June 8th, 2010 by Laura Wershler
Teen sex: More use rhythm method for birth control.
It was an odd headline for an Associated Press story on the 86 page report on teen sexual activity just released by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. Not all that relevant to the broader subject of the study on which the report is based: Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Childbearing, National Survey of Family Growth 2006-2008. If you’re interested, it is a fascinating read.
But it was the headline and this excerpt from the story that caught my attention:
About 17 percent of sexually experienced teen girls say they had used the rhythm method – timing their sex to avoid fertile days to prevent getting pregnant. That’s up from 11 percent in 2002.
They may have been using another form of birth control at the same time. But the increase is considered worrisome because the rhythm method doesn’t work about 25 percent of the time, said Joyce Abma, the report’s lead author. She’s a social scientist at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
You can’t study what you don’t understand. The study authors demonstrate their lack of knowledge about natural birth control methods by the question they asked study participants: Have you ever used rhythm or safe period by calendar to prevent pregnancy?
There are many brands of natural birth control. Some , like the Rhythm and Calendar methods, are not effective. No proponent of Natural Family Planning (NFP) or Fertility Awareness Based Methods (FABM), which have effectiveness rates as high as 99.4 percent, would recommend them. Yet this study does nothing to differentiate between these methods of natural birth control, thereby confusing the public, the study results and themselves.
It’s high time researchers studied up on natural birth control methods if they want to include questions about them in a study on the contraceptive practices of teens or adults.
Until they do, I suggest anyone interested in the sexual and reproductive health of teen girls start buying copies of Cycle Savvy: The Smart Teen’s Guide to the Mysteries of Her Body. This book can help our daughters acquire the life skill of body literacy – to understand the mysteries of their menstrual cycles and how this knowledge can serve them well as they make decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and lives.
Tags: Birth Control, contraception, Girls, rhythm method
Posted in Birth Control, Girls, New Research, Newspapers, Reproduction, Sex | 2 Comments »
May 21st, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
http://www.flickr.com/photos/santarosa/ / CC BY 2.0
Laura Eldridge’s new book In Our Control: The Complete Guide to Contraceptive Choices for Women (Seven Stories Press, 2010) isn’t kidding with that subtitle. The last time I remember reading so much detail about contraceptive options was poring over Our Bodies, Ourselves when I was in my 20s.
Eldridge reviews every method of birth control known to modern woman–and, importantly, some that aren’t widely known. She even briefly reviews the history of contraception in 19th and 20th centuries, reminding us that birth control is not a new invention. People, especially female-bodied people, have struggled to control their fertility from pretty much the first moment humans figured out how it worked.
In Our Control differs from Our Bodies, Ourselves in offering more than just the mechanics of both hormonal and barrier methods: Eldridge provides a history of each method and analysis of the political and cultural contexts of their use in the 21st century U.S.
For example, the chapter about the morning-after pill (also known by either the brand name Plan B or as emergency contraception, EC) discusses the political battle to achieve Federal Drug Administration approval, including Susan Wood’s resignation from the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health over what she believed to be “willful disregard of scientific evidence showing Plan B to be safe.” Continue reading...
Tags: Birth Control, books, hormonal birth control, Laura Eldridge
Posted in Birth Control, Reproduction, books | 1 Comment »
May 17th, 2010 by Laura Wershler
You know how most superheros become superheros because of exposure to some weird, intensified chemical or element? Take Peter Parker’s spider bite for example.
According to a story reported in various media, including International Planned Parenthood Federation’s website, if science can perfect the contraceptive effect of ultasound on men’s testicles, then we may be in for a new breed of superhero. Ultrasound Man: able to bear the burden of pregnancy prevention for women everywhere.
I joke, but for decades women have yearned for gender equality when it comes to bearing the burden of birth control. Could the promise of six months of ultrasound induced, reversible infertility in men be the answer? Well, to date, we only know it works in rats. There is a long way to go before we send the men for a bi-annual ultrasound “zap test”.
This isn’t the first male method touted over the last decade. In 2003, news out of the UK about a birth control pill for men had women nodding their heads with approval. I was immediately dubious and dashed off a commentary for the Calgary Herald that began thus: Continue reading...
Tags: Birth Control, birth control pill, boys/men, hormonal birth control, hormonal contraception, hormones, Men, testosterone
Posted in Birth Control, Men, New Research, Pharmaceutical, Reproduction | Comments Off
April 20th, 2010 by Chris Hitchcock
It’s starting. With the approaching 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, there will be a flood of anniversary celebrations and reviews of birth control methods. Which is good. We should have those discussions more often. Just say “no” (on the part of parents who don’t want to hear about it) is a big contributor to unwanted teen pregnancy.
Today’s Wall Street Journal is running an article called The Birth-Control Riddle. The riddle is apparently the high rate of unwanted pregnancy, despite the availability of a range of effective birth control methods. And, as befits the Wall Street Journal, each birth control method is accompanied by a price tag, so you can make an informed consumer decision.
But what I noticed was that there is no real awareness of what we at SMCR feel is an important consideration: Does your birth control method stop your cycle?
Some methods do – they deliver progestins and/or estradiol in high enough doses to act on the parts of the brain that normally make the hormones that talk to the ovaries that stimulate growth of a follicle, then trigger its release. This is a complex, whole body system, that normally we only notice because of uterine effects (that would be menstrual bleeding or pregnancy). And as a culture we have fairly casually accepted the idea that it is optional, and perhaps even optimally replaced by a pill made by a drug company. Continue reading...
Tags: birth control pill, contraception, IUD, Mirena, oral contraceptive pills
Posted in Birth Control, Health Care, Menstruation, Pharmaceutical, Reproduction, Sex, ovulation | 4 Comments »
February 5th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Mama and baby elephant in Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya
When new moms are sometimes forgetful or spacey, it is often attributed to ‘baby brain’ or ‘mumnesia’ or some other clever appellation that reinforces the idea that pregnancy leads to memory loss. It’s another variation on the women-are-ruled-by-hormones meme. In my humble opinion, the sleep deprivation that often accompanies late pregnancy and life with a newborn is a far more likely cause of memory loss.
While the research team at the Centre for Mental Health Research of the Australian National University didn’t investigate my theory, their research found no evidence that pregnancy or motherhood affects women’s brain power.
Professor Christensen’s team recruited 1,241 women aged 20-24 in 1999 and 2003 and asked them to perform a series of tasks. The women were followed up at four-year intervals and asked to perform the same cognitive tests. A total of 77 women were pregnant at the follow-up assessments, 188 had become mothers and 542 remained childless. The researchers found no significant differences in cognitive change for those women who were pregnant or new mothers during the assessments and those who were not.
The researchers suggest that previous findings that appear to confirm the ‘baby brain’ phenomenon are likely due to biased sampling. Their study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, was the first time women had been recruited from the general population before pregnancy.
[Via Skepchick]
Tags: cognition, hormones, motherhood, pregnancy
Posted in New Research, Reproduction | 1 Comment »
February 2nd, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: anatomy, Communication, critical thinking, ovaries
Posted in Communication, Internet, New Research, Newspapers, Reproduction, anatomy, ovulation | 3 Comments »
January 28th, 2010 by Chris Bobel
Tags: blogs, oral contraceptive pills
Posted in Reproduction | 1 Comment »
November 7th, 2009 by Chris Bobel
Guest Post by Moira Howes, Trent University
Uterus Vase by The Plug and Stephanie Rollin
Over thirty years ago, Roger V. Short argued that regular menstrual cycling is probably a health hazard and thus, we should try to “keep the ovaries and the female reproductive tract in a state of quiescence when reproduction is not desired” [1]
More recently, Timothy Rowe, Head of Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility, University of British Columbia, claims that “the pill keeps a woman’s reproductive organs quiet and healthy”[2]
As a philosopher of science, I find the concept of a “quiescent” bodily organ fascinating, troubling and great fodder: there is nothing so tempting to a philosopher of science as a vague, unscientific and value-laden concept.
Short and Rowe use the concept of “quiescence” to describe a presumably defined state of the uterus, but the concept is vague. It’s also unscientific—it calls to mind the promises made for “stimulated” immune systems and “cleansed” livers at my local health food store. And, the quiescent uterus raises old value-laden associations between women and passivity. If the dormant, quiet, and weak uterus is healthy, is the active, energetic, and strong uterus unhealthy? Continue reading...
Tags: birth control pill, guest post, ovulation, philosophy of science, Reproduction, reproductive immunology, uterus
Posted in Birth Control, Language, New Research, Reproduction, ovulation | 3 Comments »
Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.
As of Feb 8th, freelance writer, re:Cycling guest blogger, and oral contraception watchdog Holly Grigg-Spall (check out her blog 
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