Womens healthcare and ideological interference

[RedToothBrush]

www.independent.co.uk/voices/pill-women-pope-catholic-contraceptive-birth-control-doctors-health-a8740231.html?amp&utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&__twitter_impression=true
Women were lied to about the pill because a man wanted to please the Pope – what else are we not being told?
With a medical research industry as sophisticated as ours, it’s a scandal that we know so little about women’s bodies

Voices
Women were lied to about the pill because a man wanted to please the Pope – what else are we not being told?
With a medical research industry as sophisticated as ours, it’s a scandal that we know so little about women’s bodies

Women on the contraceptive pill know how they’re meant to take it: every day for three weeks of the month with a break so we can bleed. Or, we thought we knew.

As it turns out, the reason we’ve been told to stop taking the pill for a week each month is because one of the men working on the drug when it came out 60 years ago was a Catholic and wanted the Pope’s approval. He thought he’d get the Pope on board with oral contraceptives if it could mimic a woman’s natural cycle, still making her bleed once a month. The Pope, being the Pope, did not approve and the man renounced Catholicism, but that’s another story.

Now, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) has said that there is no medical benefit to having that week off the pill. There is no reason – other than a man’s sanctimonious whim – to bleed each month.

In fact, the FSRH has confirmed that it’s safer to take the pill every day because it increases protection against pregnancy. From now on, NHS doctors will advise women on the pill to take it continuously.

Wow.

Absolutely fucking unbelievable

What?!

Whaaaat.

I used to not have a week break with my pill (to avoid sickness) and my (male) GP used to give me a really hard time for it.

I thought this was more commonly known. I read an article many years ago in cosmo (I think). As a lapsed Catholic Iyoung woman taking the pill I was furious!

www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/380684/

Interesting article from The Atlantic.

Yep I heard this many years ago from a guy who worked in pharmaceuticals - I think it was well known in the industry but not made very public.

I took the pill scrupulously and to the letter of the instructions and it worked perfectly. Having a light period every 4 weeks was reassuring it was working.

If I had been taking it continuously I would have done a pregnancy test every few weeks. I vaguely recall I was on one continuous brand at one point and in fact did do pregnancy tests.

Yup. Completely ridiculous nonsense that I am sure many Catholics find baffling. I mean, ok, the guy thought that he might convince the pope and he didn't, and he left the church over it. Ok. That's really unfortunate. But to actually keep the damned system in place for no reason at all, not even a wrong headed attempt to curry favour which is a shitty reason? I wish i could say I was shocked, but I'm pretty much getting beyond that ability now.

So is it a fallacy that taking the Pill continuously can dangerously thicken the endometrium and lead to uterine cancer? This Catholicism story sounds so bizarre that I'd worry it was urban myth. I'd want empirical evidence that the cancer risk was untrue, before changing how I took the Pill. I was told by a specialist to aim for 3-4 periods a year, to balance comfort with safety.

So is it a fallacy that taking the Pill continuously can dangerously thicken the endometrium and lead to uterine cancer?

From personal experience I found that back-to-backing repeatedly lead to a decidual cast although I don’t think there’s any evidence that decidual casts are associated with any other health issues other than wtf-just-came-outta-me-itis, which is just because of poor understanding/education around female reproductive health in general really, isn’t it. So thicken the lining, yes, that’s exactly what it does. Lead to cancer, I’m not convinced that’s evidenced.

Google ‘decidual cast’ and it’s all about how rare they are, but I’ve seen plenty of threads on MN posted by panicked women only to be reassured by plenty of others that it’s happened to them. I suspect a lack of specific research into true incidence combined with under reporting might mean they’re not that rare at all in certain circumstances. The other theme on google is ew how gross which tbh come across as misogyny for entertainment to me.

Anyway - this pill revelation was all over Twitter a few days ago too - the aspect of the conversation I found most interesting was the posters saying they already knew this, yeah isn’t it bad, ah well. The seeming lack of anger at the manipulation of women to appease patriarchal doctrine. I don’t know what to do or say about that really, but it’s depressing!

I always did take my packs back to back. The break seemed daft

I was told it was possible, but to only do it occasionally - and this was by doctors in 3 different countries.. so yes, hearing officially that it's fine is good, and having it hidden for 60 years is appalling. Mind you I'm past the age for the pill now, so it's all a bit late for me.

If you are going to manufacture a pharmaceutical then you need to be scrupulously honest about it.

The Catholic stuff is as Floral Bunting says, baffling and a frightening attempt at a man attempting to curry favour with another man in order to deceive women for his own gain. Now there’s a surprise.

The Catholic teaching on contraception is a philosophical one and nothing to do with the specifics of how the contraception is administered. It’s not clear why he thought a week’s break would make it acceptable, apart from bamboozling everyone that the pill isn’t really overriding your natural endocrine system and your body is working as usual. I think a week’s break has as much to do with misleading women for the manufacturer’s own marketing purposes (only taking it 3 out of 4 weeks has a psychological effect, you feel less dependent or like a pill-popper for want of a better phrase), than anything Catholic.

I think a week’s break has as much to do with misleading women for the manufacturer’s own marketing purposes (only taking it 3 out of 4 weeks has a psychological effect, you feel less dependent or like a pill-popper for want of a better phrase),

But isn't the Minipill taken continuously?

Perhaps the enforced bleed was about reminding women that they are still subject to Eve's Curse and bear the guilt for the Fall. Woman! You may think this pill will liberate you BUT It Doesn't Change ANYTHING.

Someone told me that there was no issue taking the pill continuously but the break was because when they trialled it, women had felt less womanly without their period (which I never understood because surely that’s the biggest bonus). Obviously it wasn’t the women, but the men who thought they were less womanly!

Perhaps the enforced bleed was about reminding women that they are still subject to Eve's Curse and bear the guilt for the Fall. Woman! You may think this pill will liberate you BUT It Doesn't Change ANYTHING.

I suspect that's why this man thought it might placate the religious.

Convent educated 55 yr old here. I was surprised that this has gained so much traction as we all knew about it as teens at school. We knew we didn't need to take the break and we knew that the advisory break was to keep things as close to natural as possible. I don't know when doctors and family planning advisors stopped making women aware of this as I haven't taken the pill since my DS1 was born 32 years ago. It's a shame that there's so much ignorance around stuff like this.

Read about this year's ago. But sure at the time the whole pope thing was rebuffed. Think when it was first introduced the different quantities and reactions meant it genuinely was advisable to take a week break... F All to do with the pope... Doesn't make as a good a headline though.

Perhaps the enforced bleed was about reminding women that they are still subject to Eve's Curse and bear the guilt for the Fall. Woman! You may think this pill will liberate you BUT It Doesn't Change ANYTHING

Oh good grief. I never saw it as anything more than evidence the pill was working.Without the break I would have done pregnancy tests every 6 weeks maximum.

I have little sympathy for women who find they need abortion at the later range where the reason is "oh my periods are irregular- I never knew I was pregnant" so I would have made sure I was never in that position.

I have little sympathy for women who find they need abortion at the later range where the reason is "oh my periods are irregular- I never knew I was pregnant"

I have irregular periods and have only done one pregnancy test in my entire life, when I was TTC and 2 months late. You are extremely unusual to do pregnancy tests that often. I don't know a single other woman who does that. Why on earth would you have little sympathy for another woman who finds themselves in such a position of an unplanned pregnancy because their body (which they think they know) has tripped them up?

The week off was the only time I fancied sex

You are extremely unusual to do pregnancy tests that often

I didn't say I did. I said I would have done if I had not had the week off bleeding. I was briefly on a continuous pill. I did tests then. I also went through an early menopause and I did pregnancy tests then if I hadn't had a period for 5/6 weeks or so. A pregnancy test is considerably cheaper and less traumatic than a surgical abortion.

I don't know a single other woman who does that. Why on earth would you have little sympathy for another woman who finds themselves in such a position of an unplanned pregnancy because their body (which they think they know) has tripped them up?

Because I think women ought to take responsibility for their lives. I think it is foolish in the extreme to think "oh well my periods are often irregular" and do nothing about it than spend a couple of quid on a pregnancy test and if need be take steps to deal with an unwanted pregnancy at the earliest stage.

Marguerita you’re not coming across well. I also feel you have a very unusual and possibly paranoid approach to suggest it would be normal to be regularly taking pregnancy tests when you were using contraception, or that women with irregular cycles should be continually checking for a pregnancy they didn’t suspect or expect, just in case, and that not doing so is somehow irresponsible. That sounds bonkers.

For quite a few years I used to take the pill for three packs consecutively and then have a week’s break, to minimise the damage done by endometriosis. Drs weren’t that obsessed with the week’s break but given the way the packs were formulated and the way that everyone else I knew took it I assumed this was a particular case and just seen as the lesser of the two evils.

Now we find out the whole thing was a nonsense. I have had chronic illnesses for nearly 25 years and the misogyny I’ve experienced in the health arena through that has done more than any other area of my life to radicalise me as a feminist. I was accused of being hysterical for several years before I was first diagnosed with the actual illness which gave me such awful symptoms. At this point nothing about the way the health industry and profession treats women would surprise me (but sadly something probably would, and will).