A major achievement in the history of medical science was the introduction of Birth control pills. It was a bon for the women who faced problems during abortions. The women could effectively control child bearing by taking a pill. "The Pill" is the common name for oral contraception.
Women all over the world have been using birth control methods since ages. The methods used by them were not only ineffective but also dangerous. But with the development of Birth control Pill there is relief for women.
Margaret Sanger was the American birth control activist and founder of American Birth Control league. At first she faced a lot of oppositions but later won public support and the courts for women choice to decide when and how to bear children.
Sanger and her patron Katharine McCormick as it has been stated felt that not only should women of all classes have quality birth control, but a type of birth control that women have power over. They felt the only way women could be liberated was to have the unilateral power to control sexuality.
McCormick's husband, Cyrus McCormick was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder. People suffering with schizophrenia may hear voices other people don't hear or they may believe that others are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. Fearing that the disease was inherited, she resolved never to have children -- and dedicated huge sums to the search for woman-controlled contraception. And the result was the development of the birth control pill. The first birth control pills which were introduced more than 40 years ago, contained high levels of estrogen and progestin. As they were associated with unpleasant side effects, it raised concern for safety. After that started the research and discovery and knowing what women wanted and thus we had the modern pills that were much than before.
Frank Colton was the inventor of Enovid, the first oral contraceptive - National Inventors Hall of Fame. By the end of the 1950s, the Sanger/Pincus pill came onto the market under the brand name Enovid. It was welcomed by women as a marvel, but, as a New York Times report said last year, Enovid began its life as a "massive overdose." It was discovered that the amount of hormones in Enovid was 10 times than needed for contraception when millions of woman had taken Enovid, and thousands died or became disabled by blood clots. Today, birth control pills rarely contain more than 50 mcg of estrogen, some as few as 20 mcg. There are two types of oral contraceptives: One is a combination pills that contains estrogen and progestin and the other only progestin.
Both pills prevent pregnancy in different ways:
Combination pills prevent a woman's ovaries from releasing eggs. (ovulation)
Progestin pills usually work by thickening cervical mucus, they also prevent ovulation. This prevents sperm from joining with an egg. The Pill stops ovulation, preventing the ovaries from releasing eggs.
The Pill is effective in preventing pregnancies up to 99 per cent if it is used correctly.
Although these pills were effective yet there was a drawback of this is that it does not protect against sexually transmitted infections.
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History of Birth Control Pill
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The term 'birth control' almost always conjures images of birth control pills of different sizes and colors. For many years, the public has been led to believe that the use of the "Pill" is the only effective chemical and hormone-based contraception available. Of course, the use of the prophylactic condom is very popular especially among men.
Birth control has been around for over four decades now, and yet people only have the slightest understanding of what it is and how it can help them. In this article, we are going to try to shed light on some of the most common birth control questions asked by people.
Some people just don't like using certain types of contraceptives. There can be a number of reasons for this objection. It is believable to say that they would cite religious reasons for their objections, though that argument may be fading out, if some statistics are to be believed. Another typically cited reason would be that a number of popular methods of birth control are simply flawed.
Research and studies have been made on the effectiveness and reported risks of using birth control products, with results as varied as the number of the said products being sold today. These products actually deserve that much attention most especially since there is now about 100 million women worldwide who currently use birth control pills. Since its introduction in 1960 as a new method of birth control, these pills have somewhat influenced how society, and women in particular, view the issues of sexual health, reproduction, and population control.
In the simplest explanation, birth control and all its methods are based on either preventing a man's sperm from reaching and entering a woman's egg --- a process called fertilization, or by preventing the fertilized egg from implanting into the woman's uterus and grow. Among all methods known possible, only abstinence is considered to be 100 per cent effective.
We live in a more sexually permissive world, and with that liberty came a rise in the number of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. It is because of this that more and more birth control products are being created and marketed. But how much do you really know about the different birth control types?
We just don't know how much a woman knows about the little white pill that they take everyday. Birth control pills are known to improve the quality of a woman's skin. It is also known to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer. Birth control pills are indeed multi-functional, but there are still some information that only a few, if not many, women know. Among the least known birth control facts include the findings that the efficacy of birth control pills is reduced depending on a woman's body weight.
