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Fertility Education
How Birth Control Can Affect Your Fertility | Pills Are Not The Only Option
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Hello and welcome. I'm Manali Hirani, your host and creator of fertility education, shortly named as Fertilityed. I launched this podcast with a mission which is to educate people and share my knowledge about the subject of fertility. And by doing this, I believe that it will empower women to make an informed decision of their sex life and future family planning. And I'm pretty excited to bring you my next episode of podcast just to introduce myself again. I am a certified embryologist, hypnotherapist, natural family planning practitioner, and your fertility advisor. And I have had my presence in this field for over 10 years now, and I'm using this platform to share my knowledge, experience and empower you on your next step regarding fertility. I will be covering a range of topics through my podcast episode which will educate you further to understand your own body and this broad field. And if you're one of those who are suffering from infertility, I want to tell you that you're not alone in this journey. And as a fertility advisor, I will try my best to educate you so you can keep your fertility health up to the mark. So let's learn, empower and inspire. Right then, here we go. Hello and welcome to Fertilityed podcast. Now, women under 30 years old are incredibly fertile. Their ability to get pregnant is at its Peak. About three in four sexually active women under 30 are using some type of birth control. While most women appreciate the effectiveness and ease of using hormonal birth control when they are not ready for pregnancy, many start to wonder if their years on the pill may have affected their fertility, like once they are ready for a family. However, at some point, most of us will want to go off birth control. It could be because of side effects or because we want to try to conceive, but they go off birth control. Now, whether you have been controlling your fertility for a few months or a few years, or perhaps a decade or more, you'll have wondered that how might being on birth control affect my future fertility? While you may have heard that you can and will get pregnant right away when you stop taking the birth control pill or have your implant removed, well, this is not the reality for old women. There are several factors to consider when you start this transition to fertile life. But first understand that how these birth control works. The pill stops you from ovulating. But not all birth control methods do the same. The hormonal iud, for example, will allow some women to continue ovulating or to ovulate sporadically. The effects of hormonal contraceptive short can last longer than what it has been advertised like up to three months, but the effect can last longer. But whichever it is, a birth control method that prevents ovulation has actually suppressed your body's own production of the hormones necessary to be fertile and sustain a pregnancy. And when you discontinue that method, your body then needs to start making its own hormones again in order to restart ovulation. You may have been told that your birth control would regulate your cycle. Well, it's true, but not entirely true. And once you are not using it anymore, your cycles will return either to what they were before you started or changes according to your current health situation. So it's not like that birth control regulates your cycle. Of course, it gives you. You can predict your cycle since you are on birth, but it doesn't do the actual work. Now let's see. Can birth control cause infertility? Contrary to a popular myth, that pill has no negative impact on fertility is kind of true. However, it's easy to understand that why there are myths about birth control pills causing infertility, as some women experience a delay in resuming ovulation and menses following this prolonged birth control method they have been using. For some women, it may take months after stopping birth control for their menses to return. When you are on the pill for many years, the additional hormone can mask ovulatory problems while artificially giving a woman her menstrual cycle. But that's not the true menstrual cycle. Changes in your body, like increased body fat content or stress that could affect a woman's cycles and are often masked by birth control pills. And therefore, it is really important to understand that what was the reason that you went on birth control? Now, many women go on birth control for a reason other than preventing pregnancy. Like you may have prescribed birth control for health issues like pcos, endometriosis, fibroids, ovarian cyst, or irregular periods. Birth control can often be helpful in managing the symptoms of many of these conditions, but it's not a cure for that. This means that when you go off your birth control method, it is likely that the symptoms will return and the health issues will still be there just as it was before your period started. This fact often surprises women who are told birth control will fix their problems. Well, it will temporarily. I won't say fix your problems. It will temporarily mask your problems, but your problem is still there. Such as like, birth control can be a great band aid for months or years, but it does not resolve the root cause. So when you go off birth Control and want to conceive, you will need to address these health issues first. So not all of them will affect your fertility, but some will make it harder to conceive due to lack of ovulation and hormonal imbalance. Even if you went on birth control for heavy and painful periods or acne, you should be aware that these issues can be indicative of hormonal imbalance, for example progesterone deficiency that will change your experience of trying to conceive. Therefore, most important thing to note is birth control won't fix your problems, it will only mask your problems. So instead of choosing birth control, let's fix the problem and can help you long, which can help you will make you healthy in the long run. And now often people say like when should I stop taking birth control if I'm trying to conceive? So whether you have been on pill for six months or 10 years, many women resume a normal menstrual cycle within two to three months after stopping both control pills. Well, some may take even six months. So once you go off the pill, your body should go back to ovulating. But some women will see ovulation and menstruation, like I said, return quickly after stopping the birth control. But other women will find themselves waiting for months for their cycle to start up again. And that first bleed post birth control is a withdrawal bleed and not the actual menstruation. So after this, your body need to build up to ovulation by producing the right amount of hormones for itself. Now from a medical standpoint, you need to be trying to conceive for a full year before fertility issues are considered a possibility. Now the speed at which your cycles, which means ovulation and menstruation will restart is linked to many factors including your health prior to going on birth control and other factors like your age, your diet, your lifestyle, your self care. The couple of things matter. So therefore I believe that if you're planning to conceive, just wait and observe six months of your men. Like just wait and observe six months after you go off the birth control pills, see how your menstrual cycle is and what are the other symptoms and then get yourself checked for preconception, lab work, blood test, is everything normal? And then you start for a pregnancy. Only this definition of infertility that medical puts that you have to wait for a year to go to Dr. Is something I am against. I don't think so. You should be waiting for it. Yes, if you're going off birth control, you should wait for six months to get your menstrual cycle regular and then start trying. But if you know that you're planning for a pregnancy, it's always best option to to go for a basic routine checkup to just see if everything if you're healthy in every way before you start trying for a pregnancy. Okay? And many women go on birth control to disconnect. And I've often noticed and I have often noticed that many women go on birth control, they kind of disconnect from their bodies. They do not want to worry about pregnancy or handle irregular or difficult periods. Birth control means this can all be controlled and managed okay, as per the definition. However, in order to make this happen, especially if you're doing so to conceive, you need to re engage with your body cycles and periods. And once you go off birth control, even if you start to ovulate again relatively quickly, it's really good practice to track your fertility signs to to know when this is happening. Now, there are, after all, only six days per cycle on which you can actually get pregnant. So tracking your fertility sign can be a good way of preparing for pregnancy and speeding up the process of conceiving. But it's also good for keeping tabs of your fertility. I mean your fertile health from month to month. Your fertile signs are those factors that change throughout the month to indicate when you are fertile. Signs include cervical mucus vessel, body temperature, position of cervix. We it's really important to chart your cycles. And I keep saying this probably in every podcast, if you don't know how to chart your cycle. If you really want to learn how to chart your cycle, you can contact us, you can DM us on Instagram or send us an email. We teach people how to chart their cycles, how, how to get sync in their cycles. And trust me, once you learn how to chart your cycles, you will never think about birth control or any other birth control methods ever. And not only for this. For infertility patients, they also take birth control pills. It may seem counterintuitive, but birth control pills are widely used during infertility treatment. For example, before starting IVF or for ECC freezing treatment. Many women will take birth control pills to suppress their ovaries. So when you're doing IVF, you want to recruit a lot of follicles like 10, 15, 30. And if you don't have the suppression in the month beforehand and you start injections, some of the ones that you have been recruited already are going to get a head start. So the pills provide so the pill provides necessary synchronization among follicle growth, increasing the number of mature eggs. And that's the reason why these people are giving birth control pills. So now I hope you have a clear understanding about what is birth control and how does it work and does it cause infertility or not and what happens once you are off birth control. Personally, I'm not against birth control, but I'm not even for for it. It's really important that you understand that what are your symptoms, how is your body and what are the natural things that you can do before you embark your journey for birth control. And once you chart your cycle, it becomes really easy for you to understand and make an informed choice. So I'm not against birth control, but I feel you really need to be informed before taking birth control. And surprisingly most women are not informed about the other side effects. There are so many controversy around birth control pills. I would say just do your own research. So this is all I have for you today. Hope you enjoyed. Take home a fair bit of knowledge and thank you so much for listening. I would highly appreciate if you can please leave your reviews, feedback, suggestions and questions. If you have any, we'd love to hear from you. So you can drop us an email on infoertilityed.com you can also follow me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube on the name of fertility Ed, I would urge you to share this knowledge among your friends and relatives. Be it girls or boys, doesn't matter. Just spread the word and awareness and yay. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time. Until then, stay fertile, stay healthy. Bye bye.