Birth Control Options and Myths

Gilian Behar is busy planning for her October wedding. Theres the gown, the catering hall, flowers and the choosing of birth control. I feel like I cant get pregnant now, says Gilian.

Gilian and her fiance, Larson, definitely want a family one day, but agree that they want to enjoy their first few newlywed years as a couple. Gilian has taken the pill, which contains the hormones estrogen and progesterone, for 15 years. I have no idea what the pill is doing to my body and I wonder if it is going to be a problem when we do decide to start a family, if its going to be difficult for me to get pregnant, says Gilian.

Women on the birth control pill do not have to worry about it affecting their chances of getting pregnant later.

Gilian Behar and her fiance, Larson, definitely want a family one day, but agree that they want to enjoy their first few newlywed years as a couple. Gilian has taken the pill, which contains the hormones estrogen and progesterone, for 15 years. I have no idea what the pill is doing to my body and I wonder if it is going to be a problem when we do decide to start a family, if its going to be difficult for me to get pregnant, says Gilian.
Like many women, Gilian has been exposed to the swarming myths and misinformation surrounding birth control.

For the most part woman are not educated on all the different available birth control options that are available to them because so many different options come out all the time and many of them are not advertised. However, if you go into your doctors office and you ask questions then you and your doctor can figure out what works best for you, says Dr. Stephanie Pollitz of St. Lukes Roosevelt Hospital.

According to medical experts you can be on the pill for several years and it wont impinge your ability to conceiveand it may actually help decrease your risk of ovarian cancer. However, recent data published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine reveals that the pill may diminish a womans sex drive.

People are always worried they are going to gain weight or they are going to have low sexual function or they are going to be depressed there is no evidence that taking birth control pills or any kind of derivative thereof actually causes weight gain, says Dr. Pollitz.

When it comes to injectable birth control, Dr. Pollitz says you should proceed with caution. Depo-Provera which is a very popular form of birth control, which is progesterone only injectable every three months, has been shown to cause a decrease in bone density if taken for more than two years but we do recommend that people, in New York and elsewhere, take a break after two years, or at least get a bone density to see how their bones are doing before continuing.

If you dont want to take a pill every day or an injection every 3 months, there are various kinds of intrauterine devices, also known as I.U.D.s. An I.U.D. is a small device thats inserted through the cervix, placed into the uterus to prevent implantation of an embryo. It can last for five years and depending on the type of I.U.D., in some cases, 10 years.

The newest things that are out in the market in terms of hormonal contraception is the patch which is called Ortho Evra, which you put anywhere on your body from your knees to your shoulders, once a week, and you do it for three weeks in a row you stop for one week that is when you get your period and then you start again, it has the same components of birth control pills, says Dr. Pollitz.