hormonal birth control Archives - Page 5 of 6

Being a Feminist: Hormonal Birth Control Not Required

Published on April 27, 2016

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Before I get further into dissecting the Nelson Pill Hearings I want to pause and talk about feminism and my intent for this project. The history of the birth control pill and the history of feminism are closely tied, because, of course, if women can control when and/or whether they have children, they have power over their own lives. First-wave feminists knew this. It was Margaret Sanger after all who coined the term “birth control” and conceived (pardon the pun) the idea of the pill in the first place. And so it’s no surprise that the release of the birth control pill in 1960 ushered in the second wave of feminism.

Somewhere, somehow, many people confused the right to choose with blind acceptance of hormonal birth control as “freedom.” These may be the same people who liken questioning the government with being unpatriotic. I suggest that in a democracy it is our most patriotic duty to scrutinize whether our government is acting in the best interest of its people. Likewise, as feminists it is our duty to scrutinize what may or may not be serving women.

The F Words – Feminism and Freedom

Many people believe that having unlimited access to every kind of birth control is the only way to be a feminist and therefore speaking out against the pill or other hormonal birth control is anti-women. Let us consider for a moment the types of birth control that are encouraged, advertised, and prescribed, and with these medications, whose body is being affected? Who will pay if these methods fail? Who has to deal with the side effects? As someone who suffered a stroke while on the birth control pill, I am keenly aware of the price that comes with this “freedom.”

Anti-feminists like to write a lot of articles about how women want to have it all—as if everyone doesn’t want to have it all. That’s not a feminist concept, that’s an American ideal. So, yes, as an American I want to have it all. I want birth control that doesn’t come with the risk of blood clots. I want birth control that isn’t going to kill me, make me fat, give me acne, create mood swings, or lower my libido. Why would I want all the freedom to have sex without getting pregnant with none of the desire to actually have sex?

Why is Birth Control the Sole Responsibility of Women?

Which brings us to the question—where is the pill for men? Still being tested? We hear about this birth control for men every few years, but it has yet to materialize. Is that because it’s being more thoroughly tested than any hormonal birth control they have ever released for women? The original birth control pill was tested on poor women in Puerto Rico who were not even informed that they were part of a study. This article cannot even begin to explore how the fertility of poor and minority women has been systematically targeted and abused in the name of limiting population growth. That’s a whole other topic. And I’ll be explaining the Puerto Rican trials more in future articles but it is important to note that there were only two years between when the research in Puerto Rico began and the birth control pill was approved for use in the United States. Yet every article about birth control for men suggests that many more years of study are required before we’ll every see this as a reality.

But maybe there is no pill for men yet because the side effects have been deemed unacceptable?

At the Nelson Pill Hearings, Dr. Whitelaw, a private physician and early fertility specialist, asked, “How many adult males would be willing to take an oral contraceptive faithfully if they were told that instead of a possible 50-plus adverse side reaction only one remained, that being the possible loss of sex drive and libido?” How many indeed.

But if loss of libido doesn’t scare you, how about the “50-plus adverse side reactions”? Even in 1970, hormonal birth control was linked not just to blood clots (and by extension DVT, PE, and stroke) but also to cancer, infertility, miscarriages, and even diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. And that’s just the beginning.

However, and this is a big HOWEVER- it is not my goal to demonize the pill or any other hormonal birth control. It is not my goal to unnecessarily scare people. It’s simply my goal to educate about the dangers of these hormones that are over-prescribed and under-researched. Because I’m a feminist, I believe it is a woman’s right to choose. But that choice must be an informed one. Soon I’ll be writing more about how women are informed by looking at risk communication with these and other medicines.

Information or Patronization?

From what I’ve read so far in the hearings, every doctor who has testified has agreed that women need to be better informed of the dangers of hormonal birth control. Except one. Dr. Robert W. Kistner from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Harvard Medical School said, “I don’t believe it is good medical practice with any medication to go through the list of possible complications.” And by way of explanation for this he says that if you tell a woman that headaches are a possible side effect of the birth control pill, then they will get headaches. I wonder if the same can be said for blood clots? It is also interesting to note when Dr. Kistner was asked by the committee if he had ever worked for the pharmaceutical companies, he answered, “Yes, all of them.”

Maybe it’s time for people like Dr. Kistner and Senator Bob Dole, who was also at the Nelson Pill Hearings, to stop being concerned with women’s “emotional reactions” to information about the pill. And give us the full story even though he thinks it may “confuse the women we seek to protect.” Because unlike Bob Dole, I think that women not only can handle the truth about hormonal birth control, but that they deserve it. It’s time to stop allowing corporations and agenda-driven legislation to decide what we can and cannot understand, what we do and don’t need to know about medications that affect us.

Because are women really liberated if we have taken the freedom to choose and handed it to pharmaceutical companies?

Real Risk Study: Birth Control and Blood Clots

Lucine Health Sciences and Hormones Matter are conducting research to investigate the relationship between hormonal birth control and blood clots. If you or a loved one have suffered from a blood clot while using hormonal birth control, please consider participating. We are also looking for participants who have been using hormonal birth control for at least one year and have NOT had a blood clot, as well as women who have NEVER used hormonal birth control. For more information or to participate, click here.

A Stroke from Hormonal Birth Control: Part 2

by Kerry Gretchen

Published on March 24, 2016

3566 views

When I was 28 years old, I had a massive stroke (a cerebral venous thrombosis in the sagittal sinus area) from a combination of birth control pills and a fairly common clotting disorder, Factor V Leiden. You can read the first part of my story here.

Recovering from a Stroke

The repercussions of what having a stroke meant began to sink in after I was moved out of the intensive care unit.

Once in a regular hospital room, a therapist came by to do some tests. She pulled my blankets aside and asked me if I could take off my sock. This test seemed ridiculously easy, but I was willing, just happy that my head no longer hurt. I leaned forward and confidently pulled the sock off my foot. “Great,” she said. “Now put it back on.” So I put the sock back on my foot. Only I didn’t. Because I couldn’t. I stared at the sock in my hand and then I stared at my foot, knowing that I should be able to complete such a simple task, yet unable to.

This was the first of thousands of tests during my recovery. And it was the first of a thousand times when I knew I used to be able to do something that I could no longer do. It is one of the strangest sensations I have ever experienced.

I spent a week in the hospital and another week in an in-patient rehabilitation facility. Before I was discharged to go home (for another month of out-patient rehab), the psychologist told me that things would feel like “Christmas at the mall” instead of say, an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. It was an appropriate analogy for how overwhelming everyday life would be and one that I would come to understand the first time I broke into sobs when I dropped a bowl of cereal on the floor. I was cautioned against trying things like swimming alone, as I might not remember how and accidentally drown myself. They also told me that I had lost millions, maybe billions, of brain cells that I would never get back. And that I might never be able to work a “real” job again.

At home, I set about re-learning things like how to hook my bra, tie my shoes, and wash my own hair. Once I mastered these, I began to wonder what else I could do. I was extremely lucky that I made progress every day, but some days it felt like I’d never be back to normal. I wasn’t sure what normal even was anymore. After the warning from the psychologist, I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to handle a full-time job. And because of the seizures, I could not drive for six months which was devastating and isolating, especially for someone as independent as I had always been. Since I was stuck at home, it seemed like a good time to force myself to relearn math (yet another thing I knew I had been good at but could no longer do). I began to study for the GRE and less than six months later, I was accepted to graduate school.

Searching for Answers

When it came time to write my thesis, I decided to use my stroke as an inspiration for my research. I wanted to know why I had had a stroke, why no one had ever told me the risks involved with taking hormonal birth control, why I never knew there was a possibility that I had a clotting disorder which would greatly increase my risk. In short, I was looking for a smoking gun; someone or something I could point my finger at and say, “Aha! That is where the breakdown occurred. This is who should be blamed!”

But what I found was much more complicated. What my doctors had told me, that I was an anomaly, seemed to be supported by the research that I found. Studies show that most people get a blood clot within a year of starting hormonal birth control. Mine happened 10 years later. I learned that Factor V Leiden is fairly common but that women aren’t tested for it before being prescribed hormones because testing that many women would be expensive. I also found research that said pregnancy is more dangerous than birth control.

Putting aside the false dichotomy that the only two choices a woman has are to be pregnant or be on hormonal birth control, the message I took away from all of my research was that my stroke was an acceptable risk to save countless women from pregnancy. That even though my stroke could have been prevented by a simple blood test before I was even prescribed birth control pills, my value as a human woman was not worth the greater expense. As a child of the 80s and a product of American capitalism, this didn’t shock me as much as it probably should have. After all, I lived in a world of the Ford Pinto. What I didn’t realize at the time and would only come to understand years later, was that I began to internalize the blame for what happened to me. Maybe it was my fault for not knowing the dangers, for not understanding the risks, for being so stressed out that my body failed me.

Was It My Fault?

In researching my thesis, I discovered that pharmaceutical companies intentionally make the risk communication in advertising, and especially in the package with the birth control, dense and confusing. And I also found that women who have taken hormonal birth control don’t adequately understand the potential side effects, nor do they even know the symptoms of blood clots. There is very little accurate information about clotting disorders online. Even if my situation was rare, these facts are extremely troubling. But what I have since come to learn is that my stroke was actually not so rare.

Recently I’ve been contacted by an amazing group of people; researchers, families who have lost their daughters to hormonal birth control, fellow survivors, writers, and scientists. They’ve helped make it clear to me that I’m not just an anomaly. As you can see from the other stories on this site, hormonal birth control has very real, very harmful risks. And we have lost far too many amazing young women to stand idle any longer. Our standard must be higher than accepting these women’s lives as collateral damage. Together with this group of health advocates, we are embarking on a journey to give women what they need-information to make the right choice for them. Because what happened to me was not my fault. It’s time to stop blaming myself. Yet even as I write these words, I still have some doubt. And that doubt shows me that I haven’t fully recovered from my stroke yet. I still have work to do on this journey. And that work may take me the rest of my life. For more on what long-term recovery from a traumatic brain injury looks like, see Part 3 of the series.

Real Risk Study: Birth Control and Blood Clots

Lucine Health Sciences and Hormones Matter are conducting research to investigate the relationship between hormonal birth control and blood clots. If you or a loved one have suffered from a blood clot while using hormonal birth control, please consider participating. We are also looking for participants who have been using hormonal birth control for at least one year and have NOT had a blood clot, as well as women who have NEVER used hormonal birth control. For more information or to participate, click here.

Why I am Backing Sweetening the Pill, the Documentary

by Laura Wershler

Published on June 29, 2015

3296 views

There are just three days left for the Kickstarter campaign launched by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein to raise the $100,000 needed to make their next documentary. Inspired by the provocative 2013 book Sweetening the Pill: Or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control by Holly Grigg-Spall, Sweetening the Pill, the documentary, aims to fairly critique hormonal birth control and raise awareness of non-hormonal alternatives. Lake and Epstein hope to do for birth control what their acclaimed documentary The Business of Being Born did for birth, get us thinking beyond a one-size-fits-all approach. Currently for contraception, that one-size approach is all about synthetic hormones packaged as—what are now being called—modern contraceptive methods.

Will this film ever get made? I bloody well hope so, and so should the thousands upon thousands of women who have experienced side effects associated with hormonal contraception, from those considered a mere nuisance, to adverse experiences that impair quality of life, to those that threaten a woman’s life itself.

I am not an alarmist, although I do believe that young women dying, however rarely, because they are using hormonal contraception is an unacceptable outcome, especially when safer hormonal and non-hormonal alternatives are available. Women’s health and safety absolutely matter to me, but I want this film to be made so that issues I have been advocating about for 30 years will finally get an accessible, comprehensive public airing.

With that said, here are five take-aways for viewers that I am expecting from the documentary Sweetening the Pill:

1) Hormonal birth control does not, has never, and will never regulate or normalize periods.

There is a false belief held by girls and women of all ages that problem periods are regulated or fixed by taking the Pill. Periods on the Pill are shorter and lighter because they are not real periods. Lara Briden, ND, author of Period Repair Manual: Natural Treatment for Better Hormones and Better Periods, sets the record straight in this June 3rd piece for Hormones Matter: Pill Bleeds are not Periods.

2) Contrary to what women are constantly being told, there are health benefits to consistent ovulatory menstrual cycles. By suppressing ovulation and normal menstrual cycle function we are, over time, depriving ourselves of these benefits.

You won’t get this information from your gynecologist, but you will from endocrinologist Dr. Jerilynn C. Prior, scientific director of The Centre for Menstrual Cycle Research at the University of British Columbia. Prior has over 40 years experience researching the very thing that all hormonal contraception disrupts: ovulation and normal menstrual cycle function. She has written a series of papers on the Preventive Powers of Ovulation and Progesterone that explain the impact of ovulation on our bone, breast and heart health. It is not “incessant menstruation” that’s bad for women’s health, as many OBGYNs would have us believe, but ovulatory disturbances. As I wrote once in a letter to Ms. Magazine challenging the assertion that suppressing ovulation and menstruation is good for our health: “Ask not what those cycle-stopping pills will do to you, but what a healthy ovulatory menstrual cycle can do for you.”

3) The pill should NOT be the standard-of-care treatment for being a girl.

In the foreword I wrote for Grigg-Spall’s book, I noted that: “Prescribing the pill, or other forms of hormonal contraception, has become, in the minds of most health-care providers, the ‘standard of care’ for being a girl.” It’s being used to treat every manner of menstrual cycle problem—irregularity, heavy bleeding, painful periods—associated with the maturation process of an adolescent’s reproductive system. The only sure thing these drugs will do is interrupt this maturation process. Alternative treatments for these problems can be found in the adolescence section on the CeMCOR website. On June 11, 2015, Twitter menstrual cycle advocate Kylie Matthews (@AuntFlo_28) Tweeted me this: “would you believe my 11 year old’s pediatrician already ‘recommended’ I put her on the pill? Of course I know better!” I expect the STP documentary to make sure all mothers know better.

4) Fertility Awareness Methods (FAM) of birth control, taught by skilled educators and enhanced with new technology, qualify as modern contraception.

The mainstream sexual and reproductive health community’s dismissiveness of fertility awareness based methods of birth control and its frustration with women who use or want to use them, must stop. In a previous Hormones Matter piece, I said that women who can’t, won’t, or don’t want to use drug- and devise-based birth control, have the same right to information, support and services as women who are willing and able to use hormonal birth control. Failure of the SRH community to adequately meet the needs of these women is contributing to unplanned pregnancies. But they aren’t the only show in town anymore, and women are seeking out alternative health-care providers, fertility awareness educators, and technological FAM support in droves. The roster of Justisse-trained Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioners is growing world-wide; women can readily access the services of HRHPs like Amy Sedgwick at redtentsisters.com and Ashley Ross at Conscious Birth Control. Tech companies like Kindara and Ovatemp are introducing thousands of women to the scientific principles that underpin fertility awareness methods that are as effective as the Pill at preventing pregnancy. I expect Lake and Epstein’s documentary to leave viewers fully informed as to how women can access the resources and experts they need to learn and use FAM effectively and confidently. If FAM is hot, and it is, then it’s modern contraception.

5) Body literacy, understanding how our bodies work and how hormonal contraception works, must precede birth control decision-making.

Girls deserve to grow up body literate. They must understand how their bodies work and how a normal menstrual cycle unfolds. They must be encouraged to develop a personal relationship with their bodies before they start making decisions, or have decisions made for them, on how to manage their cycles and their fertility. This is a tall order, but if the wave of 20- and 30-something women who are quickly acquiring this foundational knowledge is any indication, it just could be that the next generation of girls will grow up with the life skill of body literacy. They will understand how their sexual, reproductive and general health and well-being are connected to their menstrual cycles. Body literacy supports, if not compels, our fully informed participation in health-care decision making. This is the message I expect Sweetening the Pill to deliver.

So, back to the beginning. There are just three days left to become a backer of Sweetening the Pill, to support the making of a documentary that has the power to change the way we think about our bodies, our health and our birth control. There will always be a place for hormonal contraception, and that’s a good thing. But women need more and better options. We need to know that we don’t need to take it at all if that’s our preference, and that if we do, we don’t need to take it, and probably shouldn’t, for more than a few years of our reproductive lives.

Sweetening the Pill is about the future. Will you be a part of it? To echo my conclusion of the book’s foreword: This film will offer a new perspective on the Pill and its influence on our bodies and our lives, as well as evidence that affirms and confirms we make sacrifices—large and small—to live under its influence. It will remain for viewers to decide what to do about it.

Sweetening the Pill, the Documentary

About the author: Laura Wershler, B.Sc., is a veteran pro-choice sexual and reproductive health advocate and women’s health critic who has worked for or volunteered with Planned-Parenthood-affiliated organizations in Canada since 1986. Laura graduated with a Certificate in Journalism from Mount Royal University in 2011. She has contributed columns on women’s health to Troymedia.com and blogs regularly for re:Cycling, the blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research. Follow her on Twitter @laurawershler.

Participate in Research about Oral Contraceptives

Hormones Matter is conducting an ongoing, online survey of oral contraceptive side effects. If you have ever used oral contraceptives, you are eligible to participate. The survey takes 10-15 minutes and is anonymous. Take the oral contraceptives survey today.

Hormones Matter conducts other crowdsourced surveys on medication reactions. To take one of our other surveys, click here.

If you’d like to share your health story contact us here.

Real Risk Study: Birth Control and Blood Clots

Lucine Health Sciences and Hormones Matter are conducting research to investigate the relationship between hormonal birth control and blood clots. If you or a loved one have suffered from a blood clot while using hormonal birth control, please consider participating. We are also looking for participants who have been using hormonal birth control for at least one year and have NOT had a blood clot, as well as women who have NEVER used hormonal birth control. For more information or to participate, click here.

The Instant Menstrual Cycle

by Lisbeth Prifogle, MFA

Published on November 7, 2014

2759 views

My uterus decided to end her 6-month vacation yesterday. This is nothing new; I’ve never had regular periods and have tried nearly everything to make my body function on a regular schedule, but it just doesn’t cooperate. Synthetic hormones prescribed by numerous doctors have always made things worse. Acupuncture, when I am working and can afford it, is the only thing that makes them more regular and manageable.

Take a moment to empathize with me – 6 months worth of bloating, fatigue, cramps, blood, etc. in one lousy week. Oh and this would be the second week of a new job – I’m onto you uterus, I’M ONTO YOU!

I’ve tried diet changes, more exercise, less exercise, meditation, medications, channeling my inner moon goddess – everything. I’m finally learning to accept that this is the way my body functions. I don’t like it, but I accept it. What I can’t accept is that we put a man on the moon 45 years ago, but we can’t figure out how to give women some relief. Women have been in science for some time now. Marie Curie won the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1911. You’d think we could help ourselves, but the most we have advanced in menstrual related relief and technology is OTC pain relievers marketed in pink boxes with a different name and wads of cotton so toxic to our bodies that they can kill us! Don’t you think we need entire labs dedicated solely to easing the pain of menstruation and child bearing. The women scientists can wear brightly colored lab coats and eat an endless supply of chocolate while figuring out new ways to deal with age old biological functions.

Yesterday, I couldn’t leave the couch. I was supposed to go to a barbecue with friends, do all the chores I can’t do during the work-week, and hit up the grocery store, but I was couch-ridden with a heating pad, smelly Chinese herbs, red raspberry leaf tea, and a book. I’m afraid that my friends thought I was lying to get out of the social gathering (I tend to be reclusive), and more than one male employer has given me that “uh-huh, sure” tone when I’ve called in sick over womanly problems. Thankfully, I’m a generally healthy person so that’s the only time I call in sick (and I’m extremely thankful for my health). Take a minute to imagine being in the military and having to tell a male superior that you can’t go out to the field for an exercise because of earth-shattering cramps and excessive bleeding. Then going to a male doctor at sick bay to get a ‘chit’ as proof you weren’t lying.

And I’m supposed to channel my inner moon goddess and be thankful that I’m a woman and can bring life into this world? I’m going to channel my moon goddess alright, channel her and beat her. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a woman and everything that entails, but in the name of science and entrepreneurial spirit – don’t you think it’s about time we figured out a way to ease the pain and suffering that women have to endure monthly?

In an essay originally published in the Boston Phoenix in 1990 and republished posthumously in a collection of essays titled, The Merry Recluse in 2002, Caroline Knapp, wrote, “What Women Really Need from Science.” Here is an excerpt that I think of EVERY time I have an earth-shattering, couch-ridden period, like today:

“So now women can have babies at the age of 90. Big whoop. Roll out the Pampers and Geritol. Open a Cribs ‘n’ Canes shop. And thank you, thank you, thank you, modern medicine.

Something is very wrong here. While a teensy-weensy proportion of women over the age of 75 might welcome the opportunity to procreate in their golden years, and while this development might help ease the pressure some women feel as their biological clocks tick away, most of us shudder at the news. Babies when we’re 90? Postmenopausal midnight feedings?

This news also seems to indicate a slight problem modern science has with focus. What about the here and now? What about the daily realities women face in our younger years?
Any doctor or scientist who truly understood the lives of modern women would be looking in an entirely different direction for ways to ease our burdens and make our lives more manageable. Forget about extending our childbearing years. Forget about finding new and medically thrilling was to complicate our later lives. We need help now! Here, for ambitious doctors everywhere, are a few suggestions.

The Instant Menstrual Cycle

Consider how much simpler life would be if scientists could develop a way to enable women to menstruate in a mere five minutes. No more messy, five- to seven-day bouts of bleeding. No consecutive nights curled on the couch with heating pads to ease the lower back pain. And no more worrying: Will you run out of tampons? Leak? Bleed on his sheets? The five minute menstrual cycle would pack all that discomfort and inconvenience into much more manageable form. One huge cramp. One enormous mood swing. A single flood of tears, and then – whoosh – a single rush of blood into a single, extremely absorbent tampon. If science can come up with an instant coffee, instant breakfast, and instant cameras, instant menstruation couldn’t be that hard.”

Amen sister. She goes on to list other brilliant scientific ideas for some, young scientist to snatch up and make our lives easier including: egg-laying capabilities, clones for working mothers, anti-gravity skin enhancers, and more.

Someone, somewhere, PLEASE hear my plead: We can genetically modify animals to create spider goats and jellyfish pigs, we can travel to space, we can harness the power of nuclear fusion to create electricity and bombs – so why can’t we make advancements in women’s health that would bring relief to half of the world’s population? It’s past time for the Instant Menstrual Cycle – it’s time for a revolution, ladies!

Can the Pro-Choice Community Embrace a Birth Control Dichotomy?

by Laura Wershler

Published on September 23, 2014

3610 views

In 2004, when I was executive director of Planned Parenthood Alberta, I gave an introductory presentation on fertility awareness for women looking for alternatives to hormonal birth control. One young woman who’d been on Depo-Provera for five years had been recently diagnosed with severe osteopenia. After quitting the drug, she said she realized in retrospect that for those five years she had felt like she was living “under the surface” of her life.

Another told the story of how she had struggled with serious mood issues while on the birth control pill. She would stop taking it, rely on condoms and emergency contraception for a while, then visit her doctor who would urge her to go back on the pill. After a few of cycles of on-off-on, she quit the pill once and for all. She said she decided to “just stop talking to this doctor about birth control.”

I’ve heard scores of stories like these over the past 30 years, and read hundreds more from women commenting on blog posts and online articles. For decades women have stopped using hormonal contraception to improve their health and well-being. Advocating on their behalf has been a major focus of my work as a pro-choice activist.

The Birth Control Dichotomy

I’ve been a pro-choice sexual and reproductive health advocate since I was 15 years old. Today I turn 60, celebrating a 45-year commitment to pro-choice values. But I mark the occasion with frustration and disappointment because the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) community to which I belong has failed to adequately–unreservedly–serve women who won’t, don’t or can’t use hormonal birth control.

I believe that what is keeping them from doing so is failure to acknowledge and embrace the dichotomy that exists within the pro-choice contraceptive framework.

A dichotomy is division of a whole into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups. If pro-choice contraception is the whole, two mutually exclusive groups are:

women who use and like, or want to use hormonal birth control (HBC)
women who use and like, or want to use non-hormonal birth control (NHBC).

Both groups deserve equal attention, support and services to use the birth control methods they decide are right for them. But this is not happening.

Just as we who hold pro-choice values don’t judge or hassle women for the reasons they choose to have abortions, we should not judge or hassle women for the reasons they choose not to use HBC, nor try to deter them. Yet anecdotal evidence abounds that women who want to quit the birth control pill, have their IUDs removed, or learn fertility awareness based methods (FABM) are often actively dissuaded from acting on their choices. It takes extreme self-assurance to do what one young university student told me she did when her doctor questioned why she didn’t want to use HBC. Her response: “My reasons are none of your business.” She said she knew the doctor would try to overcome her objections to the side effects she refused to incur.

I believe that pro-choice sexual health advocates and care providers can and must find a way to do their work effectively within this birth control dichotomy. We must acknowledge the right of women to choose HBC or NHBC depending on which best serves their health and contraceptive needs. And it’s our obligation to help them use their chosen method effectively and confidently, without persuasion or dissuasion.

This is not being done to the standard I believe it should.

Media, social media, and the blogosphere tell us that young women are ditching HBC, but not finding much information or support from their doctors or sexual health clinics for doing so. So why aren’t SRH organizations researching this identifiable “unmet need” or offering workshops on successfully transitioning from HBC to NHBC?

A one-size fits all diaphragm is in the works, and another silicone version is on the market but incredibly hard to find, as is the spermicidal gel required to use with it. So why don’t SRH clinics have programs in place to make them more accessible to women who want them? After all, the diaphragm was the contraceptive of choice for arguably the most influential sexual role model of the last 15 years – Carrie Bradshaw.

Evidence-based medicine proves that pro-choice FABM are as effective as HBC methods, and can be used with condoms to prevent STIs and emergency contraception if indicated, just as for HBC users. So why doesn’t every SRH clinic or organization provide certified FABM training on site or seek collaborative partnerships with certified, secular-based instructors?

Bottom line? The SRH community is failing to fully meet the needs of women who won’t, don’t or can’t use HBC. The current hoopla over LARCs – long-acting reversible contraception including copper and Mirena IUDs and hormonal implants – as the next best birth control “technology” is mere tangent, not solution. Other than the copper IUD, these are still drug-based methods many women want to avoid.

Women who want to use NHBC effectively and confidently, or seek treatments for menstrual cycle problems that do not require hormonal contraceptives, are turning to care providers and information sources outside the SRH community. Is this what we want?

I don’t get it. If I can embrace the birth control dichotomy and retain my pro-choice commitment why can’t other pro-choice health-care professionals, non-profit organizations, and advocates do the same?

My pro-choice values have co-existed for decades with my advocacy for NHBC and menstrual cycle education. But I admit that because of my chosen focus, it is often wrongly assumed that I seek to deny options rather than to increase them, that somehow I cannot possibly be pro-choice.

Successfully using fertility awareness for birth control from age 27 through menopause (See p.4-5) did not keep me from serving 10 years on the board of Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada, or from bringing me back as a current board member of what is now the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health.

Promoting body literacy – acquired by learning to observe, chart and interpret our menstrual cycle events so that we become fully informed participants in health-care decision making – as a life skill that all girls and women should learn, did not keep me from being executive director of Planned Parenthood Alberta. The organization, which became Sexual Health Access Alberta and closed in 2010, distributed educational resources that included the most comprehensive Birth Control Demonstration & Sexual Health Promotion Kit still available for SRH professionals.

Sharing evidence-based medical information about the value of ovulation to women’s health and how to treat menstrual cycle disorders without the use of hormonal contraceptives, did not keep me from writing commentaries in support of abortion rights.

Within the pro-choice sexual and reproductive health community, I’ve chosen to focus on body literacy, menstrual cycle education, and advocacy for increased access to NHBC. At 60, I’m more committed than ever to promote a broader perspective within my community, one that will fully acknowledge and embrace the birth control dichotomy, one that will serve equally, without reservation, the contraceptive needs of all women.

About the Author: Laura Wershler, B.Sc., is a veteran pro-choice sexual and reproductive health advocate and women’s health critic who has worked for or volunteered with Planned-Parenthood-affiliated organizations in Canada since 1986. Laura graduated with a Certificate in Journalism from Mount Royal University in 2011. She has contributed columns on women’s health to Troymedia.com and blogs regularly for re:Cycling, the blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research. Follow her on Twitter @laurawershler.

Participate in Research

Hormones Matter^TM is conducting research on the use patterns and side effects associated with oral contraceptives – the birth control pill. If you have used and/or are currently using oral contraceptives as a birth control option, please take this important, anonymous survey. The Oral Contraceptives Survey.

To take one of our other Real Women. Real Data.^TM surveys, click here.

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Adventures in Natural Family Planning

by Samantha Wiessing

Published on June 19, 2014

3178 views

Ten years ago, I began researching fertility and natural alternatives to achieving and avoiding pregnancy. The more research I did, the more I realized that there was a decided lack of current, accurate information on the internet. After becoming pregnant with my first child, I focused my research to learn how to space my children without using birth control. Though my family has a long history of breastfeeding and childbirth, they did not provide me with any information that I could use. I didn’t want to use hormones while breastfeeding but neither did I want to get pregnant again immediately. While there has been significant research validating ecological breastfeeding, at the time it had not caught on. There was very little information on the internet about practically applying it in everyday life. Needless to say, using the information on the internet, I was soon pregnant with my second child and then my third child. At that point, my forays into natural family planning were not working.

Natural Family Planning and Physicians

I was desperate to find a way to space my children without artificial hormones or invasive devices; I looked to my OB/GYN and the local health department. My OB and the health department could not provide me with any information about natural family planning, and in fact I was openly mocked by the doctors and nurses. The health department tried giving me Cycle Beads with very little instruction. I refused them, knowing that they would be completely ineffective as I was breastfeeding and didn’t yet have a menstrual cycle. It seemed that I knew more about managing my fertility than they did.

Do-it-yourself Natural Family Planning

Discouraged and outraged, I obtained as much information as I could and assembled my own version of natural family planning. It worked for two years until I found myself pregnant with child number four. When my family and I relocated to another state, I was soon able to find a natural family planning instructor. I learned the Billings Ovulation Method. I cannot stress enough how important an instructor is when using natural family planning. This system taught me what I had been doing wrong all these years (I will write more about this and other methods in subsequent posts). I was able to successfully navigate breastfeeding my fourth child without getting pregnant.

However, my hormones started acting up in very obvious ways shortly after giving birth. None of the doctors I spoke to about it could give me an answer. I was experiencing what is known as “tail-end brown bleeding” from the end of my menstrual cycle on up to and including the day of ovulation. I went to two OB/GYNs and a hematology specialist. The answers I received ranged from “it is normal” to “there is nothing wrong.” Not one of them could explain this very obviously abnormal symptom. They all seemed unconcerned even though I knew that something was up.

I continued my research of the female reproductive system, as I realized that neither the Billings Ovulation method nor the Sympto/Thermal Method did anything to help the women who had health problems such as PCOS, endometriosis, infertility, or in my case abnormal bleeding.

Natural Family Planning With Irregular Cycles

My continued search for answers led me to another method of natural family planning called the Creighton Model FertilityCare System. The Creighton Model is considered the gold standard of the natural family planning world. Creighton has been able to research and document in a woman’s chart hormonal irregularities and how they relate to her overall fertility and health. Finally, I had a method of not only diagnosing but also treating the abnormality I experienced. With the use of the Creighton Model and NaPro Technology it is possible to work cooperatively with a woman’s cycle to help seek treatment for health problems like my abnormal bleeding pattern.

I fell in love with this method and went through the extensive training course to become a presenter and promoter for the Creighton Model. I originally set out to become a practitioner for this method so that I could help other women get the education they needed. I soon learned about the politics that surround natural family planning. We’ve all heard the jokes. “You know what you call a woman who uses natural family planning?……….. Pregnant.” Well, that pretty much sums up what most people think of natural family planning. Teachers are abundantly available for those interested in learning any method of natural family planning; but there is much more work to be done to change our culture’s current paradigm surrounding natural family planning

Luckily, we have come pretty far over the last decade. There is ever more press and discussion these days about the side effects of hormonal birth control (I will add a few links here). More and more women are deciding against hormonal birth control. Though, there is still much work to be done,natural family planning is becoming a viable alternative to the pill and other devices.

A New Approach: Fertility Awareness

Fertility Awareness is catching on as the new bias free catch phrase for a concept that has been around since the beginning of the birth control explosion. I have dedicated my life to spreading and sharing the wonder that is natural “organic birth control.” What we women really need is more voices who advocate for, and promote today’s modern Fertility Awareness Methods (FAM).

Over the coming weeks, I will be writing articles about the various methods of Fertility Awareness; the pros, the cons and my personal experiences with each. If you’d like learn how to navigate pregnancy naturally or if you have been diagnosed with a women’s health problem that you are currently treating with birth control, follow me on Hormones Matter. If you’d like to share your own experiences with natural family planning and fertility awareness, click Write for Us and send us a note.

The Quest for Contraception and the Plight of the Inbetweener

by Lana Hanson

Published on September 6, 2013

2226 views

When you read about what women did in ancient Greece and Rome to ward off unwanted pregnancies, you’re tempted to do a full-on spit-take! I mean, our doomed sisters had to rely on wild dances and fancy amulets to keep sperm out of the egg’s personal space.

Ever wonder how that worked out for them?

Well, we women of today also face so many nightmarish birth control options – all sorts of pills and devices that could kill us – that the ancient one of crossing your fingers as you open your legs actually sounds like a refreshing idea.

So is it really preposterous for us to want safe and affordable contraception? Is it too much to ask that a woman be able to avoid the dilemma aborting a fetus or not by safely and affordably not getting pregnant at all? Not all of us pine away to be like that ideal reality show rabbit – AHEM! I mean multi-mother – Michelle Duggar.

The struggle for reasonable contraception only gets worse for “Inbetweeners”: that growing segment of women who fall between the cracks of “too poor” and “earns too much income to qualify for…” Inbetweeners defy many stereotypes: they can be married, single, or divorced, childless or not. They can be women who’ve been thrown for a loop yet not knocked down, by huge financial setbacks like divorce, loss of home, death of a spouse, personal illness, depression and/or job loss. Inbetweeners often don’t appear “needy” in appearance or attitude though they are.

You can think of Inbetweeners as the Indiana Joneses looking for what I’ll call The Holy Grail of Contraception. Sure, their jobs might not entail surviving fire pits or jumping over piles of writhing snakes; but they toil long hours for minimum wage and have no affordable health insurance.

This propels them to the doors of Planned Parenthood, where they hope to find some contraceptive security. But Planned Parenthood has it’s own struggles. Often Planned Parenthood is at the mercy of the companies and programs that supply its contraceptives and arbitrarily change their prices. That means countless women suddenly and inexplicably get kicked off programs that have supply reduced cost birth control, leaving these Inbetweeners in the dust because they’re sorely stretched to pay the staggering full price on just a one month’s supply of birth control. And Planned Parenthood staffers, no matter how sympathetic, can only shrug and say “I’m sorry.”

And Ms. Inbetweener can dream on about the possibility of getting a reduced-cost IUD! If she’s not destitute enough, these programs snatch that possibility from her desperate uterus, ‘cause the regular price for an IUD runs into the hundreds. In many cases, using birth control isn’t totally about avoiding unwanted pregnancy. For example, an IUD stanches periods that can be out of control and create havoc in the life of the sufferer. And many women have limited birth control options due to age or lifestyle habits.

But of course sorry is what an Inbetweener will be if she gets knocked up and can’t provide for the needy little cherub that’s been conceived. Her choices boil down to: Cough up big bucks to stay baby-free, leave the whole responsibility for “protection” with her partner (fuggeddabboudditt!), or have one baby after another, get even poorer and more dependent on public assistance, and find herself accused of “living off the system.”

Inbetweeners aren’t financially irresponsible; it’s just that once the bills are paid, they don’t have much left for food, never mind paying for reproductive freedom. Yet they wish to make mature choices about reproducing – and shouldn’t that be respected???

Any which way an Inbetweener tries to seek help, she is discriminated. There’s just no way to win at being a grown, responsible and sexual woman in America.

Still, we women have always been more resilient than we’ve ever let on. The ladies of ancient Greece and Rome knew it in their bones as they whirled feverishly to stave off undesirable futures. Their light fingers rubbed the milky amulets while prayers dripped from their quivering lips. Though their choice always teetered between peril and bliss, they still fiercely claimed it.

Let’s not be lesser sisters than our ancient ones – let’s keep up the good fight for safe and affordable contraception they started as best they could, long ago!

Is Biology Destiny? Being Female and Hormonal Birth Control

by Holly Grigg-Spall

Published on September 5, 2013

3068 views

What does it feel like to be female?

Why is discussion of female biology so controversial?

How does “biology is not destiny” thinking and anti-essentialism impact how we think about being female?

In a blog post I wrote some years back titled ‘Beyond Female’ I asked those questions. It would later became the catalyst for my forthcoming book ‘Sweetening the Pill or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control.’ Over the years, I had come to realize discussing biology, and specifically female biology, was a very contentious issue mired in the politics of the “biology is not destiny” mantra of mainstream feminism. The notion that biology is not destiny impacts how we view birth control and as such it precludes the very mention of any potential dangers associated with hormonal contraception. What follows here is an excerpt from my book with some additional text specifically for Hormones Matter^TM, where I explore what it means to be female and the role the pill plays in that discussion.

Female Biology is Important

In order for us to be able to honestly and openly discuss that the pill negatively impacts women it must be acknowledged that female biology is important. Such a discussion cannot avoid the claim that female bodies are different from male bodies.

By arguing that a drug changes female biology and negatively impacts mood specifically, it must be admitted that our experience of life is connected to our biology. It is necessarily claimed that who we are is linked to our biology. To say that the ovulatory cycle, a specifically female bodily system, can not be shut down and ignored without serious repercussion, because it is vitally important to women’s health, is to run the risk of inciting the furor of those who feel they have fought long and hard to wrestle down and defeat the connection between women and their bodies. Such statements are controversial. Even using the word ‘female’ can be contentious today.

In regards to the pill, we need to talk about “women” and “femaleness” because this is integral to how and why the pill came to exist and why it is still taken by so many women. To say that the pill can change the way a woman feels by meddling with her biology reads as anti-feminist. It is also anti-feminist to not take women at their word and validate their personal experience by acknowledging it to be right and true.

Marketing the Pill – Beyond Femaleness

Taking the pill might be seen as an act of trying to get beyond femaleness. As femaleness in our culture is understood in the negative, escaping its confines is good and progressive. Any dislike we develop of being female and of having a female body is rooted in the history of female bodies being seen as problematic and in need of male control.

This drug is not just birth control; it is, as a Yaz tagline once explained “beyond birth control.”

Taking these drugs is about being ‘beyond female.’ Female is not good, female is not something you want, female needs to be controlled, influenced, changed and organized into something neater, easier and less frightening to you and those around you. When we take the pill we shut down the interior indicators of our femaleness. The exterior remains and it is this that makes it acceptable. In actuality, the pill makes women more physically attractive within the boundaries of our Western patriarchal capitalist culture. We are free of messy periods, we may have clearer skin, be slimmer, we may have bigger breasts, and we are supposedly rid of troublesome PMS.

The former YazXpress area of Bayer’s promotional Yaz website asked women to ‘Get with the program!’ Women taking or interested in taking Yaz were able to sign up for an “insider’s guide to Yaz, fashion, music and style.” The articles in this guide were co-created by the magazine editors at Elle and Cosmopolitan, the pages of which frequently feature print adverts for birth control brands. Yaz was associated with an affluent, glamorous way of life.

Taking Yaz would lead to the life of an attractive, confident ‘Sex And The City’ type of woman. Coolness, sexiness, modernity and glamor were linked to taking this brand.

In 2009 Bayer took on Lo Bosworth, star of The Hills, a popular Los Angeles-based reality show about a group of twenty-something women aspiring to make it in Hollywood, as a spokeswoman for Yaz in Canada. Of her support for the drug, Bosworth remarked, “As a ‘Gen Yer’ working in the entertainment industry, I need to be disciplined. I need to make sure I’m taking care of myself so nothing interrupts my day.”

Plastic Surgery versus the Pill

Although certain procedures have entered the mainstream in the US, women who have plastic surgery can come up against much criticism. Discussion circles around ideas of women taking plastic surgery choices too far, getting obsessed with making changes, making choices based on their insecurities or in response to difficult experiences such as the failing career and the bad break up. A woman who chooses to undergo plastic surgery is choosing to change her body. She is exerting control over her body. She is choosing to be ‘beyond’ human through changing her very physicality. She is choosing to not age or not submit to what her genes, her biology, have given her.

How does plastic surgery factor under the women’s liberation message of “my body, my choice” and why is so much said about the psychological and social impacts of this choice?

Why are people who have lots of plastic surgery a concern, but not people who take a drug to shut down their ovulatory cycle, stop their periods and ‘perfect’ their bodies from the inside out?

Environmental Estrogens

We are used to seeing labels for “BPA-free” plastics as we have become more aware of the synthetic estrogens in many everyday plastic products. One study shows seventy percent of items made of plastic leach chemicals that act like estrogen.

The perfected body, as our ideology teaches, is not female but male. If we shut down the essential biological center of femaleness, the primary sexual characteristics, then can we say that women on the pill are still “female”? The mythology of the pill reveals how femininity is valued within our society. Women on the pill still have their secondary sexual characteristics. We understand judgment and valuation of our femininity is directly correlated with our appearance, significantly our attractiveness. Women who are not attractive by the Western cultural standards have their femaleness questioned, as do women who have less defined visual secondary sexual characteristics, such as smaller breasts or a wider waistline or shorter legs. The ideal body in this age of plastic surgery has exaggerated exterior signs of femininity.

Legitimate Concerns For Oral Contraceptives

In a piece for the Vice magazine website, porn actress Stoya writes on her experience choosing a birth control method. She admits she feels hormonal contraceptives are the best choice for an actress having sex with men but states, “the pill and I don’t seem to get along well.” After suffering with side effects in her teens Stoya had not considered using the pill again until she began performing in scenes with men. She started taking the latest brand, “Four months into taking Yaz, I was miserable. I bled profusely the whole time. Instead of migraines once or twice a month, I had them multiple times a week. I had intense mood swings and was constantly dizzy. I had planned on giving it another one or two months, hoping that my body would adjust, and then I fainted while waiting in line at the bank.”

She came off Yaz and four years later decided to try Ortho Tricyclen Lo, but only lasted three months. She now takes Loestrin 24 Fe and still experiences continuous bleeding and mood swings but describes how pleased she is with one particular side effect – an increase in the size of her breasts, “Dragging myself out of bed became a herculean effort, and the idea of showering or brushing my teeth was beyond my abilities. Everything felt tragic and hopeless. My only redeeming qualities were my tits. They were by no means giant hooters, but they were noticeably fuller, which was pretty cool. I started to think hormonal birth control was a patriarchal plot to keep women down by rendering us completely loony. The question, “How can we ever break the glass ceiling, if we can’t stop crying?” actually came out of my mouth. I still feel nuts, but hey… at least this B-cup kind of fits.”

Stoya has self-awareness and insight into her situation but she sacrifices her health and well-being partly, it seems, because she’s not aware of the alternatives or feels they are off-limits to her. She wryly jokes about her predicament.

Female Sexuality

A woman on the pill is likely to experience low libido and will certainly feel some detachment from her sexuality. The feeling of sexuality is different from female sexuality, but is vitally important, as it is personal to women and separate from their relationships to men. Not feeling sexual could lead to a desire to look exaggeratedly sexual and to appear and behave very sexually in an act of over-compensation. Such a desire can be fulfilled in part through plastic surgery.

The Blame Game – On Being Hormonal

We support modifying and suppressing our bodily functions with science to perfect our faulty bodies even when we are generally healthy and well, and even when the notion of what it means to be faulty is so spurious. When experiencing the side effects from hormonal contraceptives women have a tendency to blame what they view as their own overly hormonal, unpredictable, difficult bodies that in reacting negatively to these drugs are behaving badly. It is their bodies that are not good enough for the drugs.

Medical Marketing and Birth Control

Even if we are not ill, science is making us better. We are becoming better humans, better women. The pill is no longer about birth control; it is about being a better, improved woman. It is about moving beyond our femaleness, about asserting loudly that biology is not destiny; but should it be?

Pharmaceutical companies move the target constantly from birth control to menstruation suppression, from acne control to mood control and in so doing they are betraying their motivations. By medicalizing the normal physiology of the female body, and saying overtly that it needs to be controlled and improved upon they are betraying the foundations of pill promotion. If we believe we should get beyond our femaleness we are accepting that women’s bodies are bad and need to be made good. The consumer economy is crafty; it will always find an avenue for assimilation. The pharmaceutical companies are listening at the door to our presumed post-feminist talk. What do you think?

About the Author: Holly Grigg-Spall is a writer and activist. Her work has featured in the Washington Post and the UK Times and Independent newspapers. She has contributed to re:Cycling, the F-Bomb, Bedside Manners, Ms. magazine’s blog, and Bitch, amongst others. You can find out more about her forthcoming book ‘Sweetening the Pill’ and documentary project at Sweetening the Pill, on Holly’s Facebook page or by following Holly on twitter: @hollygriggspall.

Participate in Research

Hormones Matter^TM is conducting research on the use patterns and side effects associated with oral contraceptives – the birth control pill. If you have used and/or are currently using oral contraceptives as a birth control option, please take this important, anonymous survey. The Oral Contraceptives Survey.

To take one of our other Real Women. Real Data.^TM surveys, click here.

To sign up for our newsletter and receive weekly updates on the latest research news, click here.

Hormones Matter

Where health, hormones, and a whole bunch of other stuff, make sense.

hormonal birth control - Page 5

Being a Feminist: Hormonal Birth Control Not Required

The F Words – Feminism and Freedom

Why is Birth Control the Sole Responsibility of Women?

Information or Patronization?

A Stroke from Hormonal Birth Control: Part 2

Recovering from a Stroke

Searching for Answers

Was It My Fault?

Real Risk Study: Birth Control and Blood Clots

Why I am Backing Sweetening the Pill, the Documentary

Sweetening the Pill, the Documentary

Participate in Research about Oral Contraceptives