Column: A personal account of the relationship between birth control and hormones
I started birth control when I was 15 years old. The reason why I began puberty at 9, started menstruating at 11 and developed a sex drive at 13 is largely unknown to me but multiple studies suggest that lifestyle changes involving body fat, environment, and chemicals play a role in the premature sexualization of young women.
Early menstruation
According to an article by Louise Greenspan, M.D. published in US News, “the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City found that the largest risk factor for early puberty may be obesity.” Fat is an active hormonal gland that transforms other hormones into estrogen, which increases the rate at which puberty occurs.
I have always been underweight, so I digress. Not only does toxic stress caused by childhood trauma ranging from an absent biological father to domestic abuse shorten victims’ lifespans, but it can also cause the body to rush to reproduce.
If none of these explanations hold, we would be forced to consider external influences in the child’s environment. Most of us are regularly exposed to a large variety of chemicals, especially those who experience poverty, but because none of the chemicals have been isolated to determine causality, nothing will change. Health indirectly has a market value.
Researchers are exploring the protective effects of a fiber-full diet and whether things like screen time and sleep deprivation play a role as well. My hypothesis based on my own personal experience is that they will find that screen time has an adverse effect on young women’s hormones as it allows for stress-inducing environments even the best parents cannot keep their children away from on the internet.
Birth control
I started on YAZ at 15, switched to Yasmin a year later, then got the Nexplanon implant a few months later.
The first two are monophasic, low-dose pills that “contain only one phase or level of active hormones,” according to Healthline. They were both marked as discontinued in my patient files and my research suggests that it is because they contained “drospirenone, (which) increases the risk of blood clots” and were recalled a few times.
There are also multiphasic pills that contain different active ingredients based on the menstrual cycle, extended-cycle pills that provide a continuous dose that allows for only four periods a year and minipills that contain no estrogen.
The Nexplanon implant is 4 centimeters tall and 2 millimeters wide. I have absolutely no pain tolerance, but the near guarantee of nonpregnancy was worth it since I was depressed on and forgetful with the pill. My doctor and nurse numbed the area before making a small incision on the back of my arm, sliding the device inside and gluing the cut back together.
Almost every woman has a different experience on birth control. Whether you prefer using condoms, diaphragms, sponges, cervical caps, a daily pill, patches or shots, it is important to find the one that works best for you (and your partner). Perhaps the ones I have not tried are worth exploration, but our hormones are delicate and should be treated as such.
It has been four years since I started birth control. I do not know which symptoms that I experience can be attributed to my body’s acquaintance with daily hormones or some of the aforementioned multitude of chemicals that I interact with. I feel like I may not know myself if I stop using birth control.
Conclusion
Congress pays millions of dollars to the 76% of U.S. public and private high schools that teach that abstinence is the most effective method to avoid pregnancy, but over half of high school students graduate high school without their virginity. An abstinence approach to sexual education is positively correlated with teenage pregnancy and birth rates, therefore it is failing the children it is claiming to be educating. It is time to take a serious look at our system, how it benefits us, and how it leaves the rest of us significantly disadvantaged.
The average cost of a vasectomy is equivalent to the price of birth control after 19.5 years and is equivalent to Nexplanon after 36 years. Over half of all American women meddle in the affairs of their own hormones because a non-invasive, one-time surgery that could redefine overpopulation is just too expensive. Again, our health is on the market.
