What They Never Told Us About Birth Control and The Other Option

With the plethora of birth control products available through insurance today it seems ridiculous that a non-invasive pregnancy planning product would not be covered. Three years ago, I discovered the Marquette method of natural family planning (NFP). Many women choose to use this method to space their pregnancies and it is up to 99% effective in preventing pregnancy when practiced correctly. For decades women have been placed on hormonal birth control. Many women I know report they have not been informed of any possible dangers of birth control, but were told that it is safe and effective. However, some recent studies have linked the pill, injections, implants, and intra-uterine devices (IUDs) with breast cancer. Unfortunately, this suggests that many providers may not be looking for the healthiest option but rather the easiest option when treating their patients. One can only speculate as to any individual doctor's motivations for doing so, but pair this with the fact that insurance will not cover non-invasive forms of contraception, and you have a society of women playing Russian roulette with cancer and other life-threatening health problems. It makes me feel like pharmaceutical companies and insurance care more about creating problems to fix than providing tools to avoid the problems in the first place. There are alternatives to traditional birth control. The only problem is that women have to pay out of pocket, forcing many to choose between going broke and poisoning themselves. Okay, this is a little dramatic, but check out what the government studies have to say about the birth control our insurance covers.

What you get with Birth Control covered by Insurance

Insurance pays for many types of birth control. Many of these are progestin-only methods of contraception, this includes implants, IUDs, oral pills, and injections.

Scientists are still studying the effects of these types of birth control, but recently, some data relating to breast cancer and birth control has been released. One study found that combined contraceptive pill use increased the risk of breast cancer by 23% and progestin-only contraceptive pills by 29%, injectables by 18%, implants by 28%, and IUDs by 21% (source linked here). This is just one newly-identified side effect of birth control. According to Healthline, other known long-term side effects include blood clotting, gallbladder disease, heart attacks, high blood pressure, liver cancer, and stroke. When visiting the National Cancer Institute website on oral contraceptives and cancer risk (See Here), I found that cervical cancer risk increased by 10% for women that used the pill for 1 to 5 years and increased to 60% for women that have taken the pill for 5 to 9 years, doubling this risk with 10 or more years of use.

Another health risk of oral contraceptives according to the National Library of Medicine is cardiovascular disease, which is a “major cause of death in developed countries where most research on the association between oral contraception and cardiovascular diseases has been conducted.” The same article (Linked here), when listing potential risks for IUDs, mentions "pelvic inflammatory disease, tubal infertility, septic abortion, spontaneous abortion, and uterine perforation.” The article further states that long-acting contraceptives like injectables also have additional metabolic risks including “changes in blood pressure and insulin, cholesterol and triglyceride levels.” However, “amenorrhea or irregular, unpredictable bleeding episodes are the most commonly reported problem with injectables and the primary reason for terminating use.” Later in the report, you find that implants also have an increased risk for bleeding and are also the main reason for cessation of use, although some women stop using due to ovarian cysts caused by the implant.

When we just look at the risks of cancer, women that take one of the five most common types of birth control are at hirer risk for breast cancer, cervical cancer, liver cancer, endometrial cancer, and ovarian cancer. The worst part is that our medical professionals are not talking about these risks. When you have a baby in the hospital, staff is instructed to ask about what your plan is for birth control, and they often provide instruction on breastfeeding for first-time mothers. But can we say breastfeeding is safe for our babies while we take birth control? In this article by the national library of medicine, Bethesda (MD), writes this warning:

"Based on the available evidence, expert opinion in the United States states that postpartum women who are breastfeeding should not use combined hormonal contraceptives during the first 3 weeks after delivery because of concerns about increased risk for venous thromboembolism and generally should not use combined hormonal contraceptives during the fourth week postpartum because of concerns about potential effects on breastfeeding performance. Postpartum breastfeeding women with other risk factors for venous thromboembolism generally should not use combined hormonal contraceptives 4 to 6 weeks after delivery. World Health Organization guidelines are more restrictive, stating that combined oral contraceptives should not be used in nursing mothers before 42 days postpartum and the disadvantages of using the method generally outweigh the advantages between 6 weeks and 6 months postpartum."

Why are we not being informed of the potential risks? And why are our medical professionals and insurance companies not providing other options? Now, let's move to the other option.

First, what is NFP or Natural family planning?

It is what it sounds like: NFP is a way for families and women to understand their cycle and plan their future children. Popular in Catholic circles, many moms use one of the five most common methods. The website https://www.vitaefertility.com has great resources on this and would be a great place to start for anyone that is looking into NFP. This chart from their website explains the different methods. (Click the chart to see the corresponding article)

The Marquette Method

This isn't your grandma's NFP! For the purpose of this article, I will focus on the Marquette Method which is the easiest and most accurate method to use for tracking cycles. The advantage of this method is that postpartum breastfeeding mothers can use this method with high accuracy, unlike other NFP methods that can give inaccurate information during the breastfeeding period. However, this method also helps women that need help with spacing pregnancies, struggling with fertility, premenopausal women, women with irregular cycles, and women interested in health monitoring. See more information about the Marquette method here.

This method uses a fertility monitor and the corresponding test sticks to measure estrone-3-glucuronide and luteinizing hormone (LH). The accuracy of this monitor in determining fertility is around 99%. Knowing that sperm can live for up to five days in the vagina, these monitors tell you how your hormones are rising and decreasing and give you a clear high-low reading to let you know if you should or shouldn’t have sex depending on whether you are using it to conceive or to avoid having children during that particular cycle.

Click here to see the Clear Blue Monitor in the amazon store

By using NFP, a woman assumes control of her own reproductive health. Many young girls have reproductive issues. This could be anything from long painful periods to irregular cycles, or more involved issues like endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). As a result, many doctors place them on the pill or other forms of invasive birth control because it temporarily “fixes” the problem. The inequities implicit in this are startling. For example, when it comes to men's reproductive health, they don't have this type of “magic pill” or fix. In fact, any ill side effects that might arise from a proposed treatment for, say, sterility, would likely be researched, publicized, and provided to men so that they could make an informed decision. If this research were not available or was inconclusive, it is easy to imagine doctors looking upon such treatments as snake oil solutions to be avoided, and rightly so. Thus, there is very little economic incentive for insurance and pharmaceutical companies to profit off the production and distribution of "quick fixes" for men, while scientists do have the incentive to thoroughly research and publicize all effects of a male sterility treatment. Therefore, there would be nothing impeding a doctor from keeping his or her patients well-informed.

Again, one can only speculate as to a doctor's intentions. Regardless, given that women are apparently not so informed, this leads one to conclude that, in our society's attempt to bring about equality of the sexes by providing women untrammeled access to any and all kinds of contraception, we have actually ended up treating women worse. Many women get off the pill when they want to start having children, and only then do they realize they have issues that need addressing before they have a real chance of conceiving. But there is an alternative to this state of disempowerment. NFP helps women understand their cycle, it helps them identify cues from their bodies and can tell them when something is wrong. It seems wrong that we should be satisfied with a bandaid when we could actually start treating the problem.

Why do I mention all of this?

There are so many side effects of birth control that it seems crazy. Girls, many at only 14 years old, are being put on the pill or persuaded to begin long-term contraception options. Yet no one is explaining this to them or talking about the extreme side effects. To put the cherry on top their insurance is paying for all of this. Yet when a person tries to get a fertility monitor to use a non-invasive and effective NFP method through insurance, their request is denied and they have to pay out of pocket.

Now the fertility monitors cost $119.98 on Amazon and $38.99 for a month's worth of test sticks. For your first 12 months, you would be looking at a cost of roughly $589.88. This figure does not include any classes on the Marquette method, which can vary in cost. If you would like to use the Marquette method, and you are not postpartum or breastfeeding, you can use ovulation test strips, and read enough information online to be effective. On other hand, if you are postpartum and breastfeeding, you will need to use the Clear Blue fertility monitor and the specific Marquette method for postpartum/breastfeeding.

I used the easy@home app and test strips and was able to track my cycle and see my fertile windows easily. We used it to abstain for a few months and then later used it to conceive our first son. Using these test strips is much cheaper, about 15 dollars for a pack of 50. However, as I mentioned, the efficacy drops when breastfeeding. This is because it only monitors your LH hormone and not estrogen. The Clear Blue monitor will measure both hormones. When using the specific Marquette method for breastfeeding, this monitor is very accurate for spacing pregnancies.

Final Thoughts

All this said, it almost makes you think that the insurance companies want you to be ill, they want you to experience these side effects so that they can sell you more medication and more treatments. Maybe I am a little on the conspiracy side of this issue, but why would insurance pay for invasive contraception and abortion, and not a monitor that allows women to choose a non-invasive method? For goodness' sake, they pay for breast pumps and other machinery that is far more expensive than this monitor and test strips. I am just baffled on this front.

It's time for a change! It's time that we start asking these questions and reach out to our providers and ask them to provide more information on NFP or other non-invasive contraception, and most of all push our insurance companies to provide safe products and cover the cost of all reproductive tools. Reproductive health shouldn’t be limited to contraception pills, injections, implants, and abortions. We need to start treating women's reproductive issues with the woman in mind. Find the real medical issue and begin to treat the person, instead of just creating more problems. At the very least, we need to offer a different solution. If you want a different outcome you first have to try something different.

The true tragedy here is that many medical professionals are not trained on NFP and if they are, it is very basic. Often, it seems that NFP is dismissed as some kind of "alternative medicine" that just doesn’t work. Before scientific research started to show the true benefits of the Marquette and other NFP methods, it may have been justifiable to dismiss them in this way. But, now with the new technology available, this needs to be taught and it needs to be a contender as a healthy option for women. If you can remember to pee in the morning, you can do the Marquette method.

So, to end this article, I will ask: Why? Why are we settling for something that is making us sick? Why aren’t our health and insurance systems telling us first, that there are side effects? And second, that there is another option? We deserve better.

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