The oral contraceptive pill, also known as the birth control pill, is a daily medication for women that contains two hormones, estrogen and progestin, in order to prevent pregnancy. It was first founded by Margaret Sanger in 1950 and approved by the US FDA in 1960; however, it wasn’t until 1970 that companies were required to put the ingredients of the Pill on the package. Since then, taking the birth control pill has always been a very touchy subject amongst teenage girls. Doctors wait for the parents to be out of the room to ask girls if they are sexually active and in need of taking the Pill. Girls are known to go behind their parents’ backs and request a prescription for the oral contraceptive pill because they are afraid of what their parents will say. However, most of these young women are uninformed about the adverse consequences taking the birth control pill for a long period of time has on the body. In fact, most women around the world are uneducated on this subject, yet they continue to take the contraceptive pill for many of their fertile years and suffer later on.
The majority of people are unaware that the death rate of women in a study done in 1977 who had been on the Pill “was 5 times that of controls who had never used the Pill” due to diseases of the circulatory system (US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, 1977). If more people knew the many statistics similar to this one, they would be less likely to start taking the oral contraceptive which could decrease the amount of miscarriages, women with “hostile environments” in their uterus, and even deaths. This paper will outline the side effects, both beneficial and harmful, on the brain and the body of taking the oral contraceptive pill for a continuous period of time. By providing the information in a succinct format, more women can be informed when making the decision on whether or not to go on the birth control pill after weighing both the pros and cons.
The birth control pill has come to not just be used for pregnancy prevention, but also for things like regulating periods, reducing menstrual cramps, and controlling acne, among others. Doctors have noticed a significant decrease in pain in women with endometriosis throughout their cycle when after taking the Pill for an extended period of time. Ladies with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, an extreme form of premenstrual syndrome that impairs women’s day-to-day functions, have reported a decrease in nausea, irritability, depression, insomnia, etc. The side effects and pain that come from several pre-existing medical conditions like endometriosis and premenstrual dysphoric disorder can be greatly alleviated by taking the birth control pill.
Even for women without health conditions, the oral contraceptive has multiple health benefits like improved acne, hirsutism, and bone health, prevention of certain cancers, and reductions in mortality. Acne and hirsutism are both caused by an excess of androgen, a male sex hormone such as testosterone, which is prevalent during puberty in girls. the Pill decreases the androgen levels and increases the sex hormone binding globulin which, combined, prevent and reduce acne and hirsutism. Additionally, women above the age of forty on the Pill “tend to gain or preserve bone mineral density while non-users experience typical age-related bone losses” (Dragoman, 2014). These bone losses put women of greater age at a greater risk for bone fractures as they continue to age. By being on the oral contraceptive for multiple years, this risk is decreased, if not extinguished, and women are not as susceptible to bone fractures. The mortality rate for ovarian, endometrial, and colorectal cancers have all seen a decrease for women on the Pill for an extended period of time compared to those not on it at all. The longer the women were on the Pill, the less the risk for these three types of cancer. Lastly, by taking the oral contraceptive pill, a large number of unintended pregnancies are prevented which saves numerous women’s lives because of the high rates of maternal mortality in certain countries.
While the birth control pill does have several benefits for women, there are numerous more severe risks of taking it as well. Whether or not the risks outweigh the benefits is up to the user; however, it is important for everyone to be informed of both the ups and downs of the medication. The oral contraceptive pill has adverse consequences on both the body and the brain. Some of these consequences on the body include several side effects and an increased risk of thromboembolic disease plus its negative effects on cardiovascular health. Alternative consequences on the brain include changes in memory and noticeable alteration of brain structure.
Before women are given a prescription for the birth control pill, they are grilled by doctors about their medical history because of the increased risks of complications if other health problems are prevalent. According to Planned Parenthood, women with any of the following conditions are told to stay away from the Pill and look into another form of birth control: blood clots, breast cancer, heart attack, stroke, migraine headaches with aura, uncontrolled high blood pressure, very bad diabetes, and liver disease (Planned Parenthood). Even when healthy women take the oral contraceptive for a lengthy amount of time, they will notice multiple side effects, both benign and harmful ones. The lengthy list includes headaches, nausea, dizziness, breast tenderness, irregular and unpredictable bleeding, mood swings and weight gain. While these are minor side effects that do not pose a threat to users’ health, many women have found that the combination of multiple of these symptoms have made it hard to go through their day-to-day functions.
Along with side effects, the birth control pill has been associated with an increased risk of thromboembolic disease. This disease includes blood clots and pulmonary embolism, “which can have devastating consequences, including stroke and death” (Lackie, 2016). Out of the two hormones present in the Pill, estrogen is credited with the increased risk of thromboembolic disease. However, there are multiple other factors that contribute to the danger including obesity, age, and genetic predispositions to clotting disorders. Even though the amount of estrogen has been reduced from the original dosage, there is still a risk attributed to taking the Pill that women should be informed about, especially if they have a family history of blood clots.
Venous thromboembolism (VTE) consists of abnormal coagulation of the blood and obstructs normal blood flow to different parts of the body. This can have major effects on cardiovascular health because it can cause heart attacks, strokes, and pulmonary embolisms. It was noticed by the National Blood Clot Alliance that “most birth control pills do increase a woman’s chance of developing a blood clot by about three to four times” (Natural Womanhood, 2016). This risk can get more and more dangerous as women continue to take the oral contraceptive as they age and their body is at a greater risk of developing cardiovascular stress.
Moving on to the brain, the birth control pill has been associated with changes in memory in women. According to ScienceDaily, women’s “ability to remember the gist of an emotional event improves, while women not using the contraceptives better retain details” (ScienceDaily, 2011). While the Pill does not damage memory, it does alter the type of information women remember which can have different effects in people’s lives. In a study conducted to test this, it was found that women on the contraceptive pill remembered the main steps of a traumatic as opposed to women not on the Pill retained more detailed information relating to the traumatic event. This provides deeper insight into the effects of estrogen and that it has a large influence on how women remember events, specifically emotional ones. It also allows scientists to understand why women experience Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome more often and at higher levels than men do.
In addition to changes in memory, the birth control pill has been seen to alter brain structure in women taking it for a while. In a study done in 2010, it was found that “women on the pill showed larger gray matter volumes in the prefrontal cortex, pre- and postcentral gyri, the parahippocampal and fusiform gyri, and temporal regions, compared to their non-pill counterparts” (Medical Daily, 2015). While it is unclear as to whether or not this gray matter means enhanced performance or not, scientists are certain that the birth control pill is the factor causing the extra gray matter volumes. It has been stressed by multiple researchers in this topic that estrogen is very important to growth in the brain because it accounts for changes in brain structure and may have an effect on behavior. The age of the women on the Pill is an important factor that contributes to different effects estrogen has on the brain but it has not been as widely studied yet.
Through the arguments laid out in this paper, we can conclude that the oral contraceptive pill largely influences the body and the brain in various ways. There are multiple benefits of taking the Pill like reducing pain in women with pre-existing conditions, improving acne, bone hirsutism, and bone health, preventing certain cancers, and reducing mortality in some countries. In addition to these benefits, there are also several harmful effects on the body and the brain from taking the birth control pill including minor side effects, an increased risk of thromboembolic disease, its effects on cardiovascular health, memory changes, and alterations of brain structure.