5 Reasons Women Avoid Birth Control And Whether They're Valid

Some women are saying, ‘IDFWU’ to the pill, but what’s their reasoning? And more important… is it valid?

I still remember watching an episode of 16 & Pregnant where the tiny blond chick with a promising future in gymnastics gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby. She couldn’t have been more than 5 feet tall, 100 pounds on a day full of nothing but ingesting fatty carbs, and when her mom asks her why she didn’t want to go on the pill, she blames the prospect of weight gain.

“I didn’t want to get fat,” she says shyly. Then together, mother and daughter look in the full-length mirror at her 8-month-along pregnant belly and laugh uncontrollably.

But the tiny blond chick isn’t alone. In fact, she is representative of the vast majority of sexually active women. One of the most common reasons women don’t go on birth control pills is that, like her, they “don’t want to get fat.” This widespread and intense fear of putting on a few pounds can actually dictate women’s choices about their reproductive health.

In the event that a young woman decides she doesn’t want to take birth control pills and subsequently avoids all other protection — whether voluntarily or by accident — this decision could very possibly result in an unintended pregnancy. In that case, her initial aversion to contraceptives as a control choice is rendered invalid; in short, she’s going to gain weight anyway: She’s pregnant.

Putting on a bit of weight is hardly the sole reason some women opt not to take birth control. Women cite many different reasons for avoiding contraceptives. Below, HelloFlo debunks common reasons why some women choose to avoid birth control pills.

Reason No. 1: “I don’t want to get fat”

Weight gain was, once upon a time, a genuine concern for women on the pill. But this specific side effect is characteristic of earlier versions of oral contraceptives. Nowadays, weight gain is no longer a legitimate side effect for pills that contain progesterone and estrogen, though rumor still seems to perpetuate this idea.

Reason No. 2: “It might make me depressed”

Birth control screws with your hormones — that’s what it’s meant to do, as it uses estrogen and progesterone (or a combination of the two) to suppress ovulation. They thicken the cervical mucus, which makes it nearly impossible for sperm to pass into the cervix, therefore blocking pregnancy. But a potential repercussion of voluntarily altering your hormone levels is a fluctuation in your natural hormonal balance, which could result in depression. For women taking birth control, the risk of developing depression increases by 10 percent.

Reason No. 3: “Birth control causes cancer”

It’s true taking oral contraceptive pills raises a person’s risk for developing certain kinds of cancer, like breast cancer. By the same token, it’s also true that taking oral contraceptive pills lowers a person’s risk for developing other kinds of cancer, like ovarian and uterine.

Reason No. 4: “I don’t want to put chemicals in my body”

We’ve all heard at least one female friend say it: “My body needs a break.” Being exposed to any sort of chemicals or hormones runs its risk, but the validity of “giving your body a break” is often disputed by specialists. Birth control works on the daily; it doesn’t build up in your body over time. As soon as a person ceases taking birth control, hormones leave the system and a person is susceptible to pregnancy.

Reason No. 5: “I’m not at risk for getting pregnant”

Two of the top three reasons women don’t use contraceptives include “a misjudged risk for pregnancy” and “infrequent intercourse.” In fact, 36 percent of women who experience unplanned pregnancies cite their reason for not using birth control as “thinking they couldn’t get pregnant,” an excuse that proper, informative sex education could clear up. As far as “infrequent intercourse” as a justification, sometimes it’s better to be safe than sorry.

How Our Environment Can Induce Allergies Even Before We’re Born

Is this the worst Northern Hemisphere allergy season yet? For many people – both those who’ve suffered before and newcomers to the annual sniffling, coughing mess that accompanies springtime – it seems like there are more allergens and allergies today than ever before.

They’re not really wrong: allergic diseases are on the rise in the Northern Hemisphere. Nearly one in every two Europeans has either a food or environmental allergy, and both have increased in frequency and severity over the last decade.

Many allergies start in childhood. According to the European Federation of Allergy and Airway Diseases Patients Association around 65 percent of children are affected by 18 months of age. The International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood reports that well over 20 percent of European youngsters show allergic reactions to inhalants or food at some point during their childhood.

To learn more about how children become allergic so soon in life, I studied how the environment can affect the risk of developing respiratory allergies (the complete study will be published in coming months in a special issue of the journal Mechanisms of Ageing and Development on epigenetics).

Allergies may start even before we are born

Although genetic predisposition is an important risk factor, experts have also known for some time that what pregnant women eat and breathe can impact their unborn babies. The last decade has seen further scientific proof of the link between a mother’s diet and lifestyle during pregnancy and the well-being of her child later in life.

Recent results from a Flemish birth cohort study looking at mothers and their children, which was financed by the Flemish Government and coordinated by a leading European independent research and technology organization VITO, showed an association between exposure to traffic-related air pollutants before birth (mainly nitrogen dioxide and the particle PM10) and the development of asthma symptoms or wheezing in three-year old toddlers.

Thus, we know that chemical exposure before birth may have an impact on a child’s allergy risk later in life. Other recent studies offer an explanation for the link: epigenetic DNA methylation changes induced by environmental factors.

Let’s break the science-speak down a bit. Our DNA or genetic blueprint determines the way we look and, to some extent, our personality. Epigenetics – that is, all non-genetic modifications “on” genes that do not change the DNA sequence itself – is responsible for the remaining details.

When epigenetic DNA methylation occurs, it means that methyl groups (-CH3) are added onto the DNA, which affects the way genes express themselves – that is, how they behave. 

For instance, mothers-to-be who are exposed to chemical compounds or consume a less-than-ideal diet – like the modern Western diet which is dominated by processed foods that are low in antioxidants but rich in saturated fatty acids – especially during the early stages of pregnancy, can alter the DNA methylation patterns on their babies’ DNA, turning some genes on and others off, and consequently increasing the baby’s risk of allergies.

Frequent consumption of fruits, vegetables and fish, on the other hand, are associated with a lower prevalence of asthma. And a diet of fish rich in n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (also found in nuts, seeds and oysters among other foods) can actually counterbalance the pro-allergenic response. 

What’s more, a high level of adherence to the so-called “Mediterranean diet” – olive oil, goats’ cheese, and fruits, among other foods – early in life appears to protect against the development of allergies in children.

Such epigenetic changes are, to some extent, reversible. Studies show that epigenetic changes causing higher body weight could be reversed by dietary supplementation with essential nutrients such as choline, betaine and folic acid.

But it appears that extreme or chronic exposure, as may occur if there is starvation, overeating or chemical exposure during pregnancy, may alter the epigenetic pattern so intensively that it leaves a permanent “mark” on the child’s DNA.

This marker can be passed on to the next generation, thus increasing their risk of disease even more from the very beginning of life and highlighting the critical importance of prenatal care in raising healthy future generations.

Detecting respiratory allergy in young children

My research at VITO explored the hypothesis that chemical exposures during pregnancy and early life alter the DNA methylation patterns of young children (aged 5 and 11 years old) and thereby influence their immune systems and allergy risk later in life.

Questionnaires and saliva samples gathered from about 170 mother-child pairs from two different birth cohorts in Flanders (FLEHS1 and FLEHS2) were analyzed. Screening of the whole genome DNA methylation patterns of children allergic to respiratory allergens (hay fever, asthma and house dust mite allergy) compared to not-allergic children revealed a list of 27 gene regions that showed a modified DNA methylation pattern and could thus possibly be used to diagnose respiratory allergies.

Interestingly, we observed an association between the altered DNA methylation patterns in three of these genes and exposure to traffic-related air pollutants during pregnancy of mothers as well as during the child’s life until age 11. This suggests that these allergy-related epigenetic changes can be the result of early life exposures to air pollutants.

The ConversationSince the identified genes have a regulating role in allergic disease reactions, they might be of interest to study for further development of a diagnostic screening tools. If chemical exposures and resulting changes in DNA methylation patterns can be detected early in life, strategies to prevent chemical exposures or the risk to get allergy (or both), particularly in children, could be developed at various levels such as reviewing legislation on air pollution limits or aiming at a better education of prospective parents.

What Is Restless Leg Syndrome?

Restless Leg Syndrome makes your skin crawl & disrupts sleep

I've been feeling a strange itchy, tingling sensation on my right ankle lately whenever I sit for longer than a half hour. It seems no matter how much I rub it, the feeling won't go away until I get up and move. As a writer, I sit a lot and the sensation always returns as soon as I sit back down, so I am constantly wiggling my ankle for relief. It has become quite the distraction.

My mother suffers from restless leg syndrome, also know as also known as Willis-Ekbom disease, which is a neurological disorder that leaves her with an uncomfortable twitching feeling in her legs that makes her want to move them and can feel like something is crawling all over her. I was wondering if perhaps this was starting to happen to me. After all, RLS affects about 10 percent of adults and 2 percent of children.

While RLS can be really hard to diagnose, if you start having a twitchy or uncomfortable feeling in your legs, arms or other body parts, such as your torso or genitals, especially at night, and it makes you feel like you need to move, then the feeling disappears only to return as soon as you are still, you may need to seek medical attention. The feeling can be anything from a tingle to an uncomfortable pulling sensation.

While RLS can be more common in people who have arthritis, are pregnant or have diabetes or anemia, you can also suffer if you don't have these conditions.

The good news is you don't have to suffer from RLS, as it is treatable.

Always wanting to move your limbs around to get rid of the creepy-crawly feeling is annoying, but what is worse is that it can affect our sleep, which can lead to other problems such as depression.

"Central nervous system problems that have been implicated include: neurotransmitters such as glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid, circadian physiology, reduced central iron stores, dopaminergic systems and thalamic function," Dr. David Fox, a vascular surgeon specializing in the treatment of venous disease tells SheKnows.

He is an attending vascular surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital and offers what he claims to be the safest, most advanced vein treatments in the tri-state area, including endovenous laser therapy and sclerotherapy. Fox says that RLS is "poorly understood," as it indicates problems with both the central and peripheral nervous systems.

While there has been an effort to try to understand how we develop RLS, Fox explains that about half of all patients have some kind of family history of the condition.

"Many patients with RLS have not been found to have it as a consequence of an identifiable genetic pattern and no specific genetic abnormalities have been identified thus far," he adds.

RLS is in fact a treatable condition and most people do well when they seek treatment. The most common medications for treatment are pramipexole and ropinirole, but iron replacements and the Relaxis Pad, a device approved by the FDA in 2014, have also been known to relieve symptoms.

RLS can start at any age, and Fox says about 45 percent of all patients experience their first symptoms before the age of 20, at which point it's considered early-onset RLS. Late onset begins after age 45.