As a sex educator, Milly Evans knows more about contraception than most.<\/p>\n
But in the run-up to getting a hormonal coil (IUS), she was filled with unfamiliar doubts about whether it was right for her body.<\/p>\n
Her social media feed was \u00ab\u00a0flooded\u00a0\u00bb with content discouraging her from getting hormonal contraception. She found herself asking: was the risk of a bad experience worth it?<\/p>\n
For six months, 26-year-old Evans kept putting off booking her appointment.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Some of the claims I saw were so compelling that they made me question what I already know to be true,\u00a0\u00bb she says.<\/p>\n
This isn’t an unusual story \u2013 if you’re a chronically online woman in your 20s you’ll have seen plenty of conversations about hormonal contraceptives like the pill, coil and implant.<\/p>\n
The chatter usually fits into two categories – women sharing side effects they’ve personally experienced, and people purposefully sharing misinformation, often linking hormones to ideology.<\/p>\n
It’s the latter she’s most worried about.<\/p>\n
The content has a \u00ab\u00a0right-wing, religious, largely American element\u00a0\u00bb, Evans, who has been accredited for six years, says, and is often framed in terms of \u00ab\u00a0clean living\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0divine femininity\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Posts like this have also made their way onto Lauren’s Instagram feed. The 25-year-old, who lives in Manchester, follows a lot of fitness and wellness influencers – and says she gets annoyed by content from some of them \u00ab\u00a0demonising\u00a0\u00bb hormonal contraception and calling it \u00ab\u00a0unnatural\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Lauren, who’s been taking the combined pill for four years, says it’s helped alleviate her symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), a severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), which she says caused intense cramps and erratic behaviour in the run-up to her period.<\/p>\n
She says the pill has \u00ab\u00a0honestly changed my life,\u00a0\u00bb but adds that the posts make her positive experience feel \u00ab\u00a0invalidated\u00a0\u00bb and have made her question whether she’s making the right decision.<\/p>\n
In recent years in the US, content vilifying hormonal contraception has spread rapidly on social media.<\/p>\n
A quick search draws up a post of a new mum holding her unplanned baby, the 17-year-old is asking Instagram for contraception advice. A comment underneath, liked more than 800 times, reads: Birth control is \u00ab\u00a0so bad for you\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Another said contraception \u00ab\u00a0sucks\u00a0\u00bb before a different user shared their hatred towards the pill, saying it made them depressed.<\/p>\n
Even people who say they have medical qualifications are spreading misinformation online and in podcasts, according to psychosexual and relationship therapist Evie Plumb.<\/p>\n
Medical director at women’s health platform the Lowdown Dr Fran Yarlett says that while some of the claims are definitely wrong, others are based on small-scale studies with \u00ab\u00a0dubious methodology\u00a0\u00bb and take the information out of context – like the claim that the pill can \u00ab\u00a0shrink your clitoris\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
But this attitude shift isn’t just happening online or in the US. Sexual health experts in the UK say these conversations are increasingly happening in real life at clinics every day.<\/p>\n
London GP Jenny Dhingra says that she has seen more \u00ab\u00a0aversion\u00a0\u00bb among patients in the last couple of years, with some citing concerns around the side effects and saying they were \u00ab\u00a0scared\u00a0\u00bb after seeing social media content.<\/p>\n
The NHS says commonly reported side effects of hormonal contraception include headaches, feeling sick, mood swings, weight gain, sore breasts and acne, but that side effects usually get better with time.<\/p>\n
It also says that hormonal contraception can raise the risk of blood clots and breast cancer, but that the risk is \u00ab\u00a0very low\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
It’s hard to accurately say how much these online conversations are truly affecting contraception usage in the UK. NHS data doesn’t include people who get the pill from pharmacies, or acknowledge that some devices are now prescribed for longer without needing to be replaced, says Jenny Hall, professor of reproductive health at UCL.<\/p>\n
She says that overall, however, data does seem to nod to people moving away from hormonal contraception.<\/p>\n
This includes a study published last year suggesting that between 2018 and 2023, the proportion of women using hormonal contraception to prevent pregnancy fell, based on information from tens of thousands of women seeking abortions in England and Wales.<\/p>\n
Additionally, a review of several studies last year found that negative side effects are discussed \u00ab\u00a0much more frequently\u00a0\u00bb on social media than benefits of contraception.<\/p>\n
The reality is scary stories get attention and go viral, Evans says, whereas someone who loves the coil \u00ab\u00a0with their whole heart\u00a0\u00bb wouldn’t get the views.<\/p>\n
People are driven to \u00ab\u00a0the really extreme negative ones\u2026 the ones that people say they had a traumatic experience, the ones where someone had a blood clot,\u00a0\u00bb she adds.<\/p>\n
Sex educator Kerry Wolstenholme agrees it’s those \u00ab\u00a0horror stories\u00a0\u00bb that she hears young people quote and decide contraception is \u00ab\u00a0not for them\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
So if people are turning away from hormonal contraception, what are they using instead? Sexual health professionals say fertility tracking apps are creeping in as unlike the pill, coil and implant, they can advertise on social media in the UK as they don’t require a prescription.<\/p>\n
Some women post promoting them as the \u00ab\u00a0natural\u00a0\u00bb option. Based on things like their last period and their temperature, the apps predict a likely fertile window when you should avoid sex or use protection.<\/p>\n
But many of them are designed as period trackers or to help couples trying to conceive so shouldn’t be relied upon to avoid pregnancy.<\/p>\n
The experts are frank that side effects from hormonal contraception \u00ab\u00a0can and will\u00a0\u00bb be experienced by some – it’s how medicine works. But they say people are not also hearing about the benefits.<\/p>\n
Kayla Healey, head of contraception at MSI Reproductive Choices says hormonal contraceptives can help with heavy periods or alleviating the symptoms of PMS.<\/p>\n
It’s also common for hormonal options to be prescribed to help with the symptoms of conditions like adenomyosis and endometriosis that can cause painful periods.<\/p>\n
Among the social media noise, sex educator Evans says there’s also just \u00ab\u00a0a lot of frustrated women\u00a0\u00bb wanting to share their legitimate, negative experiences of hormonal contraception.<\/p>\n
The problem is – experts say that even if these stories are valid, they are shared with no context about how likely these side effects are.<\/p>\n
Some feel \u00ab\u00a0fobbed off\u00a0\u00bb that concerns over side effects are not taken seriously and are also fed up of bearing the \u00ab\u00a0contraceptive burden\u00a0\u00bb, says Hall. Currently there are no hormonal contraceptives for men although some gels and pills are being tested.<\/p>\n
And Evans worries \u00ab\u00a0very real frustrations\u00a0\u00bb are just feeding into narratives being spread online by anti-birth control campaigners, including some who see a woman’s main role as to have as many children as possible.<\/p>\n
In the end, Evans didn’t let the content on social media sway her, and had a hormonal coil fitted earlier this week.<\/p>\n
She says she felt \u00ab\u00a0confident\u00a0\u00bb in her choice after discussing it with the healthcare professional who fitted it.<\/p>\n
After she posted about her experience on Instagram, she got messages from people who said they were relieved to see her post \u00ab\u00a0because they had been put off\u00a0\u00bb by other content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a sex educator, Milly Evans knows more about contraception than most. But in the run-up to getting a hormonal coil (IUS), she was filled with unfamiliar doubts about whether it was right for her body. Her social media feed was \u00ab\u00a0flooded\u00a0\u00bb with content discouraging her from getting hormonal contraception. She found herself asking: was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}