Topic: oral contraceptives

Stop Giving The Pill All The Credit—Penicillin Actually Launched Sexual Revolution

Stop Giving The Pill All The Creditâ��Penicillin Actually Launched Sexual Revolution

Once upon a time, young men and women couldn’t go about having sex all willy-nilly without worry, but then along came the Pill, divorcing us from our reproductive destinies and ushering in the sexual revolution—or so the story goes. A new economic analysis, however, shows how this legend may give birth control too much credit. A bigger factor in launching the modern sexual milieu may be the widespread use of penicillin for treating syphilis. More »

Study Confirms: You Should Ditch The Pill For An IUD Or Implant

Just as Southerners sometimes say “Coke” to mean any sort of soda, you often hear the term “birth control” used to refer explicitly to the pill. Hormonal, oral contraceptives are entrenched as the go-to way to prevent pregnancy in the United States, and not without some good reasons. But long-lasting birth control methods, like IUDs and skin implants could be a better option for many women. Not only can they cut back on certain pill-related side effects, but a large new study finds women are much less likely to get pregnant using one of these instead of the birth control pill, patch or vaginal ring. More »

Pfizer Recalls Birth Control Packs With Placebos Where Actual Pills Should Be

Whoa. Pharmaceutical giant Pfzer is recalling one million packs of birth control pills because they’re filled with placebos. Anyone who’s taken birth control pills knows that the last week’s worth of pills—the ones you take when you’re on your period—are merely sugar or placebo pills. Seems a ‘packaging error’ has resulted in these fake pills filling spots where active contraceptive pills should be. More »

Beyaz, The Vitamin-Enhanced Birth Control: A Great Idea For A Terrible Reason

It was brought to my attention today in a Tumblr post by the very-funny Bex Schwartz that there is such a thing as oral contraceptive that also contains vitamins. Which is kind of a neat idea! But, as Schwartz points out in her post, the pill is being hyped for its healthy additive for one very weird/possibly misguided reason. Beyaz, which is like Yaz but with folate, a B vitamin, isn’t looking out for the health of the woman taking the Pill–it has that added health kick to make sure you have a healthy baby in case you accidentally get pregnant while on it. Though, at that point, vitamin deficiency might be the least of your concern. More »

Many Women Use The Pill For So Much More Than Pregnancy Prevention

When I was 16, my very Catholic mother allowed me to get on birth control, at my doctor’s advising, to ‘regulate’ my periods and also help with chronic headaches.* This is a common story amongst women I’ve known—their first experiences with the pill often had nothing to do with pregnancy prevention. But a new Guttmacher Institute study finds it’s not just teens using oral contraceptives this way: 14% of all birth control users rely on the pill solely for non-contraceptive reasons, such as reducing menstrual pain, treating acne or trying to tame irregular periods. More »

Birth Control Pill Once Again Charged With Making Us Pick The ‘Wrong’ Men

A new study lends further credence to the growing body of research on how birth control pills can alter women’s preferences in men. Researchers found women who chose their partner while on oral contraceptives tended to be more satisfied with their relationships in general—overall, they had longer relationships and were less likely to separate than women who didn’t—yet were less sexually satisfied than women who began their relationships while not on the pill. More »

Odds Are Your Birth Control Pill Won’t Cause Gallstones, New Studies Be Damned

A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal this week states that some of the newest and most popular oral contraceptives, including the drospirenone/ethinyl estradiol combo marketed as “Yaz,” could have a scary side effect. According to study author Mahyar Etminan (PharmD, MSc), of the University of British Columbia, data taken from nearly three million women who were on a pill combining ethinyl estradiol combined with one of seven progestins indicates that a small, but significant risk of having gallstones was found. A “small but significant” risk? What does that mean? How small and how significant are we talking? Should we be worried? More »

Birth Control: Why Sterilization Is Secretly More Popular Than the Pill

The recent 50-year anniversary of the pill sparked an onslaught of articles about the revolutionary force of birth control, making it seem like every woman in modern America is benefiting (or suffering) from its use. But according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s newest Statistical Abstract, the pill isn’t the unmatched Goliath of contraceptives it’s made out to be; in fact, sterilization is even more popular — we’re just not talking (or reading) about it nearly as much.

The Census Bureau statistics reveal that, while 61% of women between the ages of 15 and 44 use some form of contraception, only 17.3% of us are actually on the pill. Meanwhile, sterilization is just as responsible (or more) for keeping us from breeding like Catholics. According to the census report, 16.7% of women have been sterilized themselves, and 6.1% have male partners who’ve been sterilized. It’s not a shocker that women between 15 and 44 use methods besides the pill (or none at all), but last we checked, most women weren’t gabbing about sterilization options, either. So why are so many women getting their tubes tied, and why isn’t anyone talking about it? We asked around to find out why sterilization is secretly the most popular kind of birth control. More »

Poll of the Day: Have You Ever Been on the Pill?

The pill is celebrating its 50th anniversary next month! The first oral contraceptive was approved by the FDA on May 9, 1960, and the Pill’s development was named by The Economist as the greatest scientific development of the 20th century. … More »