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Since the introduction of oral contraceptives in the early 1960s, the use of The Pill, as it is generally known, has soared to approximately 7 in 10 women of childbearing age. Among young women ages 18-24, oral contraceptives use is especially high, reaching two-thirds in 2008. It seems most women have no knowledge of natural birth control options whatsoever!
The widespread use of The Pill is a troubling issue because oral contraceptives devastate beneficial bacterial flora in the gut leaving it vulnerable to colonization and dominance from pathogenic strains such as Candida albicans, Streptococci, and Staphylococci among others.
By the time a woman who has used birth control pills is ready to have children, a severe case of intractable gut dysbiosis has more than likely taken hold.
Most people think that only the use of drugs such as antibiotics causes gut imbalances, but this is simply not true.
According, to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, many other drugs such as the Pill also cause severe gut dysbiosis. What’s worse, a drug-induced gut imbalance is especially resistant to treatment either with probiotics or diet change.
What does this mean for your future child’s health? A lot, as it turns out!
The Pill and Nutritional Deficiencies
First of all, gut imbalance brought on through the use of The Pill negatively impacts the ability to digest food and absorb nutrients. As a result, even if a woman eats spectacularly well during pregnancy, she can experience nutritional deficiencies. If she has been taking oral contraceptives for a long period of time, it is highly likely that she and her baby are not reaping the full benefits of the healthy food she is eating. The lack of beneficial flora in her gut prevents this from occurring.
In addition, beneficial bacteria actively synthesize nutrients. These include vitamin K1, pantothenic acid, folate (NOT synthetic folic acid), thiamin (B1), cyanocobalamin (B12), amino acids and others. In an imbalanced gut, a woman is missing out on the “natural supplementation” that these good strains provide to her and her growing baby.
Not well known is the fact that using the Pill depletes zinc in the body. Zinc is called “the intelligence mineral” as it is intimately involved in mental development.
As a result, it is very important for women who have been using the Pill for any length of time to wait at least 6 months before becoming pregnant to ensure that zinc levels return to normal. Low zinc is associated with lowered IQ and birth defects. If you are concerned that your levels might be low, try this easy at-home zinc deficiency test to give you peace of mind.
It really is quite disturbing to fully realize the very real potential that the use of The Pill has to trigger nutritional deficiencies!
Pathogenic Gut Flora from Birth Control Pills Produce a Myriad of Toxins
Pathogenic, opportunistic flora that takes hold in the gut when The Pill is used constantly produce toxic substances. They are the by-products of their metabolism. These toxins leak into the woman’s bloodstream and guess what, they have the potential to cross the placenta! Therefore, gut dysbiosis exposes the fetus to toxins even if the woman never eats anything but organic foods and lives in an environment with no pollutants whatsoever.
Indeed, an imbalanced gut has the potential to expose a woman and her baby to just as many or even more toxins than her environment through self-poisoning!
Gut Dysbiosis Triggered by The Pill and Anemia Go Hand in Hand
Most people with abnormal gut flora also suffer from various stages of anemia. This is because some of the most common pathogenic strains of bacteria that take hold in an imbalanced gut are those that consume iron: Actinomyces spp., Mycobacterium spp., pathogenic strains of E.Coli, Corynebacterium spp. and others.
Anemia during pregnancy is especially dangerous. Not only can it deprive the fetus of oxygen (iron helps build red blood cells and red blood cells carry oxygen), but it is linked to low birth weight and pre-term birth and the many long term health and associated developmental problems.
Can iron supplements during pregnancy combat this problem?
In a word, no! How many women do you know who consistently battle low iron during pregnancy despite consuming iron supplements and eating iron-rich foods? I personally know many such cases.
The reason is that the more iron a patient with gut dysbiosis consumes in either food or supplement form, the stronger these pathogenic, iron loving strains become! The extra iron “feeds” them, so to speak, much the same as sugar feeds Candida albicans. The cure for gut dysbiotic anemia is to heal and seal the gut, not take iron supplements!
A Baby “Inherits” Gut Dysbiosis from Mom
A human baby is born with a sterile gut. This means that there is no bacterial activity in a fetus’ digestive system prior to birth. The vast majority of gut flora that a child eventually develops is inherited from Mom. This occurs via the baby swallowing microbes both good and bad during vaginal birth. If Mom has a gut imbalance, it will be the same situation in her vagina. Hence, her children’s intestines will be seeded with the same microbes during delivery. Babies born via Cesarean section are at risk for even more unbalanced gut flora.
Children with imbalanced gut flora are particularly predisposed to autoimmune disorders in the form of allergies, asthma, and eczema. In more severe cases of gut dysbiosis, learning disabilities manifest such as ADHD, ADD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and others. Of course, there is sometimes an environmental “trigger” which instigates these disorders. But, it is crucial to keep in mind that gut dysbiosis is the primary underlying cause.
Think Twice Before Taking Birth Control Pills
When considering whether or not to take oral contraceptives, women rarely if ever consider the long term implications to themselves let alone their children. This is no surprise given that doctors rarely if ever mention this sort of thing when prescribing antibiotics let alone The Pill to their patients!
Therefore, it is vital that women be fully informed of the potentially devastating consequences to their health and that of their children from birth control pills. Even their grandchildren may be affected according to preliminary research. This full disclosure is critical and the most ethical course of action for prescribing physicians.
Sources
March of Dimes, pregnancy complications
Mineral Primer
Gut and Psychology Syndrome, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD
More Information
170 Scientific Studies Confirm the Dangers of Soy
Why Even Organic Soy Formula is so Dangerous for Babies
The Dangers of Estrogenic Foods, Herbs, and Drugs
My mother along with one of her sisters are allergic to the pill. I have tried to take many different types but I always end up with nasty debilitating migraines within the first 3 months of taking them so it turns out that I am also allergic to them. I have always been jealous of the women that have been able to take the pill because my period is so heavy and it goes from about 5-10 days depending on the month. Now, after reading this article, I believe that I am lucky that my body tells me not to take them! I feel safer about having children knowing what the pill could possibly do to them even after I would have stopped taking it. Condoms have always worked for my long term boyfriend and I, so now I know to just stick with that and not to try anymore BC pills!
This is a very interesting article and I will be doing more research on this, as I had to take oral contraceptives from age twelve (due to serious endometriosis, which was preventing me from attending school), and during my teen years I developed serious allergies, including lactose and egg intolerance.
I have since stopped using hormonal contraceptives (using barrier methods instead). However, I still have many digestion problems and issues with allergies. As for endo I found that using primrose oil supplements, organic cloth pads and the ‘moon-cup’ alleviated many of the problems I had.
The only thing missing from this article seems to be alternatives to oral contraceptives, you tell us what the dangers are without offering safe alternatives. For example, do IUD’s (including non-hormonal IUD), the patch, implants, or deprovera (the shot) cause ‘gut imbalances’ —or it is limited to the oral ingestion of the contraceptives?
Unfortunately, not a lot of great options ARP. There is a comment above that lists some sort of device (pricey though) that takes and stores your temperature and gives a “green” or a “red” light to each day. That is the best thing I’ve heard of so far. I myself have never used the pill (I didn’t need a study to tell me it was dangerous, though now it’s nice the data is coming in now to support my common sense hunch) but still managed to wait 8 years before we started our family, space my children as we wanted (3 years apart) and have no surprises, so it can be done.
Oh, and with regard to the patch and injected contraceptives etc , I have not seen any data that these methods cause gut imbalance. They very well may, as IV antibiotics for a woman in labor (for Strep B) causes her baby to typically be born with gut bacteria issues. However, I personally would never use them as I have no doubt they cause other serious problems. I am not one to be a guinea pig and hope for the best until the data to the contrary becomes available.
Sara, so you think that the antibiotics given for group B strep can contribute to the ‘reflux’ diagnosis that seems to be so common in newborns nowadays? I had FIVE rounds of the antibiotic before the birth with my first son 2 years ago. Terrible. just wondering if you think that could have contributed to his host of tummy problems even though I was exclusively breastfeeding for a year? Any links to more info? Planning a homebirth with number 2 due soon. Hope he will have none of those problems.
I enjoy in reading here. Keep updating us. I will be here in a short while, Thanks a lot!
Great article. So many don’t realize the side effect of these pills. I also bring up the question with women taking these pills for so long for contraception, wonder how much messing up the normal balance of hormones of the female body might affect pregnancy, fertility, and possible birth defects when they finally decide they want to have children.
I’ve never taken the pill for a variety of reasons, and I truly believe that the pill is one of the worst toxins on the planet, for health, environmental, and psychological reasons.
Do you have, however, any reference to actual studies that demonstrate that the pill disturbs gut flora, or even info on how it actually imbalances it? Thanks!
Very happy to see this post! Women have a right to know about the many ways hormonal replacement therapies interfere with their bodies, not just their reproductive organs. Oral contraceptives especially wreak havoc on the uptake of Vitamin B9, commonly called folate or as we see it in synthetic form, Folic Acid. I write about it here:
http://guggiedaly.blogspot.com/2010/06/is-folic-acid-only-and-best-choice.html
This is very interesting. I was on the pill (and vegetarian) when I became pregnant with my oldest son who has had gut issues since day one. Keeping him on a diet focused on veggies, meats, broths, and eggs seems to work best with him. The difficult part is that he craves carbs to an insane degree, which I’m sure is due to his imbalanced gut flora. The longer he stays away from grains, the less he craves them.
I was wondering if anyone has experience with the pill casing IBS? (Irritable Bowl Syndrome) My sister-in-law recently found out she has IBS and has been on the pill for at least 3 years due to really painful periods. It seems like the two could be related… I would love some information if anyone knows of any before I send her a link to this post.
Oops, I meant “causing” 😉
Hi Katie, there is absolutely a link. IBS is autoimmune in nature and ALL autoimmune conditions have their root in imbalanced gut flora.
I was wondering the same thing. I had my son 7 years ago but before had been on the pill for 15 years for irregular and painful periods. I have IBS and indigestion all the time.seeming like it started right around that time. I have tried three or four different drugs prescribed by a gastro dr but none have worked. My sister has Celiac but got tested for that and they say I don’t carry the genes for it. Was ready to go to another gastro dr. Sarah does it ever go away on it’s own or do you have to do one of the treatments. Just want to make sure that’s what it is.
right-wing propaganda at its finest.
My spidey-senses are telling me the same thing Rob! Mostly for the fact that no information is given about alternative forms of contraception, or the differences between types of oral contraceptives (the myriad of options available today and how drastically oral contraception has changed in over 40 years!) and there are no studies cited …. However this could be the case of the author reading actual research showing a correlation between young women developing digestion problems around the same time they start taking birth control– BUT (and this is a big but) Correlation does NOT mean Causation. Yeah.. I just want to mention that again: Correlation does NOT mean Causation!!!
Hi Rob and ARP,
As someone who worked for Planned Parenthood and other women’s clinics for many years and got an MPH in reproductive health (so you gotta know that I’m nowhere NEAR right wing ;-), I do hear you as far as the lack of studies cited on this – HOWEVER – speaking from personal and clinical experience with countless numbers of women as well as lots of healthcare providers who have all seen the same, I gotta say that oral contraceptives and hormonal methods – every last one of them, even the newer ones – SERIOUSLY mess with all sorts of things. The nutritional depletions they cause are very real (lots of studies out there DO back this up). As are the affects on everything from liver function (all pharma meds have to clear through the liver and therefore stress it out) to adrenals to – again, because of the nutritional depletion factor – you name it. Changing up your hormones does change how your body processes carbs. Nutritional depletions can also definitely contribute to gut dysbiosis. On a personal note, I never had a yeast infection in my LIFE until a week after starting OCP’s when I got a rip roaring one. And you can’t blame having no-latex sex either, because I was on them for a full month (ie three weeks after the first yeast explosion) before we ditched the latex. Continued to have problems with the major yeasties on and off until I finally stopped them – and then did YEARS of gut healing work. Haven’t gone back to hormonal methods since because I value my gut health too much.
So, while *I* didn’t want to admit that OCP’s and other hormonal methods were pretty much all bad news on a health front – either personally or professionally – the evidence just became too overwhelming. The bottom line – the health risks of the pill/hormonal methods depend on what the tradeoff is for the woman between not getting preggo v. the toll on her health and potentially that of her future baby. For many of us, we’ve just discovered the tradeoffs weren’t worth it. That’s all. In fact, many of the FIERCEST proponents I know of using only NFP/non hormonal methods etc. are just as fiercely LEFT wing-y as anyone you’d want to meet. That’s the funny thing – it’s actually one place where I’ve seen the extremes of left and right find common ground. 😉
Peace (and good gut health to ya! 😉
– P
Did you know that the Pill also increases your risk of breast cancer — especially when taken before having your first child? No wonder breast cancer is at epidemic levels now.