Prescription Birth Control and Why I Will Never Use It

In a world like today's, where there is such a great emphasis placed upon synthetic materials and where the rate of cancer occurring in otherwise healthy people is largely increasing, I try to be extremely cautious regarding what I put into my body. Staying as far away from man-made products as possible is one of my biggest areas of awareness. The most important being my refusal to use prescription birth control.

It already annoys me how the majority of commercials currently in circulation are for various pills. Why does nobody implement a commercial campaign that talks about the importance of natural alternatives to help/correct health issues? Maybe I should have studied nutrition in greater depth in order to have gained sufficient knowledge to do so on my own. Perhaps this should be saved to be used in an article for which I can research more fully. On to my point…

First of all, it's great that birth control is available. However, I worry that women do not understand exactly what effect the pill has on the body that allows it to prevent pregnancy. Most of the information I am able to find includes advantages and possible disadvantages, but rare is the offering of the important information available (what it actually does). I wonder if more women correctly understood the process, whether or not they might be less inclined to continue use. [For the purposes of this article, when I say "birth control" and "the pill," I am referring to the combined estrogen/progestin pill.]

While taking the pill, a woman's natural menstrual cycle is completely interrupted. The egg, and in turn estrogen, are not released from the ovary, and the endometrium does not thicken (what actually constitutes have a "period"). The bleeding that occurs during the pill-free or sugar-pill portion of birth control is simply the body's reaction to the loss of hormones caused by ceasing pill intake. It is not menstruation.

The issue regarding birth control that concerns me the most is its being prescribed to adolescent and teenaged girls in order to regulate their periods, as though having an irregular period is abnormal in some way. It might be more convenient to know exactly when "bleeding" will occur, but I would much rather stay natural. And by not taking the pill, I have become extremely familiar with my body and its cycle. Although my period has never been regular, at least not in monthly terms, my cycle remains consistent. It just takes different amounts of time based on physical activity in which I engage between periods. I am able to predict when my menstrual cycle is beginning because I know my body. To me, this is much more important than convenience.