Women seem to have more information available at their fingertips than ever before, mostly thanks to the release of so much research online.
Most women of childbearing age have lots of questions when it comes to planning their families – fertility, pregnancy symptoms, you name it.
But you may be shocked at some statistics that have recently been reported on the use of birth control.
Every year, new pharmaceuticals come on the market, and many times, we don’t get all the information we should from our doctors.
Women have been taking birth control pills – both for family planning and for other health issues like irregular cycles – for decades.
More recently, hormonal injections have become available for women who do not want to remember to take a daily pill.
We’ve heard they’re safe, and they’re prescribed to thousands of women every year.
Recently, however, some researchers decided to look more closely into scientific studies that had been conducted on hormonal contraceptives,
What they found is shocking, and led them to send a warning to all women.
The high levels of hormones that are contained in most birth control pills or hormonal birth control injections cause spontaneous abortions at a fairly high rate.
Doctors Donna Harrison, Cara Buskmiller, and Monique Chireau published a paper for the Catholic Medical Association detailing the results of their study.
Because hormonal contraceptives can cause abnormal ovulation, and no form of birth control works 100 percent of the time, many pregnancies occur that may go undetected.
The high levels of hormones in contraceptives like “the pill”, “…may increase the number of very early human embryos who are lost before a pregnancy test becomes positive. For women who are thinking about using hormonal birth control, this is important information to consider.”
The study sheds light on an issue of great significance to pro-life women and suggests that women find alternative means of contraception when planning their families.
Dr. Harrison states that when an egg is released while hormonal contraception is being used – which happens more often than we think – the body cannot sustain the pregnancy because they are not producing the necessary level of natural hormones.
She is concerned about “how many embryos are actually produced during the use of hormonal contraceptives and what happens to those embryos created but which do not live long enough to produce a positive pregnancy test at the end of a cycle,” according to Life Site News.
Because hormonal contraceptives produce less progesterone than previously thought – and these levels need to be high for a healthy pregnancy – the doctors believe that this warning should be given to women, both by doctors and manufacturers, when they are considering the use of hormonal birth control.
Dr. Maria Kraw has given lectures on medical studies related to contraception and takes it one step further.
She disagrees with using the word “contraception” at all, because these birth control methods often don’t stop conception, and the result is that they lead to the death of the baby if a woman gets pregnant while using them.
Hormonal contraceptives like birth control pills introduce artificial hormones into a woman’s body at up to ten times the level naturally produced.
If a woman does become pregnant while taking hormonal contraceptives, Kraw says the uterus becomes “hostile,” rather than a safe home for the developing baby, and the pregnancy cannot continue.
She provides further startling statistics.
Only 50 percent of pregnancies in the U.S. annually are planned. Fifty percent of these women said they were taking birth control pills or some form of hormonal contraception at the time. Of those, 50 percent of these are what Kraw calls “reproductive failures” – in which the pregnancy ends.
“Given on average the amount of months that a woman uses artificial birth control during her reproductive years, which is a majority in the reality of North America, there will be 1.8 ‘reproductive failures’ per woman’s reproductive life,” Kraw states, as reported by LifeSite News.
That’s a frightening statistic for pro-life women who would never intentionally jeopardize their pregnancies.
And the sad fact is, these pregnancies end before they can be confirmed with a pregnancy test – or even without a woman knowing she was ever pregnant at all.
Kraw reminds women that any birth control method that “prevents implantation” is abortive.
Fertilization can occur, but implantation can fail while using hormonal contraceptives in up to a third of cycles while using these methods.
Modern birth control pills alone have a whopping 13 percent pregnancy rate.
What’s more, even so-called “low dose” pills come with similar risk to a pregnancy, and all hormonal contraceptives carry the risk of blood clots, some cancers, and infertility.
In fact, after stopping hormonal birth control methods in order to become pregnant, fertility rates drop – they are 26 percent lower after using birth control pills and 30 percent lower after the removal of an IUD.
These doctors recommend that pro-life women switch to barrier methods of birth control like condoms. While the chance of pregnancy is slightly greater, there will be no hormonal disruption that will prevent an unplanned pregnancy from progressing safely.
Pharmaceutical companies are not going to willingly warn women that these products can terminate a pregnancy if one occurs while using them, and many doctors don’t offer this information.
But for pro-life women, it is a warning that is not to be taken lightly.
Were you aware of the high pregnancy and spontaneous abortion rates associated with hormonal birth control methods? Leave us your thoughts.