BIRTH CONTROL: The pro's and con's??!
Question:
BIRTH CONTROL: The pro's and con's??
My boyfriend and I are going to start a sexual relationship, but I think I want the added protection of going on birth control. Can someone post the pro's and con's? Some personal stories?
I want to go on birth control for obvious reasons and I heard that a bonus is possible increased breast size? However, I've also heard they make your boobs really sensitive, plus there's other weight gain involved. I'm sixteen and so obvously pretty self-concious about my boobs as it is, considering they're only an A.
Thank-you!!
Answers:
When you say "going on birth control", that makes me think you're talking about the birth control pill. When you say "added protection", that makes me think that you're going to be using a condom or something else *as well as* the birth control pill. So, correct me if I'm wrong but I'm going to try to answer your question with those 2 assumptions in mind.
My personal story with the birth control pill is that I've taken it twice in my life; from ages 18-20 and, after a 6 year break, at age 26 for 9 months.
The first time I took it, it was for birth control purposes only and, frankly, it made me a bit of a nutcase. I even sought counselling, I was so moody and erratic, not thinking it was the pill making me crazy. When, I finally figured it out, I still stayed on because I wanted the carefree protection it offered – this was a bad thing as I really should have been using condoms for disease protection. It's a miracle that I didn't catch something nasty and irreversible. I only stopped the pill when I stopped having sex altogether.
My second round with the pill came when I was finishing up college and didn't want cramps to interfere with my studies. Then, I got married right out of college. After a month of marriage, ironically, I went off the pill. Why? Because I discovered that the pill was, once again, messing with me emotionally. This time, it was blunting my highs and lows. I experienced no great joys and couldn't recognize true set-backs. While in college, I had noticed that I was functioning kind of like a robot but assumed that it was because of my heavy workload (7 courses in one semester). Now that I was married and under almost no stress at all, I could see that this robotic state was persisting, without a clear reason. I guessed that it was the pill and quit it. I guessed right.
Now, during this second round with the pill, I developed irregular bleeding. I would have a few days of dark, "old blood" spotting leading up to my period and about a week of spotting after my period. This weird spotting continued for the next 7 years until this spring, when I had endometrial polyps discovered and removed. Were the polyps caused by the pill? While I haven't yet found studies that answer this questions, research does show the following 2 things:
- Birth control pills cause the number of estrogen receptors in the uterus to decrease, as a way to cope with artificial hormonal overload. [from a 2002 report, "down-regulate" defined at wikipedia.org]
- Endometrial polyps occur in a uterus with fewer estrogen receptors. [from a 1996 study]
I know what that tells me…
That leaves me with condoms (non-spermicidal as I have a strong negative reaction to spermicide – and, frankly, I know few people who don't!) and natural family planning. I wouldn't recommend NFP for you, though. NFP (in my way of thinking, anyway) is for people who would prefer not to have a child right now but are married and, therefore, it wouldn't be a big deal if they did have one.
For more information on the documented side effects of the birth control pill, check out the wikipedia article listed below. Weight gain, sexual disorder, depression, vaginal discharge, headache… yum. Attractive.
If you do choose go on the pill, don't let it make you casual about sex. There is a correlation between promiscuity (and/or 1st sex at an early age, for that matter) and cervical cancer that is being largely ignored in favor of the viral theory [see the 1973 study abstract at the first website listed below]. You aren't married so you should still use a condom. If your boyfriend refuses to use a condom, that would make him either mentally incompetent in some way (refusing to see the risks) or inconsiderate of the effect of unprotected sex on you. Either way, not someone who deserves to be sharing your body.
Don't worry about your boobs. You're only sixteen. My cup size didn't "max out" until my mid-twenties – and I passed A a long time ago. :)