SEASONALE BIRTH CONTROL BLOG

Jakhar for Sanjay’s birth-control plan

July 11, 2007

‘Population hasn’t been controlled, neither has land under cultivation been expanded’

NEW DELHI, JULY 10: What would have typically been a cosy event for the Congress turned into an exercise in awkwardness when Madhya Pradesh Governor and former Lok Sabha Speaker Balram Jakhar invoked a name and an issue that the party leadership would rather never discuss publicly—the late Sanjay Gandhi and his birth control method for tackling India’s population growth. Jakhar was speaking at an event in the memory of the Late Colonel Ajay Narayan Mushran, who served as Finance Minister for 10 years in a row during Digvijay Singh’s tenure as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh.

New birth control eliminates periods

July 9, 2007

The latest incarnation of the birth control pill is scheduled to hit pharmacy shelves this month and with it, a chance for women to forgo their monthly periods as long as they take the drug.

Lybrel, developed by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, is being billed as a pill that provides convenience for active women who want to “put their period on hold.” The low-dose oral contraceptive is taken 365 days a year, with no placebo, as is common with traditional birth control pills.

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It might seem like a dream drug for women who’ve struggled with painful menstrual cycles or roller coaster premenstrual syndrome, but some women question whether monthly periods should be rejected wholesale as a matter of convenience.

Instead, women should embrace the natural cycles of their bodies, they say.

“Do you really want to do that? Do you really want to not have a period?” said Anna Yang, director of the California-based Red Web Foundation, which promotes a positive societal view of women’s menstrual cycles. “The reality is, this isn’t happening to me. It’s part of me. It’s a very natural thing.”

Still, for a lot of women, a monthly period is a nuisance, and birth control pills are a way to get around “the curse.” In fact, the medicine in Lybrel is not new; it’s simply a repackaging of existing birth control medication for continuous use.

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Natural methods offer pill alternate

July 2, 2007

Birth control pills made Rebecca Holm angry.
The 28-year-old used to take hormones but dumped them because they made her moody and because her Catholic faith opposes birth control. Now, the Ogden woman and her husband practice a natural method to track when she can conceive and when she can’t. And she’s much happier.
“You’re prescribed medication when you’re sick,” she said. “Fertility is not a sickness. It’s a healthy part of your reproductive life.”
Utah health officials are starting to promote natural family planning, hoping to reach similar women who don’t want to use hormones or other artificial methods to control their fertility. Also called “fertility awareness,”
the natural route works by educating women about their menstrual cycles so they can avoid sex or use protection during the days they are most likely to conceive if they don’t want to get pregnant.
The push is prompted by the steady rate of unintended pregnancies in the state - and a recent surprise about why some Utah women aren’t using any form of birth control.
Health officials thought women avoided it because they couldn’t afford it. Instead, surveys showed some either don’t understand their fertility cycles or don’t want to use birth control. At the same time, some Utah men and women reported wanting to learn about natural options.
“We had always thought if we could
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just increase insurance access then all our problems could be solved,” said Lois Bloebaum, reproductive health program manager at the Utah Department of Health. “This was an ah-ha moment for us.”

Couples working together: Every year, the health department randomly surveys women who have recently given birth. In 2005, almost 34 percent of women, or about 17,500, said their pregnancies weren’t planned.
Utah’s rate is much lower than the national average of near 50 percent, but is still troubling. Such pregnancies are associated with poor prenatal care and low birthweight babies.
Of the women who said their pregnancies weren’t planned in 2004, almost 60 percent said they were using contraception, which tells Bloebaum that not all the couples really were using it or they used it incorrectly.
Around 40 percent of the women who weren’t using birth control said they had thought they couldn’t get pregnant at the time they conceived.
Another 13 percent said they didn’t like the side effects of their current method.
The survey also found that of the small percentage of women who said they weren’t using birth control after they gave birth - officials say it’s best for pregnancies to be spaced about two years apart - almost 31 percent said it was because they didn’t want to.
Proponents of natural family planning say it is a viable alternative. There are no side effects, it is inexpensive and it works: The method the state is promoting, called Standard Days, has a failure rate that is higher but still close to the pill, condoms and diaphragms.
Another benefit: “It gives a different approach to sexuality where the couple is working together,” said Joe Stanford, a University of Utah professor of family and preventive medicine.
He is helping the health department promote the technique, which uses a ring of CycleBeads to help women track their fertile days (explained in the accompanying graphic), and notes it traditionally receives little attention because no pharmaceutical company can make money on it.

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“It just deserves a lot more exposure,” he said. “A lot more people would indeed use it if they knew about it.”

Hormone backlash: It could also be a good option for poor women, who have a higher rate of unintended births. Those who receive prenatal services through Medicaid lose coverage two months after they’ve given birth, limiting their access to contraceptives. In addition, Utah, unlike many other states, doesn’t put money into family planning services and it has more stringent requirements for who can qualify for Medicaid.
Anecdotally, health-care providers say more women are showing an interest.
Stanford, who also runs a nonprofit group that educates women about natural methods, said the group has grown from one teacher in 1993 to six today.
Some of the appeal could be due to a backlash against hormones after studies revealed the risks of hormone replacement therapy. It could also be a part of a larger natural movement as customers demand organic foods and natural products for their homes. Other women seek it out because they have experienced side effects from birth control.
“A lot of people are really turned off by care providers who push so much chemical and technological birth control,” said Heather Johnston, a midwife who helps women give birth at home. With natural birth control, “What you’re relying on is knowledge of your own body and own body signals. Some people find that really, really empowering.”
She was one of the 30 providers the health department trained in April on natural planning.
The health department has also contracted with a Midvale health clinic to work with the Latino community, which has a higher rate of unwanted pregnancies, at nearly 40 percent. Comunidades Unidas will teach 50 to 60 women a month about natural options along with other birth control methods starting in July.

A tool for conception: Diane Heubusch, a certified nurse midwife at Mount Olympus Obstetrics and Gynecology, also attended the state training. She said she’s been providing information about natural methods for years and finds her patients also use it to try to conceive.
Amy Toone got pregnant with her third child by naturally tracking her menstrual cycle. The Ogden 33-year-old uses what’s called the Creighton model.
“It makes you listen to your body and watch what your body is doing,” she said. “The pill, it’s almost, ‘Well, I don’t care what my body is doing, I’m going to force it to do this thing.’ ”
Holm watched her cycle to avoid getting pregnant in the year after she had her first child because she had a Cesarean section.
The health department’s Bloebaum said natural methods aren’t for everyone. Women who need protection from sexually transmitted diseases or who don’t have supportive partners willing to abstain certain days of the month shouldn’t use it.
“Each woman has to look at her lifestyle and her values and decide for herself what’s the best option,” she said.

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The Teenage Birth Rate Has Dropped to a 65-Year Low

June 29, 2007

It should come as good news that in 2005 the teenage birth rate in the United States dropped to a 65-year low. Who’s behind ameliorating the problem? Champions of comprehensive sex education and abstinence-only advocates both claim credit for the findings in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics report.

Let’s posit this scenario: You’re 16. You buy a soda and a pack of condoms at the corner store. That afternoon you have sex. You know how to put on the condom because you were taught in your public high school. Anyway, the condom is just a backup. Your girlfriend is on the pill. Some people say your education has encouraged you to take a life-threatening health risk.

Here’s an alternative scenario: You’re the federal government. You’ve thrown over a billion dollars into abstinence-only-until-marriage education. In a decade, you’ve transformed sex education in many states. Your message? There is no such thing as safe sex. Is your plan working? Your opponents say you’re better off throwing your money down a wishing well.

Who’s right?

According to Bill Albert, deputy director at the National Campaign to End Teen Pregnancy, “both ’sides’ should declare victory.”

“The short answer is quite simple: both less sex and more contraception,” he wrote in an email. “Researchers disagree about the relative contribution of each to the overall declines in teen pregnancy, but all agree that it is some combination of less sexual activity and greater contraceptive use.”

Information equals safe sex

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Monica Rodriguez, vice president of education and training at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, says that the birth rate is down mostly because of an increase in the consistent use of improved hormonal birth control methods, like the pill, the patch, the shot and the implant. Her claims are supported by the widely read report released in late 2006 that found that 86 percent of the decline in pregnancy risk can be attributed to improved contraceptive use and that 14 percent of the decline can be attributed to teens waiting longer to start having sex.

The decrease did not happen overnight. Abstinence didn’t instantaneously come into vogue. Nor was there a surge of birth control pill popping. Instead, there has been a steady drop in the number of teenage girls giving birth since 1991. That year the birth rate was at a record high of 61.8 per 1,000 teens. In 2005, the rate dropped to 40.4 births per 1,000 teens. The abortion rate among this age group is also going down.

Albert offers another piece in the puzzle. HIV prevention education may finally be “catching up.” It’s common, he says, for public health information to take a long time — even decades — to actually effect the way people behave.

Black teens changing course

Here’s another great thing: Black teens aged 15 to 17 experienced the steepest reduction in teen births. Some people surmise that the decrease is simply because the group with the highest rate will also have the greatest decline. But Dr. Michael A. Carrera, director of the Children’s Aid Society’s Stern National Adolescent Sexuality Training Center, thinks there’s more to it. He speculates that there is a connection between the declining black teen birthrate and the increased educational efforts — primarily through after school programs and community centers — in underserved urban communities. Many of those programs, he says, wisely take an integrated and holistic approach to preventing teen pregnancy.

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Q&A: ‘Killing dogs isn’t good for ecology’

June 25, 2007

Avis Lyons, founder of Animal Rescue, Kerala, is a 65-year-old British woman who has sold her property in England and has settled in Thiruvananthapuram with the single mission of caring for stray dogs and other animals. She has sterilised and vaccinated hundreds of dogs over the last five years, apart from taking in wounded animals into her shelter. Lyons spoke to Yamini Lohia:

Q: What is the Animal Birth Control programme about?

ABC (Animal Birth Control) is a scheme set up by the Indian government to control the dog population by sterilisation as opposed to the traditional method of killing dogs. Sterilisation isn’t just more humane, it’s also more effective. Killing dogs doesn’t work; it isn’t good for the ecology and areas with no dogs are overrun with other pests. ABC was supposed to be implemented in Trivandrum but it hasn’t been, because residents’ associations objected to the presence of stray dogs. So, now the government has initiated the Suraksha programme which is a complete mockery. The government picks up stray dogs and kills them, which under the mandate of the programme they are allowed to do. Pet dogs and dogs previously sterilised by us are also picked up.

Q: So, is the government now targeting your organisation?

We had signed an MoU with the Trivandrum Corporation to sterilise and vaccinate dogs in our area which is now about to expire. We have created a lot of noise as an organisation about the Suraksha programme and how the government is just picking up and killing healthy dogs. They want to discredit us because of this. So there are reports in the papers about how some stray dogs attacked a child, but there is never any follow-up on the story. No one knows who the child is and what happened to him. They are even bringing up the fact that i’m a foreigner.

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Q: Some people have argued that poverty in India is so high that it is impossible to worry about stray dogs.

This is not an animal versus human issue. Animals also have a right to exist. Everybody and everything deserves respect. Animals can feel pain, just like us, and have personalities, just like us. These people who kill dogs so mercilessly are capable of killing anyone. They don’t do it because they’re diverting money to alleviate poverty; they do it because they can get away with it.

Q: What is to be done to stop this?

India has wonderful animal laws but they are rarely implemented. The Animal Welfare Board of India should be given more powers. The ABC programme needs to be instituted countrywide. The government needs to realise that in a place like Kerala, which relies so heavily on tourism, they are hurting the economy. Foreign tourists see the situation, see how animals are treated. They wouldn’t go to a place that lacks compassion. So they are essentially destroying the state’s economy.

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Why we need male birth control

June 21, 2007

Texas - Men are the new women - well, sort of. The role men play in society is changing just as much as that of their female counterparts. In the social aspect, women are joining the workforce, and men are becoming more prominent in the home (thus, the creation of the “stay-at-home dad”).

In science, men have become more visible too. With DNA testing for paternity, finding the father of a baby is a swab away in most cases. Amid national debates about abortion and women’s fertility choices, we tend to forget the other half of the situation: men.

In 1960, women inadvertently became the focus of contraceptive studies with the invention of The Pill, the first hormonal contraceptive to make it to the market. Although many tout this and subsequent methods of female birth control - the shot, the patch, the ring, the implant, the morning-after pill - as “freedom” for women, we should examine how free this “freedom” is and what we can do to level the playing field.

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The pill, the patch and the ring cost anywhere from $20 to $50 per month. Plan B, the most widely available emergency contraceptive, costs about $40 at most drug stores. A shot of Depo-Provera, which lasts for three months, costs between $40 and $70. More often than not, women must pay these prices on their own.

Soon, however, there might be another option. Right now the only birth control choices for men extend to condoms, vasectomies and abstinence. Several new types of male contraceptives, many very similar to their female predecessors, could be on the market within the next two to three years. Male birth control not only gives men the option of preventing unintended pregnancies, but also lets them share the cost and the responsibility of contraception.

Doctors worry whether men will be able to deal with the contraceptive’s side effects, which clinical trials thus far show to include headaches and dizziness - no different than the symptoms one gets after a night of drinking. Symptoms of the female pill tend to be much more severe, including depression and blood clots, which could lead to heart attacks.

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COLUMN: Birth control pills should be covered

June 13, 2007

Jun 12, 2007 (The Daily Cougar, U-WIRE via COMTEX) — In the world of health insurance, people are sorted into two categories: The insured and uninsured.

However, to be insured means being put into two more categories: male and female. As statistics show, there are more women than there are men. In fact, according to the United States Census Bureau Web site, a majority of the Lone Star State’s citizens are women.

Even though the ratio of women to men varies by only a slight margin, the percentage of items covered by health insurance companies seems to be in favor of men.

For example, when a male patient goes to his doctor for impotence, he will more than likely be prescribed Viagra. After the doctor’s visit, the male patient goes to his local pharmacy to have his prescription filled. The pharmacist informs him that his Viagra prescription is covered by his health insurance, cutting the cost for the patient by far more than half.

Behind the man in line is a young woman who is there to fill her prescription for birth control. She too went to the doctor that day, but her reason was for contraception.

The pharmacist hands the card back to the young woman. Her prescription isn’t covered under her insurance, like most, and she will have to pay between $20 and $50 to get her contraceptive.

It is not enough that the young woman has to incur doctor’s fees along with the cost of contraception; it is also unjust that most other women’s health related issues are not covered as well, such as most tests done for cervical cancer.

If the woman has had these complications prior to enrollment for health care benefits, then some health insurance companies will not cover the procedures needed to treat or test for symptom-related problems due to cervical cancer.

Women are paying twice, if not three times more per month or year in medical expenses compared to men.

The only form of contraception covered by health insurance companies is a hysterectomy, which is the complete removal of a woman’s uterus.

The situation raises some important questions: Why is contraception such a burden on women? Why do women have to pay such outrageous amounts of money just to remain healthy or cautious? And why are health insurance companies more willing to pay for Viagra and not the pill?

It’s simple. Viagra represents an increase of procreation, which is the opposite of the pill — pro-life versus pro-choice.

The underlying tone of this debate could be considered far-fetched, but, considering that our government consists mostly of men, this concept really isn’t that outrageous. Women have equal rights, but they cannot choose for themselves what is right for their bodies and medical issues.

Women are not trying to end or demolish procreation, but at the same time, they are not trying to give birth to a child they may not be able to properly care for.

Everyone needs to be equal on all levels. A person’s health and their ability to pay for health care is all that matters, and should be the main focus of health insurance companies.

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Innolytics Announces Birth Control for Birds

June 13, 2007

RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif./EWORLDWIRE/June 11, 2007 — Innolytics LLC today announced that the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted registration for OvoControl P for pigeons. The company has developed an innovative new product which effectively controls egg hatchability in pigeons, essentially representing non-hormonal oral contraception for birds. There is no comparable technology on the market in the U.S. today.

Pigeons - the ubiquitous bird found in urban and industrial areas - can cause serious economic damage. The costs of removing waste, increased maintenance and the potential for transmission of disease are all serious pigeon-related issues.

The core technology for OvoControl P centers on the proven ability to reduce the hatchability of eggs by feeding treated bait to birds during the reproductive season. The effect is fully reversible and care has been taken to develop a feeding system that limits exposure to non-target species.

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“OvoControl interferes with the formation of the vitelline membrane that separates the yolk and white in the egg, so no embryo is ever formed,” said Dr. Alexander MacDonald, chief scientific officer for Innolytics. “The active ingredient, nicarbazin, approved more than 50 years ago, was originally developed to prevent a disease in poultry. Due to its unique chemistry, the product represents no secondary hazards. For example, a bird of prey which consumes treated pigeons will not be affected by the product.”

Conventional pigeon mitigation methods traditionally focus on exclusion techniques including nets, spikes and electrified wires along ledges. However, exclusion techniques alone do not provide a means to actually reduce or control the population. The use of OvoControl P, in combination with other mitigation measures, will provide a more comprehensive and effective integrated bird management program.

Bird contraception is supported by the leading animal welfare and conservation organizations in the U.S. and abroad.

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New birth-control pill to be taken every day

June 6, 2007

FULLERTON, Calif., Jun 05, 2007 (Daily Titan, U-WIRE via COMTEX) — The Food and Drug Administration approved a new birth-control pill from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals May 22.

The pill, called Lybrel, does away with monthly periods but must be taken everyday.

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Naomi Kim, a pharmacist at Kaiser Permanente in Fontana, said that the drug is too new for anyone to know much about it.

In a traditional birth-control pill packet, there are 21 active pills and seven placebo pills.

The scheduled menstrual period is reportedly eliminated with Lybrel because the placebo pills are eliminated.

This means that it would be harder …

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New birth-control pill to be taken every day

June 5, 2007

The Food and Drug Administration approved a new birth-control pill from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals May 22.

The pill, called Lybrel, does away with monthly periods but must be taken everyday.

Naomi Kim, a pharmacist at Kaiser Permanente in Fontana, said that the drug is too new for anyone to know much about it.

In a traditional birth-control pill packet, there are 21 active pills and seven placebo pills.

The scheduled menstrual period is reportedly eliminated with Lybrel because the placebo pills are eliminated.

This means that it would be harder for a woman to recognize if she became pregnant.

According to the article “10 Things You Don’t Know About the Pill” in the June issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, the placebo pills were a part of a marketing strategy in the 1950s.

They are not needed and were only included because scientists thought that the pill would be more popular and more likely to sell, the article said.

Candice Steel, a spokesperson for Lybrel, said that women could skip taking the placebo, or the “spacer pills,” in a traditional birth control pack.

However, traditional birth-control pills are not meant to be used that way. They have a different hormone level.

“The hormone level is low in Lybrel but there is a higher dose with the traditional pill,” Steele said.

Early human females probably had around 50 periods in a lifetime because they were pregnant or lactating, according to articles on cnbc.com and npr.org.

This is in comparison to the 450 periods women have today.

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According to these articles, doctors and researchers consider monthly bleeding pointless or unhealthy because they may be linked to certain cancers, anemia and epilepsy.

Lybrel was studied in clinical trials that included more than 2,400 women, Steele said.

Although some breakthrough bleeding or spotting occurred, it decreased over time for the bulk of the women participating in the trials.

Most side effects of the pill were similar to that of many, more traditional, birth-control pills.

This is because the two main components of the pill, levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol, are similar to what is found in most traditional birth-control pills.

Steele said that these two components “have been around for a number of years.”

Kathleen Davis, the administrative assistant to the Department of Geology at Cal State Fullerton, said that she believed Lybrel would sell better to different age groups.

She said that the pill might be more convenient for women in sports.

Still, she expressed some concern for the new drug.

“With all the medications coming out, it’s scary. It’s new â€¦ it’s the unknown that scares me,” Davis said.

The pill will only be available by prescription and will be in pharmacies by July.

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Jakhar for Sanjay’s birth-control plan

July 11, 2007

New birth control eliminates periods

July 9, 2007

Natural methods offer pill alternate

July 2, 2007

The Teenage Birth Rate Has Dropped to a 65-Year Low

June 29, 2007

Q&A: ‘Killing dogs isn’t good for ecology’

June 25, 2007

Why we need male birth control

June 21, 2007

COLUMN: Birth control pills should be covered

June 13, 2007

Innolytics Announces Birth Control for Birds

June 13, 2007

New birth-control pill to be taken every day

June 6, 2007

New birth-control pill to be taken every day

June 5, 2007

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