Not a fan of the pill?
Not sure what it’s doing to your body long term?
Fed up of the side effects?
This seriously needs to be taught in schools ASAP!
This will change your life ladies, promise. Listen up…
Research shows you can actually only get pregnant between 3-5 days of the month (you only ovulate for 1 day). Yet as young as school age we are scared onto the pill because we are told if we have sex we WILL get pregnant, so most girls/ladies up and down the country go onto hormonal contraception. Some forms of contraception will stop ovulation all together and most females are on some type of hormone contraception for years, decades even!!
It may be the pill, the implant, the coil, the injections, whichever you have decided works best for you (the only none hormone contraception is barrier methods by the way, don’t let people tell you the coil etc isn’t, it’s all using hormones one way or another, look into it).
If you haven’t guessed already I’m not a huge fan. Anything which messes with our bodies and shifts the natural rhythm isn’t good in my mind. Especially if you have chronic illness, your body needs to be in the most natural state it can be, and something suppressing hormones can cause problems longer term.
I recently read the book of how the pill came into circulation (The Birth of the Pill) and it was a lady who was desperate to have rights for women, so women could delay babies to have education and careers which is great, I agree with that, I’m not a fan of having 6 children myself to be honest. But I have to say I think it’s now being abused and handed out too quickly. We all know it’s given out now for skin issues, to “regulate cycle”, for when you’re going on holiday and want to avoid “that time of the month”…
In my mind your period/ovulation is a vital sign– if you have pain, heaviness, PMS etc it is telling you something is out of balance, so listen to your body.
The pills where you have no periods at all cause me great distress, what are we doing! This isn’t natural to the body at all, think about it. Your period shouldn’t be a “hassle” if you are struggling with unpleasant symptoms work with a nutritional therapist who works with functional medicine and do a DUTCH hormone panel and have a look at what’s causing your severe PMS (pre menstrual syndrome or moodiness basically) or whatever your symptoms maybe.
I am actually going through this exact process at the moment – post baby I have got very bad PMS which I never used to have, and a long time stretch between ovulation and bleed so I’m running a DUTCH panel on myself to see if some of my hormone’s are out of balance and need to be helped along. This may be a liver cleanse, certain foods to add in or avoid, lifestyle factors may need to change, more meditation and lower stress etc. it depends what the test shows.
Infertility is on the rise – why? We live in a land of hormone disruptors – the average woman puts 27 products on herself before she leaves the house in a morning – 27!! And you have seen the ingredients right… that new car smell? Yes you guessed right, hormone disrupting chemicals, air fresheners, air scents – yes you got it again, cleaning products which smell nice, hair dye, shellac and toxic nail varnish, we are putting it all over ourselves.
The Fertility Awareness Method changed my life!
What you will need:
Take your temperature every morning– 10 seconds of a job then log it into the app Clue (when you have a peak in temperature for a few days you know your ovulating)
With the app Clue you can log other things: sleep, bowels, skin, mood, exercise etc and it paints a picture for you of how different aspects are through the month.
I know when I’m ovulating – I am amazing at work, I am on a roll, I can take over the world (summer phase) but don’t talk to me as I am coming up to my period (autumn phase). I have tracked my mood, even down to when my sleep is affected.
But most importantly it can help you know when you ovulate.
2. Track cervical mucus– ladies mucus is good, it’s a normal thing to have. Around ovulation you will get more mucus (if you’re on some oral contraction pills you won’t get any).
Once your temperature has peaked and you have more cervical mucus and by using the app to guide you, you can have a better understanding of those days you are more likely to conceive a baby. Then you can choose to abstain or use other barrier methods or conceive a baby if you want one woohoo!!
When I first heard about this I thought hmmmm it sounds abit of a faff but it honestly isn’t, get the book and read it I really think you will change your mind. You will also learn so much about yourself and your own body and rhythm.
Also a disclaimer here… I had a surprise baby yes so you might think HA not listening to her! We were using the app Natural Cycles which uses only temperature (and I am now a great believer that using temperature alone isn’t a good enough method, mucus alongside is key).
I now use Clue and I go off temperature and mucus – so far no more surprise babies!
My advice is don’t rely just on an app, yes tech is great but it’s not 100% (no contraception is). You need to be in control and you need to know your own body, temperature can be effected by a bad nights sleep, excess alcohol, illness – so you need to know your body better than an app.
Can we just normalise the chat around periods and cycles, it’s not gross or horrible or disgusting or an inconvenience, it’s an amazing bodily rhythm every 28 days which makes you a strong powerful female but also can hopefully create humans one day.