Earlier this spring, I talked about #3yeargoals and I shared a few of my aspirations and I also chatted with Dr. Christine Palmay about the importance of knowing about all of your contraception options are. With World Contraception Day (WCD) coming up in two weeks on September 26, 2016, it seems like a good time to delve into this topic a little further. If you’ve never heard about WCD, it’s a global movement created to empower women to make informed choices when it comes to contraception so that we can create a world where every pregnancy is wanted.
We thankfully live in a world now where discussing birth control isn’t taboo. I think we can agree that that is something we are grateful for. I know I’ve had convos with my girlfriends about what we use, any complications or successes we’ve had, and shared stories about doctor’s appointments. It’s not something we chat about every day (we discuss very important things like whether the latest celebrity gossip more regularly, haha), and that might be because many of us have chosen a contraception method years ago, and continue to use the same one.
Many women use the condom and the pill. This pill is one many of us started with and continue to use partly because it’s easy and for the most part we have no complaints about it as we’ve found one with few side effects. But have you ever missed taking a pill? I know I have. And I just learned a surprising stat: on average, Canadian women miss 2.6 pills per cycle. That’s a lot of missed pills (in my opinion), missed pills that could lead to an unwanted pregnancy.
Which makes you think if taking a pill daily at the same time isn’t proving to be that efficient (2.6 pills missed each cycle!), then is it the best option for most of us? Because there are other options available, long-acting non-daily forms, for example. And when you consider your #3yeargoals, if having a baby in the the next three years isn’t in your plan, using a long-acting form would take responsibility of taking a pill daily off of your plate and you can continue working towards your dreams and goals knowing you won’t be thrown off course with an unexpected pregnancy.
I’m not suggesting you hold a party on World Contraception Day on the 26th (although if you’d like to, please do go ahead, any reason for fun times with friends!). But I think WCD offers a great opp to consider your goals again and your choice of contraception and whether it is what is best for you and your life goals. “I am very busy,” is a meme because we all are. So busy we sometimes forget to take our daily birth control. So why is a daily option the route you’re on when it could mean getting pregnant (and we all know a baby will make your life busy in an amazing but completely different way that may not be in the 3-year plans you have envisioned!).
Take WCD as a reminder to chat with your healthcare provider about what you’re using and what other options are available on the market that might work well for you, and you can also explore about different options if getting pregnant isn’t in the grand plan for you at www.birthcontrolforme.ca.
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(This cute “I am very busy” notebook? It’s from is.)
September 12, 2016
Two months ago, we talked three-year goals. Did you have a chance to consider what yours are? I have to admit that I’m often so caught up in the right now that I don’t feel I have time or energy to consider future goals and plans. Well, that plus the fact that that can seem overwhelming, but thinking in three years versus five years makes it a bit easier to fathom.
If adding a baby to your life isn’t in your plans for the next three years, well, being the smart, safe and healthy woman that I know you are, you likely have plans as to how to live your life for the next three years and not getting pregnant. I chatted with Dr. Christine Palmay last week (she recently won the Reproductive Health Award from the Federation of Medical Women of Canada for her work in the field of women’s health ) and condoms and the pill are the most common choices when it comes to birth control. But she believes it’s often because many people only know of those choices, or possibly that they (or even their doctors) don’t pause to ask about any other options. “It’s like when you have to update an app. If the app is working fine, why do I need to update the app?” she says as an example. But as is the case, you have to update the app because there are upgrades.
Dr. Palmay believes that it’s important to know what the options are, consider your lifestyle, and give patients a choice of options so that you can make an informed decision. “We do a lot of things in our society because of habit. It’s like that adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but this isn’t necessarily true; things need to be reanalyzed,” she says.
Which makes a lot of sense. Something might be working well for you for the past several years, but there’s been many advancements made and this could be true for, well, most anything, not only your choice of birth control. I discovered brand new running shoes in my closet from several years ago, and I wore them because it seemed wasteful not to…but they felt heavy and clunky, and that’s because runners have come a long way in terms of design and technology in those years these have been sitting in my closet. But had I been wearing the same sneakers to run for the past few years and not paid attention to what’s on the market now (although I log too many kilometres for me to wear one runner for three years, but I digress, this is just an example!), I wouldn’t know how there are shoes now that are lighter and more comfy for me, and who knows how that’d affect my goal to BQ. (And, yes, my closet is that full that I can lose brand new things in it; I have yet to Marie Kondo-ize it.)
Dr. Palmay looks at learning about all of the options of birth control not only as a freedom of choice but as freedom of control. “It’s a way for women to make a choice controlling their fertility and not have to spend time in their lives worrying about it. They are aware of it, but it becomes hassle-free.” Since I knew least about IUS, we talked about those, and I was intrigued by something I’d read about it being lower hormone than other types of birth control. She explained that it’s not necessarily lower, but that it does only contain progesterone, and not estrogen (“And estrogen is often what causes side effects, such as mood level, risk of blood clots, and weight gain, for some people”). IUS also works locally in the uterus with little absorption in the stomach, “so ultimately overall, it’s less hormone exposure,” says Dr. Palmay.
In any case, when it comes down to it, we’re all looking to live our best life, and in the context of this convo here, our best three years. And those #3yeargoals should happen by making informed decisions. To learn about all of your options and help you achieve those dreams as you’ve envisioned them, visit www.birthcontrolforme.ca for more helpful health info.
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May 3, 2016
