No matter how well-informed our parents were, or how many times we had that "birds and the bees" conversation with our parents, I'm sure each and every one of us grew up thinking something crazy about sex and the way babies were made. I remember my best friend Baron insisting that babies came out your belly button when we were in the third grade, and I unfortunately believed until I was 20 that women could only take the "morning after pill" once in their lives, and if they took it again it would kill them (not true fyi - since it's simply a high dose of birth control hormones it has no more harmful side effects than birth control).
So that's why I was so pleased to see this piece in the UK's Mirror about the top ten contraceptive myths, which, as listed, are:
1 You can't get pregnant if the man hasn't ejaculated
2 You can only get pregnant mid-cycle
3 You can't get pregnant if you're breastfeeding
4 The morning-after pill has to be used the next day
5 Hormonal contraceptives can reduce fertility
6 You need a break from the Pill or patch
7 The Pill makes you fat
8 The implant moves around the body
9 Only mums can use an IUS or IUD
10 Two condoms are safer than one
Some of them are no-brainers, but some of them even made me do a little double take (like, I'm embarrassed to admit, the breastfeeding one). I'm curious about everyone else. What misinformation did you grow up believeing? And when did you learn they weren't true?
Via. Crossposted to PPNYC's Unrated Unfiltered blog.
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Two condoms! Allow me to speak for my husband here: ouuuuch
hmm, I believed #4. Interesting!
My family strongly believed #5. I remember when I was a little girl, my young, then teenaged, aunt wanted to go on birth control but her mother forbid it, and told her it would ruin her fertility forever. Unfortunately, now this aunt is in her 40s and having trouble conceiving, and she's wondered to me if being on the pill throughout her 20s caused it.
It seems to me that #1-#3 are more overstatements than myths... those things can happen, but I wouldn't put them up there with "you can't get pregnant if you have sex in the shower" or something. And the Pill can make you fat. According to a study I read, birth control pills are correlated to an average weight gain of 5-8 pounds, and they also make weight loss more difficult. Plus, just about every woman I've ever known who went on the Pill gained weight.
I'm sure I had some weird misconception about birth control at one point, but I can't seem to think of one just now. I did have a roommate who swore two condoms were better than one, but I remember not believing her even then.
It seems like most people believe number 1, leading to that extra reliable birth control method known as "withdrawal."
Oh, I do remember one "myth" I figured out on my own... when I was super little and hadn't learned how babies were made but thought only married people had babies, I decided it must be something to do with weddings themselves that got women pregnant. I think eventually I decided that babies were made while dancing at one's own wedding.
Thats the reason I never wanted to get married when I was little. I too thought getting married made you pregnant. I have never wanted kids since I was little and wanted to figure out how it happened so I could avoid it.
That's funny, moodygirl, because I remember when I was little, I believed that babies were conceived when the couple kissed at their wedding. I remember spending a long time thinking about how this was possible and discussing it with my friends. We all believed it.
Yeah, if you're breast feeding a lot doesn't that prevent pregnancy pretty reliably? I always heard that was the reason my grand-ma had 12 pregnancies in about 24 years and not more.
I don't really remember believing myths except when I was really young and thought the baby grew in the stomach and came out by cutting the stomach open or something. But at five, how many people know more than that?
Not necessarily. Breastfeeding does suppress ovulation, but it's not very reliable. If avoiding another pregnancy is important to a breastfeeding mother, she needs to use birth control.
Is it safe for a baby to nurse from someone who's taking birth control pills?
Nursing prevents pregnancy, but not as reliably as the other methods we have these days. Also, it works more reliably if you breastfeed often and on the baby's schedule-- like every two or three hours. If you train your baby to sleep through the night as it gets older, and therefore don't breastfeed for 8 hours or more at a time, it becomes less effective as birth control.
So yeah, its a lot less likely to get pregnant while nursing, but I wouldn't count on it the same way I'd count on a condom.
There is too much fat in our diet to for breast feeding to prevent pregnancy. It use to work though.
That IUD one always pisses me off for some reason. I'm in my mid-twenties and have never been pregnant and I have always really wanted one. I've been to about three different MDs in the past few years and none of them seem to take me seriously about it. They usually brush me off and say I haven't been pregnant before or I'm not married so just stay on the Pill. I do not want to stay on the Pill!! And I KNOW I will not want kids in the next 5 years or probably ever. ARGGH!
I hear you on that too! I haven't had someone say that to me, but that seems to be a common response that a lot of people hear -- and it's simply not true! FYI, planned parenthood can give you an IUD, or if you're based in NYC I can give you some other recommendations of OBGYNs you can do the procedure...
oops, make that who can do the procedure, not you can do the procedure...
Is there a Planned Parenthood in your area? They tend to be a little more understanding about NP women getting IUDs. Maybe call around to different doctors in your area and ask them straight up if they would give IUDs to nulliparous women. I got lucky and found a doctor right away, even here in the middle of nowhere.
keep fighting! i am 20, and ive had my mirena IUD for almost a year. i have never been pregnant.
there is a doctor out there who is up to date with IUD information and would be more than willing to give you one. you just need to keep on looking for him or her. :/
best of luck!
Thanks for all of the support everyone! I am going in the Planned Parenthood for my checkup within the next month and I will not take no for an answer! I'm going to work on that assertiveness we are always told about.... :)
This is slightly off-topic, but I find all of those myths really disturbing. I was lucky enough to grow up in a household with a medical professional for a parent. Two things resulted from this: (1) I have always had a basic understanding for how the body really works, and (2) no one ever told me such ridiculous myths.
But clearly there are people out there that really do believe that contraception is so black-and-white, otherwise no one would pass these things along. This is what concerns me. I have noticed this in respect to MANY health issue: people in our society are seriuously lacking in knowledge of human physiology.
Sometimes this lack of knowledge is harmless, but certainly not in the realm of pregnancy prevention. Sex Ed is all good and great, but general science education needs to improve, too. Without it people may be unable to see the bullshit in such myths when they hear them.
I wonder if maybe this is because health and science were dominated by men for so long, and since men are not as immediately impacted by contraception as women are, the importance of ensuring physiological awareness on young people was lost. That is just me hypothesizing, though.
I believed that the BCP can make a woman gain weight. Thanks for clearing up the myths.
BC doesn't make you gain weight relationships do. You have to eat meals together and celebrate things,and the cuddling (so much cuddling). I definitely gain weight when I am in a relationship and I just blame it on BC.
I've lost weight in my relationship.
I was lucky enough to have fairly decent sex-ed, parents that taught me about this stuff, really awesome older sisters, and a subscription to sassy. I think the only one was the pill making you fat.
You can definitely get pregnant while breastfeeding....my sisters are 10 months apart. Ahem.
The whole IUD thing...I really wanted one when I was switching BC several years ago but my doctor told me it wasn't a good idea. I had problems remembering to take the pill everyday which, as you know, makes it not effective! So I needed to switch to something I didn't have to remember. I switched to the Nuva Ring because you just leave it in for 3 weeks. But then I still have to remember "Has it been in for 3 weeks already? Or only 2?"
Anyway, my doc told me that IUDs were bad for people that weren't in long term relationships. She didn't explain why at the time but a friend told me it was because of bacteria from different partners or something. So my doc said I should only go on that if I was going to be with the same guy for the next 5 years...to which I said I had no idea. I mean, even it you're married how do you really know? So no IUD for me.
So my question, is that right? Is the bacteria thing a significant problem with IUDs and different partners? Or is there another reason? Any insight would be appreciated.
Yes, I had heard this too. I am not saying I don't believe that either but I must say I found it pretty insulting. I mean, wouldn't condoms reduce that risk anyways?
I don't know, I'm asking ladies....
But I kind of took it personally to mean that they were saying they were afraid to give it to us because if we ran around having unprotected sex with people, it could raise problems. Why can't they say, stay in a committed monogomous relationship and do everything by the book, otherwise let's select another option. I mean, if I do end up breaking up with my boyfriend of two years (knowing myself) I would ultimately get another long term relationship. Is that really gonna kill me....?
I think the bacteria thing was an issue waaaay back when the IUD was introduced, but modern models don't carry the same risks. Maybe your doctor is just worried that you won't protect yourself against STDs if you're on the IUD? You can actually find out a lot more information here: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/iud-4245.htm
The most common myth at my school was that the time it was easiest to get pregnant was when you were on your period.
But, you know, last I checked, that was when everything necessary to have a baby in the uterus was released, therefore making it highly unlikely.
I'm guessing that ab-only education in the US is a bit different from the UK. At least for 1-3, I didn't believe those because we were essentially taught that if you get anywhere near a penis before marriage you'll be a pregnant, disease-ridden whore. Well, we didn't actually discuss sex in school, but that was the implication and that was what everyone thought. #4 I did believe, never heard #5. My mom told me #6 and I'm still concerned about it. My endocrinologist has me on birth control without a placebo just straight through for my whole life basically because I have PCOS and migraines. He says that there's no danger, and I don't know if he's right, but I'll take the risk over a monthly migraine. #7 isn't a myth - it won't make you fat, but it does tend to make you gain a small amount of weight. #8 and 9, I don't really know what IUD and implant are (lesbian, irrelevant) and #10 was the same, we were never taught that condoms were helpful or not, just don't do it.
I had friends who thought that you couldnt get pregnant if it was the first time you (most probably meaning the girl) had sex. As for me, I wouldntve had sex with a guy unless he had a hazmat doubled with another hazmat suit on. I wouldnt use male bathrooms because I thought you could get pregnant from sitting on a toilet seat a guy had used before.
I always thought they recommended IUDs only for women who had a child because they had the potential to make you infertile. From my understanding they work by releasing hormones similar to the pill, and they also irritate the uterus making it unlikely to suport inplantation. If that's true I could see it possibly causing fertility issues in the long run.
So I guess they want to make sure you already have a kid incase you decide you want to get pregnant and it makes you infertile. Cuz, you know, a woman who doesn't want kids isn't really a woman (sarcasm). Also, whether you were trying for your fist kid or your 6th kid, wouldn't you be devistated about the infertility, anyway?
I know. The thought of not having a kid makes me shiver. Sigh. That's the other thing that offended me. That the doctors just didn't believe me when I said I didn't want to have kids anyways. I mean, I have been saying this since the age of 10 and is it really so hard to believe? Why does everyone assume that since I'm of "childbearing age" that it should always be assumed that I will want kids at some point....
It's not so much that it irritates the uterus too much as it is that women who haven't ever been pregnant have smaller, less flexible uteruses, due to not having been stretched out in the course of pregnancy, which makes uterine perforation (and also rejection of the IUD, but that's another issue) slightly more likely. It's also slightly less traumatic to have the IUD inserted through a cervix that's been stretched by birth. Many doctors, though, don't think these are significant enough issues to not give IUDs to nulliparous women, so long as they realize the slight extra risk.
Copper IUD has no hormones.