- Image via Wikipedia
Holly Grigg-Spall has a poll on her blog,”Sweetening The Pill“, which asks “Have you experienced negative side effects from the birth control pill?”. I realize this poll is not scientific and may be somewhat skewed by the the nature of her blog, but based on the warning labels and the mounting bad press lately I am going to guess this poll would show similar results if done more scientifically.
At the time of this post, 126 people have voted with only 16 (12%) saying they have never experienced a negative side effect. That means that 110 women (87%) HAVE experienced at least one negative side effect.
If I tried to sell you a car and I told you there was only a 12% chance that you wouldn’t have any problems, would you buy it? Would you move into a neighborhood where you only had a 12% chance of being safe? If a doctor recommended you take vitamins to help promote a healthy active lifestyle and told you there shouldn’t be any problems even though the warning label said you only had a 12% chance of NOT suffering from a side effect, would you trust the doctors advice?
Two of the most common side effects are feeling bloated and a lack of desire for sex. Think about it, the pill which is supposed to unnaturally give you the freedom to have sex when ever you want to without fear that your body will act naturally might make you feel bloated and uninterested in sex.
The average woman’s body is only fertile for roughly a week out of each month and will provide the woman with multiple indicators announcing her fertility. And yet evidently the need or desire to have sex during a woman’s fertile week without a 100% guarantee their body won’t respond as it was designed to, causes most women to gamble they will be part of the 12% group and not the 87%. Either that or the danger and likely hood of even the most basic side effects let alone the life threatening ones have been down played to them. Could it be a little of both?
I think it boils down to there not really being better contraceptive options out there. Many women aren’t educated enough about their cycles to follow NFP, or they just can’t be bothered. I did it for awhile, but with little ones underfoot who wake you at all hours, it’s impossible to get accurate temp readings. Other BC options have worse side effects than the pill, with the exception maybe of condoms…which have an abysmal failure rate and aren’t very popular in monogamous relationships. So if a woman isn’t interested in sterilization, yet doesn’t want to get pregnant, she really doesn’t have too many options without side effects. It’s ridiculous that we have so few choices in this age of technology and medical advancement.
i usually stick to natural birth control methods because i am a christian, natural birth control has no side effects too.~”;