Expert: Brigid Kowalczyk - 3/9/2006

Question
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Followup To
Question -
I am just wondering on what basis you gather your opinion of birth control.  What is your educational background, I guess is what I'm asking?  You may think you are making a strong argument, especially about the side effects, but have you looked at any other medication. All medication has side effects, for example if you look up insulin it has serous side effects but give people the ability to live a normal day-to-day life. For women that need it not only as birth control but also as a way to control menstrual symptoms, birth control can be extremely effective.  I am also wondering where you got you information on OCP increasing risk of cancer because in all of my sources OCP have been shown to decrease risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer (cancer in the lining of your uterus), ovarian and breast cysts, and pelvic inflammatory disease and ectopic pregnancy. Also because the pill, or the patch in that matter, regulates the hormones they make the skin more even and reduce acne. You said in your blurb that synthetic hormone use is actually rarely justified.  Do you have any idea about the synethic hormones that are used daily to keep people living normal and healthy lives.  Some hormones that come to mind are thyroid hormone, and pancreatic hormones used to help the ilets cell produce insuling to glucogon used when people are hypoglycemic. An other hormone is growth hormone and not to mention again insulin.  Insulin that is sythetic, that keeps people alive.

Based on all of what has been said I think you should help people make an informed decision, with both sides of the information not just, your one sided view on the matter.

Just some food for thought
Amanda
Answer -
The big difference between taking artificial reproductive hormones and insulin, thyroid, etc. is that there is nothing broken.  Fertility is a natural state and these drugs turn a natural function into a disease that needs treatment, with all the side effects.  No one needs to be kept alive with the pill as they do with insulin and some of the other hormones that definitely improve quality of life.  

Menstrual pain, excessive bleeding, acne, irregular periods are signs of problems but the pill doesn't actually fix those problems.  It only masks them and actually prevents treatment because the underlying cause is not being determined and corrected.  

Basically, women take the pill because they want to have sex whenever they want without getting pregnant.  Sex is a natural thing as is the result of sex, which is pregnancy. Contraception makes pregnancy a disease.  And the side effects that result compound the problem.  I don't think it is a risk worth taking but many women don't think any farther than this week or next month.  

I stand by my "one-sided view" which I consider to be actually the "other side" of the common Politically Correct view, which you hold.  And I do appreciate that you are thinking about it at all.  I hope you will read the package insert that comes with the packages of contraceptives because everything I listed is there.  

Study Finds Adverse Sexual Side Effects of Birth Control Pills
The birth control pill can have significant adverse effects on sexuality and mood in some women, increasing the likelihood of early discontinuation, according to a study by the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University.
Of the women in the study who started on the pill, 38 percent were still taking it after one year, 47 percent had stopped, and 14 percent had switched to another pill. The women who stopped or changed to another pill were four times as likely to report adverse sexual, emotional and physical side effects as the women who continued with their oral contraceptive. Some of these effects included decrease in sexual thoughts, less frequent intercourse and negative mood changes.
There is no way of predicting which women are likely to experience adverse mood or sexuality effects from oral contraceptives, or which oral contraceptive formulations are more likely to be responsible.   Estrogen can clearly cause breast cancer. There is just no way around it. I cannot think of one clinical indication for birth control pills and believe that no one should use them.
Do birth control chemicals have unpleasant side-effects or health hazards?
Combined OCs
Side effects of birth control pills can include:

•   Increased risk of breast and cervical cancers
•   Increased risk of blood clotting, heart attack and stroke
•   Migraines and headaches
•   Gall bladder disease
•   Increased blood pressure
•   Weight gain
•   Mood changes
•   Acne and/or oily skin
•   Nausea/Vomiting (especially at the beginning)
•   Nausea
•   Irregular bleeding or spotting
•   Benign liver tumors
•   Breast tenderness
•   Yeast overgrowth and infection

Progestin-Only Methods
•   Common Side-Effects (not comprehensive)
o   Untimely bleeding or spotting between periods
o   Prolonged menstrual bleeding (8 days or more)
o   No bleeding at all (amenorrhea) for several months or over a year
o   Headache (very common)
o   Nervousness/anxiety
o   Lower abdominal pain
o   Dizziness
o   Loss of sex drive (libido)
o   Depression
o   Acne and/or oily skin
o   Change of appetite
o   Weight gain
o   Breast tenderness (mastalgia)
o   Increased facial or body hair growth (hirsutism) or hair loss
o   Whitish vaginal discharge (leukorrhea)
o   Excessive growth of body/facial hair or hair loss
o   Infection the implants site for Norplant
o   A brief period of pain or itching
o   Enlarged ovarian follicles
o   Bone density loss

•   Less Common Serious Health Hazards
o   Ectopic pregnancy
o   Cancer

The most important thing to remember about hormonal birth control methods such as the pill is that they are synthetic hormones. It isn't healthy for a woman to be exposed to them.  In fact, their long-term use will invariably increase a woman's risk of developing serious chronic illness. In addition to increasing health risks as dangerous as cancer and blood clots, birth control pills also deplete important nutrients, including vitamins B2, B6 and B12.


The use of birth control pills or synthetic hormones is actually rarely justified. If you're using birth control pills to control menstrual cycles, irregular bleeding, cysts or endometriosis, you are not treating the underlying dysfunction. Instead, you are simply increasing the risks to your health.


It is essential to balance the adrenal glands in these situations, as cortisol levels modulate and control the female hormones, especially progesterone. The pill only treats the symptoms instead of the disease, and causes its own side effects as your body continues to remain in an unhealthy state.  In addition, long term use of the pill will permanently damage your libido, your desire for sex.  Permanently.  It won't come back.

There are always two sides.   





Thank you for copying and pasting you anwser to the previous persons question, but I still do wonder what you education is on this subject.  Some other things that I have thought of, some women become severly anemic, do to prolonged menstration, and the pill, regulates their hormones to make their period shorter their for the loss of blood is less.  Also for a person with ovarian cysts, what would you suggest they do, since you are against the pill for them to alleviate  the pain that they have, do you suggest surgery.  Becuase even pain medications are not treating the cause.  how about women diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome they are prescribed oral contraceptives to lower their hormone levels back to normal and regulate menstrual periods. how else would you suggest treating them.

I would like some personal feedback this time and please just not another copy of your orignal posting.

Answer
My education is a bachelor degree in legal studies and communication.  My expertise is in Natural Family Planning because I believe in it and I practiced it.  Because very few people inquire about NFP, I am usually answering questions about the pill.  I have done research.  I have a good understanding just from the questions I am asked about the problems with the pill.

Those illnesses you mention (anemia, ovarian cysts, PCOS) are serious, problems.  They affect quality of life and perhaps in those cases, treatment with hormones is the best option.  I am not a doctor.  If a woman wrote to me with those problems I would not give her my standard answer, which you've already seen.  I would suggest that she get a second opinion because I believe that there a some natural, more effective ways to treat most anything in order to avoid the pill.  But I wouldn't tell her to stop taking it.

However, for most women, the pill is a choice made without much thought about the health consequences.  That is important to me.  I also think there are spiritual and emotional consequences and if I think she will be interested I will give her information about that as well.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain myself.  I hope this has helped you.  Your examples are areas where the pill is not being used for contraception.  When it is being used for contraception is where I have a problem.  Why cause damage to something that isn't sick?  

Besides, the pill isn't even that effective as a contraceptive and gives people a false sense of control.  Even while taking it they worry.  I get questions all the time about being on the pill and missing a period or being late and "could I be pregnant?"  With Natural Family Planning, you know if you are pregnant, you know when you ovulate, you know if there is something wrong.