50 years birth control pill A reason to celebrate?

Already for 50 years: the success story of birth control pills.

(20.08.2010) For 50 years many women swallow the pill daily. However, with their invention in the 1960s, the success story was barely predictable. Massive protests from various social groups accompanied the introduction on the German market.

It was not primarily the drug itself in the criticism, but the feared social change. Thus, until shortly before the market introduction of the pill in the US on 18 August 1960, the distribution of contraceptives was still partially forbidden and information on contraception and corresponding advertising was considered pornography. In addition, many men feared for their supremacy in the family and the church representatives protested because of their expected moral decay. Even the manufacturer „Searle“ was not sure of the success and feared due to the general rejection in the company also a slump in the sale of its other products. However, especially young women quickly recognized the benefits and celebrated the contraceptive pill even then as a kind of sexual revolution, because it offered women for the first time the opportunity to protect themselves and responsible for a pregnancy. Already two years after its introduction, more than 2 million Americans swallowed the pill daily, in 1968 there were more than six million and today it is estimated that around 100 million women worldwide trust in birth control pills. In Germany, about 54 percent of women currently use the pill.

Side effects from taking hormones:
While the social consequences of the invention have been discussed critically from the beginning, the side effects of taking hormones on a daily basis have not really come into the focus of the discourse. For example, women with the first contraceptive pill in the world daily received as high a dose of estrogen and progestin as they now contain in a whole month's pack. „150 micrograms of a synthetic estrogen (ethinylestradiol) and four to eight times the progestin concentration needed to prevent ovulation were overdosed. At that time, the scientists just did not know how little hormone levels a pregnancy could be prevented“ said the hormone expert and professor of gynecology at the University Hospital Heidelberg, Thomas Rabe. For example „Anovlar“, which was approved in 1961 as the first contraceptive pill on the German market, only half as many hormones as the US model „Enovid“ and was still a hormone bomb compared to modern preparations.

As a result of the first hormonal contraception side effects and side effects such as weight gain, nausea, migraine or depression were still very common. In addition, the high estrogen concentration also posed a significant risk for pulmonary embolism and the amount of progestogens often resulted in increased blood pressure (high blood pressure). Although the dose of estrogen in birth control pills has been significantly reduced to this day, there are still numerous side effects such as: Headache, nausea, fungal infections, breast tenderness, chest pain, mood swings and impaired libido. In rare cases, even young women have died as a result of pill-induced embolism. And although the tolerability of the preparations has been continuously worked out, the enumeration of the side effects can be continued almost endlessly, and the package leaflet is correspondingly long in most preparations. But this does not stop most women from swallowing small hormone hammers every day. Alternative synthetic contraceptives that have significantly less side effect, such as b. the spiral, do not enjoy the same popularity.

After initial skepticism, the pharmaceutical industry has also discovered the market potential of birth control pills, and in Germany around 20 manufacturers offer more than 100 preparations. The German pill pioneer Schering alone (today Bayer) has 20 hormonal contraceptives on offer (including the best-selling contraceptive pill in the world „Yasmin“) and generates with them an annual turnover of almost three billion euros. In addition, the pill specialist Grünenthal and the international groups Pfizer, Novartis and MSD are among the big players in the pills business.

Alternative contraception:
However, there are also alternatives on a natural basis. The Mexican Wild Yam or wild Mexican yam root already played a crucial role in the invention of birth control pills. Mexican Wild Yam has been used in the healing arts of Mexican primitive peoples for generations, not just for contraception. When Western scientists became aware of the effect in the middle of the last century, their primary interest was to obtain an active ingredient from the plant that could be marketed as a contraceptive. They found the hormone-like drug diosgenin and developed based on the first synthetic agents, which were later used as birth control pills.

However, unlike the synthetic preparations Mexican Wild Yam causes no known side effect. In addition, the root helps in lower doses in complaints such as spasms in colic, inflammation and rheumatic pain. In addition, the Mexican yam root is sweat, urinary and cholinergic and protects the liver. Whether or not diosgenin is the sole source of protection against contraception has not yet been clarified, and when used as a contraceptive it is therefore recommended to consume the whole root in any case. Approximately 3,000 milligrams of the powdered root must be consumed daily by a woman to build effective contraceptive protection. The special thing about the effect: Neither Eireifung nor ovulation or the natural menstrual cycle are affected by Mexican Wild Yam, manipulated or even prevented. The American midwife Willa Shaffer came to this conclusion in 1986 in her book „Wild Yam: Birth Control Without Fear“. „This is a contraceptive with no known side effects, which obviously has an incredibly high success rate“ so the author. The daily intake of 3,000 milligrams of Mexican Wild Yam powder (in capsules) achieves an average prevention rate of 97%, the specialist explains, which, when taken regularly, has a natural lifestyle and stable health, means virtually 100% contraception. (Fp)