedrich Wilde created rubber “pessaries” for individual patients with custom-made molds. Wilde’s pessaries resembled todays cervical caps. He used modern materials to imitate the traditional German custom of applying disks of melted and molded beeswax to the cervix to prevent conception. Primitive rubber pessaries were made by Connecticut inventor Charles Goodyear in the 1850s (Himes, 1963). Pharmacies sold them to married women, supposedly to support the uterus or hold medication in place (Chesler, 1992). By 1864, the British medical association was able to list 123 kinds of pessaries being used throughout the empire (Asbell, 1995). In America, sponges enclosed in silk nets with drawstrings attached were commonly used and advertised in newspapers and magazines (London, 1998). But the Comstock laws that were enacted in the 1870s suppressed the dissemination of contraceptive devices and information in the U.S. (Chesler, 1992)."
"In 1977, Ruth Hall felt there was ‘little evidence to support Stones’ belief that the vaginal pessary [diaphragm] would stretch vaginal walls’. Yet diaphragms came in sizes ranging from 5 to 9 centimetres in diameter and there was no consensus as to whether the use of larger sizes was more or less uncomfortable for users. As vaginas vary in size, the larger sizes must have stretched the vaginal walls and, in some women, pressed on the bladder or otherwise caused discomfort. This is another example of the willingness to see the vagina as inactive."
"By 1941, most doctors recommended the diaphragm as the most effective method of contraception (Tone, 2001). But with the invention of the pill and the increased popularity of the IUD, the diaphragm and cervical cap fell out of favor during the 1960s. Diaphragms continued to be available but U.S. companies stopped producing cervical caps. When the early high-estrogen birth control pills and certain IUDs were found to cause medical problems, American women increasingly returned to using simple barrier methods that didn’t affect their hormones or menstrual cycles (Bullough & Bullough, 1990). Diaphragms became quite popular again, but the cervical cap had disappeared from the American scene (Chalker, 1987). The Food and Drug Administration approved the Prentif Cavity-Rim Cervical Cap for use in this country in May 23, 1988 ⎯nearly 60 years after it was introduced in the United Kingdom. Strenuous efforts by clinicians affiliated with feminist health centers had brought the cap back to America (Bullough & Bullough, 1990). But by 2002, the Prentif cervical cap was displaced in the marketplace by FemCap® (Cates & Stewart, 2004).Today, fewer than 0.01 percent of U.S women rely on diaphragms and caps for contraception (CDC, 2010)."