Posts Tagged ‘birth control’

Last week I was cleaning out my medicine cabinet and came across several bottles of pills with one or two or maybe even more pills in them.  All of the bottles were dated and long since expired, and it got me to wondering.  If I have a problem taking all of a prescription, I must not be alone.

In fact, based on a bit of research, missing pills is a pretty common problem.  A common problem with a pretty big implication when it comes to contraception.  According to Unlocking the Contraception Conundrum, 15 to 30% of women forget to take one or more birth control pill in a given month.  And as Shannon Mills points out in her article, Birth Control Compliance,
         “A compliance study involving 103 women was conducted using electronically monitored pill dispensers to test their compliance. The study found that over half of the women missed at least three pills in one cycle. The average number of missed pills per cycle was 2.6. (Potter et al, 1996). When used incorrectly, the failure rate of oral contraceptives increased from 0.3% to 8%. (Reichman, 2006). Another study conducted in teenagers showed that this age group has an even lower 67% compliance rate with oral contraceptives. (Shaw, 2005). ”

Missing birth control pills has BIG implications – increasing the risk of pregnancy from less than 1% to as much as 13%!

So how do you remember to take your pill and take it consistently?

If you’re looking for some help, give Pill Pixy a try.  Pill Pixy is a free text reminder service provided by Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina that will send a text to your phone every day at a time of your choosing. 

You can sign up by texting pillpixy to 74700.  If you’d like a more subtle reminder.   We can send you reminders to drink water instead, text waterpixy to 74700.

Check out Planned Parenthood’s own Destiny Lopez’s piece about the impact that no-cost birth control would have on Latinas on RH Reality Check today.

At Choice 2.0, we’ve written several times about the benefits of no-cost birth control in a country where the reality is that 98% of all women will use one or more methods of birth control in her lifetime. For Latinas in America, the potential impact is even greater.

Reading Ms. Lopez’s piece got me thinking about a common mistake we (surely it’s not just me?) sometimes make in the reproductive health community. There have been times where I find myself assuming that a Latina who identifies as Roman Catholic (as a majority do) automatically means that she is anti-choice, anti-birth control, and anti-gay in lockstep with the teachings of the Catholic Church. 
 

Yet like much of life, the reality is much more complex. As Ms. Lopez points out, “A huge majority of young Latinas — 89 percent — believe birth control costs should be available with no co-pay. This overwhelming level of support stems from the real experiences of young women struggling to balance financial and family priorities. In fact, more than half the Latinas in this group have experienced difficulty using birth control consistently due to cost barriers.” 

As a whole, 71% of Americans (including women and men) believe that birth control should be provided at no cost. Among American Catholics, this number rises to 77% of respondents expressing support.

As I said, I know that I have been guilty of wrongly assuming that women support or oppose one thing due to their self-identified religious beliefs (or lack thereof). Chalk it up to human nature and a desire to take very complex issues and boil them down to something overly simplified but easy to understand. In real life, regardless of faith, ethnicity, or any other factor, people across the board can agree that simple reforms that improve the health of women and their families and that prevent unintended pregnancies are good for society as a whole.

The fact is that life, including aspects like religion or faith, comes in shades of gray. It’s ultimately up to the individual woman, not a politician, to determine the best choices for her life in consultation with her doctor and family and in accordance with her faith… whatever that may or may not be.

If you support no-cost birth control for ALL women, sign our petition at http://www.birthcontrolmatters.org.

I don’t think most men understand birth control. Sure, they might know that it keeps a woman from getting pregnant.  But I’m talking about the nitty gritty stuff. I’m willing to bet that if you asked a male friend of yours to describe how birth control works (the science of it all) and the side effects a woman might deal with, I would say that most men don’t understand how hormonal and non-hormonal methods affect a woman’s daily life. And I’m also willing to bet that most men don’t know the struggles and annoyances that some women go through to find the birth control method that works best for them.

When I talk to female patients in the clinic, from teens to women in their fifties, we discuss everything from birth control they love to birth control they hate. I hear about how some women love having light to barely any bleeding on their birth control to hearing women being upset about a birth control that makes them gain weight. I might hear about nausea a woman experiences on her method of birth control and then listen to a woman talk about her breakthrough bleeding that comes at random times during the month, making her feel nervous everyday.

We have a poster in the clinic that shows a woman beside the quote, “Someone you know is quietly freaking out.”  I feel that this resonates with a lot of people I see daily. Just like I said last week, an effective, affordable, and accessible method of birth control for a woman is vital to achieving gender quality.  But so is a good method that works for that woman’s lifestyle.  She will be happier, and less stressed. That’s always a plus.

Few women I talk to discuss their breakthrough bleeding or nausea with their male partners, and in turn I think these women suffer in silence when it comes to their sex lives. But the truth is, you don’t have to suffer! Different birth controls work differently with women’s bodies.  Some women’s bodies are better with a type of hormone than others.  And sometimes, a woman’s body changes, and you have to change the type of birth control with it.  At Planned Parenthood, you can quickly change your method and talk to a clinician that will suggest a better method for you to try if you’re unhappy.

When a woman bleeds at random times during sex or throughout the day, she can become anxious.  When she gets nauseous during a date because a certain type of birth control hormone is making her sick, she becomes agitated.  Of course, when someone is worried about all of this, how are they going to focus on the pleasure they’re trying to have with their partner? How does a woman gain sexual satisfaction to the fullest when she’s worried about all this?  And how does a male partner know how to communicate with her about this when he has no idea what’s going on?

Some women tell me they think their partner is going to “freak out” or “not understand” these issues.  They sometimes say that they should “get sex over with and not bother them with this.” But I challenge the men out there to ask how the women in their lives are feeling. And I challenge the women to speak up.  You’re worth it. Be honest with your partner and talk to your doctor if your birth control is affecting your life in a negative way. Believe me: There are tons of effective birth control methods that you can be happier on.

Election 2010 brought out a lot of negative rhetoric about health care reform. But yet when you explain many of the individual policies within health care reform, the policies within the bill enjoy overwhelming support from the American public. Some of the more popular provisions include allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans up to age 26 and requiring insurance companies not to deny coverage based on “pre-existing conditions.”

One of the most exciting provisions of the new law is that preventative medical services will be covered with no co-pays or cost-sharing. I recently went to the doctor for a physical and was waiting to check out credit card in hand to cover my $20 co-pay only to be told that I owed NOTHING. It completely made my day and was because my insurance company had preemptively begun to cover some preventative services in anticipation of the new law taking full effect.

When it comes to preventative services for women of childbearing age, birth control is almost always near the top of the list of services that these women ask for when visiting their primary care provider. We’ve written before about what birth control means for women’s lives and yesterday’s editorial in the New Jersey Star-Ledger really says is better than I ever could. (Just do yourself a favor and don’t read the comments. Unless you like to start your week with the feeling that your head is about to explode.)

The bottom line is that 98% of women will use one or more forms of birth control in her lifetime so it seems like common sense that prescription birth control would be covered as a “preventative service” along with annual exams, Pap tests and breast exams.

Like these other services, birth control should be available to every woman without co-pays or other out-of-pocket costs to ensure that every woman has access to the birth control that works best for her.

Planned Parenthood health centers see too many women choosing between birth control and basics like rent, tuition, and childcare. One in three female voters (34%) reports having struggled with the cost of prescription birth control at some point. Among young women, this figure rises dramatically: 55 percent of women 18–34 have struggled with the cost of prescription birth control.

Making birth control available at no cost is a common sense step that makes it possible for women to use the method that works best for them and will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies in America.

Last month, Planned Parenthood launched a new national campaign “Birth Control Matters” in an effort to encourage HHS officials to include birth control as a preventative service.  Please sign the petition to let Obama Administration and HHS officials know that no woman should ever have to choose between paying her rent and purchasing her birth control. Birth control IS prevention and must be fully covered under health care reform!

What can change the lives of all women?  Accessible, Affordable, and Effective Birth Control.

As a worker in the health care industry, women tell me everyday why they need to be on a birth control method:  “I want to finish school and get a good job so I can provide for my family,” and “I know the kind of resources, emotional and financial, a child needs and I can’t provide that right now,” or “I want to know that I will not be pregnant until I’m ready.” For some women, having a child when they’re not ready can be the difference between financial stability and poverty. Women know when they are and are not ready for pregnancy.

When half of all pregnancies are unplanned in the United States, a safe and reliable birth control can change those odds and nearly guarantee a woman to be pregnant only when she’s ready.  So why do we have so many unplanned pregnancies? One reason might be that birth control methods are not always accessible or affordable for all women.

Behind these statements, the rest of the sentence might end with, “…but I lost my insurance that used to cover my birth control” or, “…I can’t afford the birth control that’s works with my body now because my deductible is too high,” and “I needed a Pap Smear to renew my prescription, but I couldn’t afford the office visit since I have to pay out of pocket.” I even had one patient tell me that she made an appointment to get an Intrauterine Device, a reliable long term reversible form of birth control, and her doctor told her that he didn’t feel it was appropriate for her because she wasn’t married. 

So let’s reverse the situation. 
Let’s say boys and men had the ability to get pregnant.  Let’s say that there were multiple safe and simple ways on the market (other than condoms) for these boys and men to not get pregnant when they have sex.  They could be on a great birth control that works for them, complete their schooling, and go into a well paying job that puts them in good financial health to support a child that they may have later supported by their own income.  Is it as easy to imagine their senators and representatives calling these preventative measures “frivolous” and “unneccesary” when including them in health care reform? Can you imagine a doctor telling a man that he can’t have a form of birth control because he’s not married? Can you imagine them telling the boys and men of the world that they had to stop going to school, running a new business, or pursuing a law degree because they’re pregnant?

Is this harder to imagine?
I would argue that it’s harder to imagine the discrimination against men because we’re used to women being the ones sacrificing their educations and jobs to carry an unexpected pregnancy. And do we view women’s jobs as important as a man’s job to leave it for a pregnancy? And it doesn’t end there. There’s a domino effect involved with all of this.  When a woman drops out of school for an unexpected pregnancy, she’s more likely to not finish her degree and thus, have a lower paying job than a male peer in her life. And then if she has this lower paying job, she may not be able to afford the expenses for herself, her child, and a birth control that’s too expensive out of pocket, but desperately needed to keep her out of extreme poverty. Have you ever thought about a pack of pills like that?

the year is 2010 and the birth control pill has been available for 50 years.  there are more than 20 types of pills, from the very popular ortho evra brands to generics to the ”as seen on TV” Yasmin and Seasonale.  There are also numerous other methods of contraception;  IUD, Implanon, Ring, Condoms, Diaphragm, Depo Injections, and even permanent options like tubal ligation, essure, and vasectomy.  Given all this you might think that people mostly only get pregnant when they are planning to and that most pregnancies are planned.

You’d be wrong.

According to an Alan Guttmacher Institute report,  nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended.  There are many reasons for this, possibly as many reasons as their are unintended pregnancies.  The fact that the US spent well over a billion dollars on abstinence only education for our youth certainly hasn’t helped.  According to a study by the campaign to prevent unintended pregnancy, called Unlocking the Contraceptive Conundrum,  two of the main reasons are ACCESS and CONSISTENT USE. 

Today, October 1, 2010, Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina is launching “birth control made easy” program to help address issues of access and consistent use.   The campaign for “birth control made easy” will highlight the features that make Planned Parenthood the BEST PLACE to get birth control and address the barriers of ACCESS and CONSISTENT USE.

EVERY kind of birth control: long acting reversible like IUD, Implanon, and Depo; short-acting like birth control pills, patch, ring;  barrier methods like condoms, cervical caps, diaphragms; and permanent methods essure tubal and no scalpel vasectomy.

Affordable consultations with birth control experts to determine the best method

Low-cost birth control supplies and annual exams
AND NEW PROGRAMS:

bc2me – birth control supplies mailed to the client’s address each month

pill pixy- text reminders to take your birth control

acceptance of most insurance plans

Check out the links to our site to learn more about increasing the effectiveness of your birth control.  birth control made easy @ Planned Parenthood.

One of the best things about working in reproductive health is feeling that you’re making a positive difference in the lives of women and their families. This has been especially evident to me recently as I’ve read stories at www.thepillispersonal.com. Launched by Planned Parenthood in honor of the 50^th anniversary of The Pill, this website documents the profound, life-changing effect that the ability to control whether and when to become a parent has on women’s lives.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 98% of women will use some method of contraception in her life and will spend the vast majority of her reproductive years trying NOT to become pregnant. It cannot be denied that birth control and family planning services are part of very basic health care for women.

Reading the personal stories collected on The Pill is Personal, it is painful to imagine a woman who has her reproductive options diminished or eliminated simply due to inability to pay. Yet this is the case for many women, particularly in this difficult economy. Birth control co-pays even for woman with insurance can run 30, 40 or even 50 dollars every month.

But this could soon change. The recent, historic health care reform legislation offers one of the biggest opportunities to advance women’s health in 45 years. The law requires that health plans fully cover services that are preventive in nature with no co-pay.

We know that prescription birth control is basic, preventive health care for women. Now it’s time to make sure the Obama Administration knows it, too. In the next year, federal officials will decide how elements of this legislation will be implemented including whether or no birth control will be covered as “preventive” and will therefore not require a co-pay.

Join our Birth Control is Prevention campaign (http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/bcisprevention) to ensure that contraception is covered with no cost-sharing! Then add your personal story to www.thepillispersonal.com to spread the word that birth control is essential to women’s health.

In case you missed it, May marked the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill’s approval by the Food and Drug Administration. This seems like both an extremely long and an extremely short amount of time. On the one hand, it’s somewhat amazing to me that there existed a time in which birth control wasn’t readily available (though, rationally, I know this must be true)… and on the other, there seems like so much work left to accomplish on issues surrounding birth control (i.e. access, price). For an interesting perspective on some of the latter issues, check out this editorial published in the New York Times.

But, as you might expect, it’s not all fond looks back. Some groups are attempting to use this anniversary as a rallying point, as a way to convince anti-choice individuals to speak out against the evils of birth control. And birth control is pretty evil, if you weren’t already aware. Full explanations for can be found here, but here’s the Cliffs Notes version:

1) “The mentality of contraception opposes life”
2) “Contraception encourages risky sexual behavior” and leads to sexually transmitted infections
3) “Contraception only increases abortion”

The last one is kind of a doozy, isn’t it? I’d attempt to break it down a bit for you, but I don’t really understand the argument myself, so just rest assured… there’s very little logic behind it.

Regardless of the crazed individuals who want to control every aspect of a woman’s medical decisions, I think it’s important that we take a minute to appreciate what the introduction of birth control has meant to our lives. To acknowledge the (probably somewhat difficult) decision the FDA made fifty years ago. And to come together to continue to work to make birth control accessible and affordable to every one who wants it.

Mark your calendars folks, because June 5th is “Protest the Pill Day: The Pill Kills the Environment.” Yes, this Saturday, 27 “pro-life” groups are coming together to rail against birth control pills, evidently because trying to control one aspect of a woman’s medical decisions doesn’t take up enough of their time. So on June 5th, the American Life League, Human Life International, Operation Rescue, and others are urging people to stand outside a local pharmacy, Planned Parenthood clinic, random doctor’s office, or any busy intersection with a sign protesting birth control.

So why are these organizations so dead-set against forms of birth control? Well, the protest’s website, www.thepillkills.com, attempts to explain their reasoning. Like any medication, hormonal birth control can occasionally have some risks, which is exactly why it’s dispensed by doctors and physicians, who can evaluate whether the drug is appropriate for a patient. But the website sensationalizes these side effects, along with the (very) rare deaths that have sometimes been linked to birth control use, and even goes so far as to suggest an enormous conspiracy. Besides effects on humans, the site also attempts to make the case that birth control is “making male fish, frogs and river otters less masculine.”

The website’s obsession with the “feminizing” of fish and other animals is pretty fascinating (and I could probably write a fair amount about the connection the site then makes to humans eating these fish, and the implicit use of homophobia as a scare tactic, but that may be a bit off topic) . And if you actually look at the article the website used to make its case on this issue, it  is more focused on “the environmental effects of chemicals that aren’t being filtered out by sewage plants, including pharmaceuticals and pesticides that can mimic hormones.” This is an environmental problem, but not something that can strictly be blamed on birth control. It seems to be much more about the lack of proper precautions in the disposal of medications and other chemicals. Not that the people behind www.thepillkills.com would want to be bothered with those facts.

No, they instead hide behind whatever articles or theories they can find to further their real agenda: trying to control the medical decisions of all women.

They can say that they want birth control banned because of health risks or the environment, but I just don’t buy it. The website has too many references to violating “Church teachings” and “Bringing Jesus to Planned Parenthood” to make me think this is nothing but a (very) thinly veiled cover for attempting to (yet again) impose a group’s “moral” values on everyone else.

What I don’t understand, and what I think I never will, is why it’s so important for some groups of people to control what every else does. If you don’t want to take birth control, no one is forcing you. No one from Planned Parenthood is trying to get legislation passed to mandate that every woman must be on some form of hormonal birth control. No one is calling for mandatory abortions. We simply want these options to be available to women who need or want them. If you don’t, then don’t use them.

If only it were actually as simple as that.

What do you think of “Protest the Pill Day?” Is it even something worthy of our time or attention?