Simple misuse of contraception, how a little knowledge goes a long way!

Simple misuse of contraception, how a little knowledge goes a long way!

There are many contraceptive methods around which are misused by couples as a result of a simple misunderstanding.  What many women fail to realize is that the window of time where they're at risk of becoming pregnant is relatively small and therefore, using contraception day in and day out is not entirely necessary.

For example, if a woman is not using a pill, patch, coil or any other type of hormonal contraception, she will actually only be fertile for 18-24 hours per cycle when she ovulates.  Since sperm can survive up to 5 days, intercourse 5 days prior to ovulation could fertilise an egg so we have  a fertility window of  6 days per cycle.  


In order to avoid pregnancy during those 6 days, the woman should either abstain from sex or use a barrier contraceptive.  

Most people who use barrier contraceptive tend to use them on each day of their cycle, even on the 20-22 days when there's no risk of becoming pregnant, when they actually only need to be used during their Fertility Window.

Contraceptive Monitors help you identify your Fertility Window, those 6-8 days per cycle when intercourse could lead to pregnancy. 

Click here to read on and learn how they do it and how they can help you take control of your contraception.  




 

23 Year Old Woman Pregnant Seven Times In Five Years, Despite Using Contraception

A mother of 3, Gemma Potter, has gotten pregnant 7 different times in five years despite using the pill, condoms, the coil, progestogen injections, and an implant. She is currently expecting her fourth child (she's had 3 miscarriages and 1 ectopic pregnancy). Doctors have been unable to pinpoint the cause of her extreme fertility.

Here at EFP, we found this article very interesting and couldn't help but ask ourselves if using natural contraception instead of the hormonal options she used, would have ended up in 7 unwanted pregnancies. Although her case may be rare and her cycles irregular, perhaps practicing fertility awareness could have prevented the pregnancies if she abstained from intercourse on her fertile days. What do you think?

You can read the full article here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/20/gemma-potter-pregnant-_n_1160098.html

Hormonal Contraception Pollutes the Environment

In the past few years, reports around the world have been shedding light on the damage that synthetic birth control hormones have been wreaking on our environment. One of the most prevalent effects they are having on our environment is happening in our water and to the fish that live there. The hormones which are being pumped into the water through sewage systems is causing the sex of fish stocks to change. Scientists have also been warning the public of the possible carcinogenic effects of the build-up of estrogenic chemicals that are now found in drinking water.

Gender ambiguity in fish due to high levels of estrogen in the weather was first reported by the UK Environment Agency back in 2002. A survey of 1500 fish at located in 50 different river sites found that more than a third of the males displayed female characteristics

Because of the effect the estrogen is having on fish, researchers at Brunel University’s Institute for the Environment now warn of the affect estrogen can have on the reproductive ability of humans. They have even called for a reassessment of EU legislation regulating chemicals and stated: “There is a cocktail of chemicals in our fresh water. We need to consider tougher safety margins to fully protect wildlife and humans."

In 2005, scientists at the University of Colorado found that out of 123 fish caught in Boulder Creek, downstream from the Boulder sewage treatment plant, 101 were female, 12 were male and 10 had both male and female characteristics. This discovery was very frightening for the scientists because of its potential impact.

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh also investigated the fish population, this time in the Allegheny River near storm sewer outflow pipes, where the local population relies on the local water systems for drinking water, and discovered the same deformations. One of the doctors at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Environmental Oncology, warned that this increase in steroid hormones in drinking water of Pittsburgh is worrying and a threat to health. Studies have shown there is a link between contraceptive estrogen and hormone problems as well as some cancers.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that other study results have shown ambiguous gender in 85 per cent of the catfish caught on the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers. Chemicals extracted from 25 randomly sampled fish caused growth of estrogen-sensitive breast cancer cells cultured in a laboratory, eleven of which "produced very aggressive cancer growth".

Despite all of this alarming evidence, scientists and environmental groups are careful to avoid recommending restrictions on artificial contraceptives.

The National Catholic Register, reporting on the issue, quotes George Harden, a board member of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, saying "If you’re killing mosquitoes to save people from the West Nile virus, you can count on secular environmentalists to lay down in front of the vapour truck, claiming some potential side effect that might result from the spray," Harden said. "But if birth control deforms fish - backed by the proof of an EPA study - and threatens the drinking supply, mum will be the word." A water quality issues chairman for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Sierra Club International also took the opinion that people ‘would not take kindly’ to the suggestion of banning or restricting hormonal contraceptives because it’s seen as an economic necessity and also an issue of personal freedom.

Of course, an ideal solution to this contamination would be for women to give up the pill and began practicing natural contraception, which does not involve the use of any synthetic, hormonal or potentially environmentally dangerous ingredients. Natural contraception can be learned easily and can be practiced to avoid or even plan for a pregnancy, making it effective for all stages of a woman's fertile life. Many women choose to use contraceptive monitors such as Cyclotest 2 Plus to practice natural contraception, which simplifies the process of fertility charting. If you'd like to learn more about natural contraception and see how it stacks up against other forms of birth control, check out this article.

So, what do you think about the connection between hormonal contraceptives and the contamination of our environment and drinking water. Should there be restrictions to reduce the amount of contamination or is it easier to look the other way and wait till a more shocking discovery is published? Is it our responsibility as citizens to protect the environment or the governments? We’d love to hear your comments on our contraceptive forum!

True Story: How and why one woman gave up hormonal contraception

I recently came across an article about natural family planning and one woman's experience in switching from hormonal birth control to natural contraception. Her story was really inspiring and is an excellent example of the conflict and confusion a lot of women experience when considering giving up the pill. I wanted to share bits and pieces from her post with you. You can read the full entry here.

Not Excited About Drugs

Why take the chance? We live today. All of our research and technology has enabled us to pop a pill to avoid a pregnancy. That's all we have to do. So why do so many question the use of contraception?

I won't speak for others, but I can tell you why I did. This is my story: Why I decided to use a natural family planning method.

I do not like drugs. I avoid them whenever I can. Just before getting married, I was introduced to the idea that I would need to take a pill everyday to avoid becoming pregnant. This idea did not excite me. But what other alternative was there?

When I started on birth control, I actually started with the patch because it only required that I remember to change it once a week, not every day like the pill; less chance of "messing up." Within a few months however, I found that I did not like the patch. If I forgot to use it, for even one day, I was thrown for quite the emotional loop. I felt out of control, something that was not common for me. It felt horrible! I switched to the pill, and even though I had to take one every day, I did not experience the sudden swings like I had experienced on the patch. This pacified me for a few years.

But it kept bothering me, "If the patch could do that to me, what was the pill doing to me?" Occasionally I would research, looking for an alternative to the birth control pill, but each search left me looking at more pills, inserts, or implements.

What was wrong with all of these methods?
Most birth control methods use hormones to suppress the natural fertility cycle. I found several studies and heard people talk about how the use of these hormones affects the body. Things like how today's pills have lower levels of hormones because research has found that the higher level hormones of earlier pills 'may have caused cancer' and all sorts of problems. My thoughts were "What will they find out tomorrow about the pills of today?" Every drug has an adverse effect. They usually help and hurt your body in one way or another. Don't believe me? Look at the labels.

The point is: I did not want to be a guinea pig.
Nothing felt right. But what else could I do?

I looked into natural family planning methods.
Rhythm method, basal body temperature, ovulation charts, they all had one thing in common: Too much room for error.
Too much was left up to chance. Each natural family planning method seemed based on good principle but not complete. They required long periods of abstinence each month to "make sure" you would not get pregnant yet the chances of getting pregnant were still higher than just staying on the pill. Not good enough for me.

Then Came The Tipping Point
While at a doctor’s appointment my doctor shared some information with me about how today's contraceptives work, which he himself had just discovered. There are three ways today's contraceptives work to avoid a pregnancy. They all work the same way.

Here they are, short and not so sweet:
1. Stop the egg from ovulating
2. Stop the sperm from getting to the egg
3. Stop implantation of a pregnancy, thereby causing the body to abort the pregnancy, in case the first two don't work.

I was floored! I had never heard such a thing! Could this be true?
It says so right on the label of the contraceptive, though you would be hard pressed to find, or recognize it.Here it is, right off of a label:

"Combination oral contraceptives act by suppression of gonadotropins. Although the primarymechanism of this action is inhibition of ovulation, other alterations include changes in the cervicalmucus (which increase the difficulty of sperm entry into the uterus) and the endometrium (whichreduce the likelihood of implantation)."

Does it sound the same?

That's probably why you missed it. I knew it was there, and yet I still had to scour the label 3-4 times before I could find it again. Click Here to read the label for yourself.

This was the tipping point. I was already uncomfortable with using the pill, having my own health in mind. Now that I knew the pill did not only prevent a possible pregnancy, but sometimes aborts a pregnancy that occurs "by mistake", I had a choice to make.The number of aborted pregnancies due to use of the pill is very small, but in my book, one is too many.

Now what do I do?
Thankfully my doctor had been researching this answer for me already. In light of this information he was preparing not to write prescriptions for contraceptives anymore. He wanted to provide a good natural family planning method alternative for birth control and he found a method called the Creighton Model. This was the method I had been looking for!
If you are interested in Natural Family Planning, this is the method that makes avoiding and achieving a pregnancy truly a matter of choice.

To learn how to practice natural contraception, have a look at Ethical Family Planning's page here.

Alert! Hormonal Implants lead to hundreds of unwanted pregnancies!

A new finding has come to show that hundreds of women have fallen pregnant after a long-term contraceptive implant failed. Many women were left injured or scarred as a result of the implant after it was inserted into their arm.

To compensate the failings of these contraceptive implants, the NHS has had to pay the women who were hurt by the implant and those who were traumatised by their unexpected pregnancies. The total payouts have totalled more than £200,000 – an average of more than £28,000 each.

A lawyer representing the women who had fallen pregnant unintentionally revealed that many of his clients had suffered psychological difficulties after suffering miscarriages or undergoing abortions after the implants went wrong. One woman who underwent an abortion claimed the trauma had led to her marriage ending.

The hormone filled rod which is behind all of these unwanted pregnancies is called Implanon. The Implanon implant is meant to provide protection against pregnancy for up to three years and when properly inserted, it is 99.5% effective compared to 99.7% for the Pill. The Implanon device costs £90. It is a flexible rod the size of a matchstick which is inserted underneath the skin of the upper arm. It works by gradually releasing the hormone progesterone, which stops the ovaries from releasing eggs and makes the womb less receptive to fertilised eggs.

One in four women in the UK who go to family planning clinics receive the long-term contraceptive implants. The implants are especially popular among teenagers who prefer the implant to the pill because it doesn’t require daily action.

Investigations conducted after reports of unwanted pregnancies have revealed that in some cases, the implant was not released from the pre-loaded applicator and therefore never inserted into the arm of the patient. Other implants were delivered too deep into the arm to function properly.

In its entire living history, the NHS has never experienced a contraceptive failure as great as this one involving Implanon. In total, 584 women who had the implant have reported unwanted pregnancies to the Medicine and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The total could actually be much higher considering many woman may not have reported becoming pregnant. The MHRA received 1,607 complaints about the implant going wrong. Some of these complaints were filed by doctors concerned about the difficulty of inserting the device and also that the implant is impossible to check if they are correctly implanted because they are invisible to X-rays.

The manufacturer of Implanon has now replaced it with an updated product called Nexplanon, which has a new pre-loaded applicator and can be detected by X-ray or CT scan. The manufacturer has not,however, recalled the existing stock of Implanon, which means doctors are still using it.

It’s important to remember that no form of birth control is 100% reliable and that when choosing a method of contraception, it’s best to talk to your health care professional. While hormonal birth control is often the most reliable forms of contraception, it can also come with the most amount of risks. Natural contraception, when practiced correctly, can be just as reliable as hormonal birth control and much safer. By practicing natural contraception with a contraceptive monitor or barrier contraceptive, you are eliminating the risk of side effects often associated with hormonal birth control such as mood swings and weight gain, and as in the extreme circumstance detailed in this story, unexpected pregnancies. To learn more about natural contraception, click here.

Men MORE Attracted to Hormone-Free Women

New research has shown that women who practise natural contraception appear more attractive to men than those who practice hormonal contraception. Studies by British researchers, Alexandra Alvergne and Virpi Lummaa, indicate that women who avoid using hormonal contraceptives are seen as more attractive by men during their ovulation period. As you know by our previous articles, ovulation is that time of month when our bodies are focused on making babies. Primal instincts begin to kick in and prompt our bodies to focus on mating and looking our best to attract a partner. This shows that women who use cyclotest or any other form of natural contraceptive, will have that natural something to draw in the guys, just as mother nature intended.

Alvergne and Lummaa emphasise that women undergo physical changes in the course of their menstruation cycle. Facial features, smell and voice are often subject to change. During the fertile phase, which is around the same time as ovulation, these characteristics have a particularly alluring effect on men as both men and women are programmed to know that ovulation time is reproduction time. It has also been established that women in their fertile phase tend to find themselves more attractive and as a result, put more effort into their appearance and dress. Women who practise hormonal contraception artificially subject their hormone balance to a permanently infertile phase, which suppresses the cyclical high of both their positive self-perception and the positive way in which they are perceived by others. Without this monthly high, many women using hormonal contraception suffer negative psychological effects. Woman who practice natural, hormone-free contraception on the other hand, are able to utilise and enjoy this monthly high and often experience an increased level of confidence as a result. This confidence allows them to be more active in their pursuit of finding a partner.

Self-perception is the key to success here. However, the success isn’t attributed solely on the positive way in which a woman perceives herself during the fertile days, but also in the possibility of ascertaining through specific cycle observation, the best time to look for a potential partner. A woman can use the symptothermal method to determine precisely her fertile and highly fertile days,so she can plan her social calendar in advance to make the most of her natural boost.

The manual method of symptothermal charting involves a paper and pen exercise of recording daily temperature readings on a chart and joining the dots, then applying a few formula and a few rules to predict when ovulation might occur. In order to even begin this process you must have already compared up to a years worth of charting data, which is best done under the supervision of a doctor who is knowledgeable in the field of reproductive science.

The alternative to this manual method is letting a contracpetive monitor, like cyclotest, do the job for you. These high-tech, compact devices replace the doctor, the pen and the paper and join the dots up for you while applying a complex algorithm to predict, using minimal data, when your highly fertile period is due. These monitors are incredibly reliable and accurate when used as a natural contraceptive device and allow you to start monitoring your fertility as soon as you take them out of the box!

While all forms of natural contraception allow you to experience this monthly high, using a contraceptive monitor enables you to know when to expect this increase in attractiveness in advance. If you are single and looking for a potential mate, this sympto-thermal method may be a bertter option for you than other forms of hormone-free birth control which do not track your fertility, such as barrier contraceptives.

Being seen as more attractive to men is one of many advantages of making the switch from hormonal birth control to natural contraception. While appearing more attractive to men may sound superficial or unimportant, there are many other more serious psychological benefits of giving up the hormones. Check out the reasons to go natural from a psychological perspective.

To find out what other benefits come with giving up the pill and going natural, have a look here.