The good, the bad and the ugly. Who am I kidding?! We already know the good thing about birth control pills. They prevent pregnancy 99% of the time. They are useful and every woman should have a right to access them.
What I also believe every woman should have a right to is informed consent. We should be told about the possible short term and long term side effects of these little pills we take every day. Would women still take the pills if they knew about the effects, yes, but some wouldn’t.
Hormonal birth control pills use synthetic hormones to shut down your own hormone production. These synthetic hormones change your cervical mucus, your uterine lining, and do not allow for a normal period to occur. In fact, the “period” you experience while taking birth control pills is actually a withdraw bleed from the hormones. There is also a slew of minor and major side effects that can come with it.
Birth control is often prescribed to “fix” issues that women present with, acne, heavy bleeding, painful periods, irregular periods, the list goes on. What is the problem with this? It doesn’t fix the problem at all. It simply may mask the symptoms, but once you stop taking the pill, the problems can and in most cases do return.
It’s a disservice to women to be prescribed a pill that doesn’t address the root cause. Irregular periods can be caused by many things, PCOS, hormonal imbalances, blood sugar imbalances, endometriosis, some really big issues. These are issues that can have life long impacts and impacts on fertility. Wouldn’t it be better to address the issue, figure out a solution to heal or manage the issue instead of masking the problem? What if you have irregular, painful periods and the solution offered is birth control. Then you decide to get married and start a family so you get off birth control, but the issues you were having before have returned and you struggle with infertility, for years. How is that helping us?
The medical profession NEEDS to change. They need to listen to us when we present problems and dig deeper. We also need to advocate for ourselves and educate ourselves because these changes are not going to happen overnight.
Educate yourselves, educate your daughters so we can make better, informed decisions about our bodies.