“When I first started taking birth control pills, I didn’t notice any side effects. After a couple of months though, I felt like I was gaining weight. It wasn’t anything substantial, but it was enough for me to notice and be bothered by it. I also started to notice a shift in my mood. I felt like I was crabbier and was easily irritated by things that hadn’t bothered me before. The worst side effect of birth control that I experienced was migraines. They would come right before I got my period, right after, when I was sleep deprived, or when I was stressed. I would first experience the aura, which made me lose my vision. Shortly after I would get a headache, which lasted for almost exactly three hours every time. I would get extremely nauseous and would often throw up. So I decided to stop taking birth control.
And when I stopped, I lost weight, noticed an improvement in my mood and no longer experienced migraines.
After doing some additional research into the use of birth control pills and the side effect of migraines, I learned that people who experience the aura before the headache and are on birth control have a much higher chance of having a stroke.”
And for those of you who are wondering, the aura is “a recurring headache that strikes after or at the same time as sensory disturbances” (Mayo Clinic, 2019)
Emily is only one of the countless women who experience adverse side-effects from hormonal birth control. A 2016 study survey from the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada showed that 51% of women reported unwanted side effects from the pill.
Side note- besides the fact that birth control has countless adverse side effects, it’s just not as effective as everyone seems to think. According to the Mayo Clinic, 9 in 100 women will get pregnant while on the pill in the first year of using it. (2019) Additionally, another serious side-effect that no-one is talking about is the risk of depression and suicide.
Mental Health
According to a 2017 study that followed just under half a million women for an average of 8.3 years, the use of hormonal birth control is positively correlated with suicide. And adolescent women are at the most risk. Does that sound like health care?
The study goes on to note that “the relative risk of a first suicide attempt increased rapidly after initiation of hormonal contraceptive use, compared with never use, and it remained at least doubled until 1 year after initiation.” So women who begin using hormonal birth control are twice as likely to attempt suicide during their first year of using it. After the first year (which is a looong time) the risk of suicide decreases but it is still 30% higher than woman who have never used hormonal birth control. (Skovlund, Morch, Kessing, Lidegaard, 2017)
And that is just for attempted suicides. In another study by Skovlund et. al, they found that women on hormonal birth control have a 70% higher risk of being diagnosed with depression compared to women who have never used it. (2016)
These findings illustrate the necessity of talking about this issue. Is your doctor warning you about these life-threatening side-effects? Real health care prioritizes the well-being of women, it doesn’t endanger their lives. Beyond the fact that hormonal birth control has deadly side effects, it also nullifies the femininity of women. Shouldn’t feminism embrace the things that make women feminine?
Empowering?
The sexual revolution in the 60’s let the world know that women are sexual beings. True? Of course. Society realized that women actually have a sex drive – crazy right? However, the sexual revolution (as well as modern-day feminism, might I add) hailed hormonal birth control as the all-powerful tool that liberates women. That’s where the concerns come in.
- Birth Control strips women of the one major thing that makes them uniquely feminine.The irony of modern-day feminism is that women are attempting to essentially shut-off their femininity. Hormonal birth control is the only thing in medicine that shuts down a healthy bodily system. And it just so happens to be the system that makes us women. (Yes, women are more than their reproductive systems, but biologically speaking) The ability to conceive and carry a living human being is honestly insane. Isn’t that something worth celebrating? What’s empowering about manipulating our bodies? Shouldn’t we as women, celebrate our beautiful, unique bodies as they are, biology and all?
- A common side-effect of hormonal birth control is lower-libido.Again, how ironic. Birth control: the thing that is supposed to make women more sexually available, makes them want to have sex even less. A 2006 study in the Journal of Sexual medicine found that women who take the pill often have a lower sex drive while taking it, but their low libido can last even after discontinuing their use of hormonal contraceptives. Mind = blown.
- What’s empowering about elevated blood pressure, nausea, and depression?Nothing that I can think of. As we have already discussed, the bottom line is that hormonal birth control is not good for us as women. For more information on the negative health effects on women, click here.
Though we only heard the story of one woman today, she is far from alone. Take a look at BBC’s article “It Sucked”, which outlines eight different women from around the globe who’ve had negative experiences with the pill.
References
Skovlund, Morch, Kessing, Lidegaard, 2016
Skovlund, Morch, Kessing, Lidegaard, 2017
Vitti, 2017