I'm Hillary, and I'm trying to understand birth control.
I recently asked a few high schoolers
what they knew about it.
I've never talked about birth control.
I'm a little bit unsure about what birth control even is.
I know that birth control is a pill that you take.
I don't really know anything about it, honestly.
And then I asked some of my coworkers what they knew.
I don't have a lot of experience talking or researching
or thinking about birth control.
I've never used birth control.
How did I learn about birth control?
I'd say I didn't.
I think this is what everyone thinks of as the most
basic form of birth control.
Somehow these magical tablets keep you from getting pregnant.
I don't know what's in it.
I feel like you've got to have some instructions.
How does this work?
Is it the coil that doesn't make you pregnant?
That's like magic.
How does it do that?
It turns out we all had a bunch of questions.
So I called in some experts.
I'm Dr. Regina Edmond.
I'm Dr. Yvonne Bohn, and we're OB/GYNs.
In order to understand birth control,
first you have to understand two basic concepts-- menstruation,
which is when the uterine lining sheds and a woman
bleeds monthly, and the second is ovulation.
That's when the ovary releases an egg.
So the way hormonal birth control works is it
prevents you from ovulating by interrupting
the signal from your brain.
You do not ovulate.
At the end of the cycle, the pills,
the hormones in the pills, or the lack of them,
causes you to have a, quote, "fake menstrual cycle."
Does birth control make you gain weight?
So when we're talking about birth control right now
we're talking about the combined birth control pills, the ones
you take every day.
The risk of weight gain with these types of pills
is extremely low.
If you're gaining more than five pounds then
you should let the doctor know.
What happens if I have one cigarette if I'm on the pill?
There is an increased risk of blood clots
if you're smoking while you take the pill.
If you're over 35, we absolutely do not want you to smoke.
This doesn't apply to smoking weed.
We really do not encourage cigarette use
at all for so many other reasons.
But if you're out one night and you have one cigarette,
you're probably going to be OK.
This is an IUD?
I'm really confused about this one.
I don't understand what this is.
This is a copper IUD.
As you can see, the device is lined with copper wire.
And the copper in the IUD is toxic to the sperm so the sperm
cannot fertilized egg.
It does not inhibit ovulation, and it does not
affect your menstrual cycle.
What will the effect of having been on birth control
for a decade be when I want to get pregnant?
Women always worry, they've been on the pill for 10 years,
how is that going to affect their fertility?
Are they going to be able to have a baby when they want to?
And the answer is yes.
Because of the low dose of most birth control pills,
there is little risk to future fertility after stopping.
Once you stop the pills or once you take your placebo pills,
within a very short period of time
the hormones that have regulated or prevented
your pregnancy will be gone, and you
should be able to resume a normal menstrual cycle very
quickly.
Sometimes as rapidly as in one month.
For other women it may take a little bit longer.
Why isn't there a dude pill?
We do have the male condom and vasectomy.
I don't see that there will be a hormonal form of contraception
for men because in order to help them stop producing sperm,
we would have to affect their testosterone levels,
and I don't think most men would be
willing to deal with the side effects of low testosterone.
I don't know which option to go with.
The best form of birth control is the one
that you'll remember to take.
Whatever you're using, it has to be consistent.
You have to be compliant.
So whether it's condoms, whether it's a diaphragm, whether it's
a pill that you take every day, or a ring that you
put in the vagina, you have to be compliant.
A lot of people take birth control
so that they don't get pregnant, but a lot of people
take birth control for other reasons too.
The hormones in the birth control
help to regulate your hormones so that you
have possibly less acne, less bleeding
when you have your menstrual cycle,
and possibly less cramping.
So we use it for medical problems too.
It seems like a lot of our confusion stems from the fact
that we hadn't really been talking about birth control.
I definitely think we should open up
the conversation about birth control
and it's many uses a lot earlier.
You can't be bashful.
You have to know what it is that you're putting inside
of your body.
Because otherwise you just hear about it through other people
and you don't really know what you're doing.
A lot of women are raised to be modest and to be ashamed.
And because of that, they really don't
understand what's going on in their body every month.
I think it's important that a lot of young girls
know more about it.
We think of birth control as a political thing or a religious,
not a religious thing, but so much of it
just has to do with women's bodies.
This should be open conversation.
It doesn't have to be so scary.
I think that if it were talked about more,
it wouldn't seem so wrong.
So let's actually talk about birth control.
Let's talk about birth control.
Let's talk about it.