International Women’s Day 2021
A day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievments of women.
It’s got me thinking about a topic I often think about, but don’t often talk about. Something that effects all women at some point in their life. That is contraception and the development and use of the oral contraceptive pill.
“The Pill” was first approved for use by the FDA in 1960. I was considered a huge win for women and to be honest, I would have to agree. We could now have a much easier choice in a decision which impacts our life and body in so many ways.
And yet I am going to tell you something. I have never been happier, healthier and more empowered than when I made the choice NOT to take the pill.
The pill was designed to bring an element of freedom, and it can do that. However, overtime as our knowledge of how this drug works has increased I feel women have been done a disservice. What started out as a huge win has subtly twisted and turned to become another way women’s rights are breached. Let me tell you how.
The pill is known to cause significant nutrient depletion issues.
Nutrients including B-complex vitamins, selenium, zinc, magnesium, folate and vitamin E https://www.europeanreview.org/article/4579 . All of these are nutrients needed by your body for many different functions, to keep you healthy, full of energy, with a strong immune system and eventually able to conceive should you ever want to. Because, young women in particular are likely to eat diets that are low in these nutrients, it is considered and important first line approach for prescribing clinicians to discuss supplementation with their patients. And yet, when did you ever hear of this happening? If something that impacts my health in a negative way is well known and yet I am not told how to avoid it, I feel like that is a breach of right’s.
NOTE: If you want to or need to take the pill, then these nutrients needs can be supported by a good quality supplement.
The pill is known to increase risk of depression and even suicide.
https://drbrighten.com/birth-control-and-mood-swings/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29145752/
The studies are mixed on this one and tricky because of confounding factors, but something this serious is no joking matter. If there is any doubt, any risk, then we need to know. To protect and watch all the young girls going on the pill for justified reasons at a very vulnerable age. To not discuss this is to use an apparent freedom against us.
The pill is known to cause intestinal hyperpermeability (leaky gut) and disrupt your microbiome.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26658991/
This can lead to increased risk of nutrient deficiencies, inflammatory bowel conditions like ulcerative colitis and crohn’s and even auto-immune conditions. There is stuff we can do to help mitigate the risks, but not being told these risks when it is pretty well established is not what I call a win for women’s rights.
The Pill doesn’t “balance” hormones
We are constantly told that the pill will “balance” our hormones. This is really a stretch of truth. In most cases the oral contraceptive pill stops ovulation entirely. An anovulatory cycle means no natural progesterone and disruption to all the other essential hormones of the female cycle. That’s not balance.
The connection between our brain and our ovaries takes time to establish and settle following puberty and the hormones involved in that special connection have many beneficial impacts on health besides reproduction. Just going straight in and turning them off is a classic reductionist approach, where the interlinked systems of the body are separated into individual machine like cycles. This one is a complex topic and one all females should understand. In my opinion, no one describes and discusses it better than Lara Briden in her book “The Period Repair Manual” https://www.larabriden.com/. If you’re a female, or have females in your care then I urge you to get a copy and have a read.
I believe the development of the pill was a win for women.
But what would also be a win is to have easy access to all the known information about it so we can make an empowered choice to take it or not, depending on our needs.
Because readily handing out a drug that can and does have the potential to have long term impact on a persons health, without also sharing the information on how to mitigate the risks is not right. In fact it could be seen as a way to keep women sick, depressed and trapped, all the while thinking they have freedom of choice.
The choice is an individual one.
The choice is an individual one, and for me right now it’s a big ol’ NO THANK YOU. For a number of years the pill kept me emotionally flat, constantly battling my weight and with no libido (which totally sucks) and now I have taken the time to re-establish my cycle, get to know how it all works and I couldn’t be happier.
For many of you ladies, taking the pill is a necessary and a good thing and that’s awesome as well. So the purpose of my post on International Women’s Day is to tell you, there is stuff we haven’t been told. But let’s just fix that now by talking about it. It’s not secret info, its free to anyone who wants to know. And above all there are options, the pill is clever, but so is your body.
