4 Things You Need To Know About The Birth Control Pill
It’s always been imperative that women and anyone taking hormonal birth control understands how it works in the body. Unfortunately, somehow, this is not information that gets passed on by medical professionals when it’s being recommended or prescribed. 80% of women I talk to between the ages of 13 and the early 40’s are not aware of how the pill or various IUD’s are preventing pregnancy or “regulating their cycle” of they’ve been put on it for hormonal issues. This is worrying to me on many levels. The main one being that we deserve full disclosure about how something we are taking works and effects our bodies. Always. but especially something that is significantly altering an intricate and natural process in the body that effects multiple other systems. It’s worrying to me on a more subtle level as well which is that women are very complicit in this culture of being uninformed about our bodies. Especially when it comes to our reproductive systems.
I don’t believe this willingness to be uninformed and disconnected from our bodies is inherent. I believe it is inherited and taught, and is a by product of being conditioned by a system and culture that expects us to be silent when we’re in pain, to have IUD’s inserted without any pain management options, that doesn’t believe us when we speak up about said pain, that expects us to be solely responsible for whether we get pregnant or not, and that puts the responsibility of not being sexually assaulted onto women. It’s the same system that tells us if we are connected to our bodies, like them, enjoy sex, and generally don’t deny ourselves pleasure, that we’re sluts and whores. And at the same time wants us to be sexy and coy and turned on, and sexually versed at the drop of a hat. All while ignoring our body the rest of the time. We live in a country with puritanical religious roots that pervade our culture even in non religious settings or communities. Denying women reproductive rights and sovereignty over our bodies is not about preserving life or saving the unborn. It’s about control and keeping women in their place. It’s the same place that unequal pay and rape culture come from.
Most women are inundated with these messages, both overtly and subtly from well before puberty. We observe it the women around us. In the movies we watch. In the fairy tales that are read to us as children.
And then it really hits when we enter puberty. At some point we take it all in and believe it originated with us. And then we don’t question when we’re recommend birth control with zero education or information, or when our daughter is prescribed the pill at age 13 for “irregular periods”.
It's not about not using hormonal birth control. It’s about understanding how it works and effects the body and making an informed choice from that place. It’s about believing we deserve information and that being connected to our bodies is a good thing.
It’s also about education. And being willing to look at our own inherited beliefs and how we willingly or unconsciously participate in the system that oppresses us. So we don’t pass it on to the next generations. I tell women, if it’s too scary to do it for yourself, do it for your kids, or your nieces and nephews. But also, please let’s do it for ourselves.
The birth control pill is, and was, revolutionary when it became available in the 1960’s. At first it was only given to married women and was illegal otherwise. If you were single, you had to lie about it until 1972 when the Supreme Court made a decision in a case to allow unmarried women access to contraceptives. It was also specifically designed to mimic the menstrual cycle so it would appear like a woman was still menstruating and fertile. This is where the 5-7 days of sugar pills come into it.
I wholeheartedly believe that birth control should be accessible and available to anyone who feels it’s the best choice for them. Study after study show that in communities where there is actual non-biased, non religion based sex education, access to contraception, and access to safe abortion, abortion rates are very low. As in teen pregnancy. Duh.
And. There are ways to prevent pregnancy that aren’t hormonal birth control and ways to heal and balance hormonal and reproductive issues and conditions that are not hormonal birth control. The issue is the lack of education and full disclosure of information regarding how it all works, and how to effectively support the body while on it if that’s the best thing.
4 Things You Need to Know About The Pill.
1. An individual on the pill is not having a menstrual cycle. The pill works through eliminating the menstrual cycle including ovulation in order to prevent pregnancy. This is why many symptoms “go away” on the pill. They aren’t getting better. The cycle that they are occurring in is not happening.
2. The 5-7 days of different colored, or sugar pills when you bleed is not a period. It’s called break through bleeding and is a result of the body reacting to the change in hormones due to the cocktail being different in those pills, for those days.
3. The pill is nutritionally depleting to certain nutrients like b vitamins, vitamins C & E, magnesium, selenium, zinc, folate and vitamin D. Take a high quality multi vitamin and an additional b vitamin complex, as well as a possible additional magnesium supplement if your daily doesn’t have a significant amount. Focus on super good nutrition by eating lots of veggies, whole fruit, protein, healthy fat, and complex carbohydrates from whole food sources.
Because of the extra load on the liver to process the added hormones in the pill, it’s a good ides to include liver care into your healthcare routine. This looks like drinking ginger tea daily in the colder months, greatly reducing refined sugar in your diet, & greatly reducing alcohol. All things that are hard on the liver to process.
4. If someone is being recommended or prescribed the pill for hormonal imbalances in their cycle, all of those issues will be there when they get off the pill. With the possibility of new ones depending how long someone spent on the pill. Working with the root causes of imbalances is the way to heal long term and have sustainable changes in reproductive health. The pill is a band aid for reproductive issues and they will have to be addressed at some point if someone wants to come off the birth control for health reasons or wanting to conceive someday.
We deserve to understand how our bodies work, how things effect them, and to have the options and perspectives to make the best choices for ourselves at any given time of our lives. How much more do we have to craft words and narratives to convey that we are people, want our rights, and since this is our body, we should be the arbiters of whatever happens in them and to them.
xoxo Zara