Hormonal contraception is underresearched - women's fears should be taken seriously

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At 25, I count myself extremely lucky to have never suffered a serious health crisis - but as a very healthy teenager and young woman, my use of various different types of hormonal contraception made me ill. Or to use the euphemistic language associated with the packets' medical information, I experienced "a range of possible side effects".

So I was not surprised to read that the contraceptive injection may be linked to brain tumours in women. Those who had used the injection were 5.6 times more likely to develop a brain tumour, a BMJ study found. It was the first to assess the risk of treatments using the hormone progesterone in relation to brain tumours. But it also highlighted the dearth of wider research about the impact hormonal contraception can have on women's bodies.

I haven't used any form of hormonal contraception for four years. At 13, a male GP nonchalantly prescribed me the pill to deal with irregular menstruation, which I now understand to be normal in the first years of adolescence, rather than a medical problem. I tried two versions of the pill - progesterone-only and combined. They induced a low mood in me, which I only realised after stopping two years later, when I felt a clear sense of "lightness" and renewed energy. 

"Actually people just don't really have side effects on the combined pill", said the GP when I returned - which made me feel stupid and as if I had just imagined the past two years in a burst of adolescent fantasy.  

The contraceptive patch - which you change every week, with a withdrawal week for a period - made me vomit every time I replaced it. "Just leave it for a few months and it'll settle down". How long? "Oh … it says three but I'd give it half a year". I still vividly remember those nights now, telling myself I just had to be stronger and more resilient to get through it - that the doctor knew best. 

Finally I tried the implant at university. Discussing this choice with two female friends, a look of shock passed between them. "Hopefully you'll have a better experience than me, but it's been pretty bad for everyone I know…". It seemed fine at first; then I bled for 20 days straight each month. 

Again: "Oh, just leave it for a bit and see what happens". It was only when I bled for 35 days straight and started fainting that I asked for it to be removed; but during lockdown they were reluctant to have me in for the minor procedure. 

"How bad is it, really?" a (male) GP asked over the phone. 

Perhaps I'm just being silly. Perhaps I'm just the exception. But I'm young, fit, healthy: why should I have been so patronised and my concerns ignored? They assume because you're small, and young, and you smile nervously at them, wishing to please, that you are a sweet little idiot who cannot understand the most basic concepts about health or your own body. 

In her exceptional book, Invisible Women, Caroline Criado-Perez explores how medical research and treatment has systematically ignored women, exposing the gender data gap which has created a profound barrier against understanding women's health.  "Menstruation has been not just overlooked but borderline actively ignored", she quotes one expert as saying.  

We know that different forms of the contraceptive pill slightly increase the risk of breast and cervical cancer, but research is still lacking. Should a woman with a history of breast cancer in the family, for example, take the pill? We are left to guess. 

According to a 2016 Danish study of over a million women, women were more likely to be started on antidepressants for the first time or diagnosed with depression if they were currently using or had recently used hormonal contraception - but  there were not enough large randomised controlled trials to further explore this association. 

A male contraceptive pill has been developed - and so far deemed not suitable because it caused too many side effects. Quelle surprise. 

So it is no surprise that women turn to alternative forms of medicine and non-hormonal treatments - and in doing so are patronised and belittled.

"Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion" read one Washington Post headline last week. How can we say "misinformation" when we don't have the correct information in the first place? 

I really don't want to be "anti-science". I'm pro-vaccine; powerful antibiotics have helped me recover from infection; several members of my family are scientists. I want more information, in order to make reasoned decisions about my body and health. 

I also respect the feminist fight to secure hormonal contraception in the 20th century; I'm grateful that I have the choice.

But I do not want to be the test subject on which contraception is rolled out as an experiment.