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posted by CoolHand on Monday January 28 2019, @07:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the bowing-to-the-church dept.

Submitted via IRC for chromas

The Sugar Pills in Your Birth Control Pack Were Put There to Placate The Pope

For nearly 60 years, women have been taking the birth control pill in a less than ideal way, and weirdly enough, the reason is not scientific - instead, it can be traced back to the Catholic Church.

The seven inactive pills, included in most oral birth control packets, are not there for a medical reason. Each time a woman pops out a sugar pill, it actually represents a futile attempt to placate the Pope.

[...] One of the gynaecologists working on the pill, John Rock, was Catholic. He knew that in order for the Pill to be accepted by the Catholic Church and its followers, it would have to be sold as a "natural" form of contraception based on hormones already present in the female body.

[...] Their efforts were made in vain. In 1968, years after FDA approval, Pope Paul VI declared all forms of "artificial" contraception to be against church doctrine.

[...] A study from 2014, for instance, found that women who continuously took the pill "fared better in terms of headaches, genital irritation, tiredness, bloating, and menstrual pain."

What's more, some research has found that continuous use of oral contraceptives can help patients manage their endometriosis better, reducing pelvic pain, boosting sexual activity, and generally improving the quality of life for this debilitating condition.

It's taken decades, but medical guidelines are finally catching up to the facts. The United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) is the latest government body to shake itself free of this common misconception.

Adhering to the best available evidence and expert consensus, the institute's Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) has now admitted that there is no health benefit to a seven-day break from the birth control pill, and, as such, this form of birth control can be taken every day of the month.

The new guidelines argue that the consistent use of oral contraceptives "is associated with a reduced risk of endometrial, ovarian and colorectal cancer", not to mention the benefits of "predictable bleeding patterns, reduction in menstrual bleeding and pain, and management of symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis and premenstrual syndrome."


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