The perils of the pill
One of the first questions I ask my clients when they come to see me for help getting pregnant is if they have ever taken the contraceptive pill or any other form of hormonal contraception and inevitably many of them have done for many many years.
The problem being that whilst on the pill, the reproductive system is turned off by bringing all the natural hormone levels down, making the ovaries dormant to avoid pregnancy. The problem with this is that the body can forget how to function reproductively when its been turned off for long periods of time even after the pill has been stopped.
The body is notorious for forgetting how to do things. In a similar way to a car, if you park a car and don’t drive it for a couple of years it inevitably won’t start, in fact you will have to do a considerable amount of tinkering to get it started again and the body is no different. This is where homeopathic treatment can be so effective as it can help to turn the body back on and rebalance the hormones naturally.
The pill provides a monthly withdrawal bleed and masks a woman’s own cycle so unless the Pill is stopped, it is impossible to know if a woman is ovulating regularly and thats the key problem that I see with taking the pill. So even when a womans periods come back after stopping the pill it is still really common for the woman to not be ovulating regularly or even at all.
In an article featured in the telegraph recently Dr. Margaret Cook, former consultant haematologist at St John’s Hospital, Livingston, West Lothian said “I would tell any woman beyond the age of 34 still on the pill to consider alternative contraception if she wants to have a family in the near future”.
Many people forget that the pill is a powerful drug with potential side effects that need to be considered. Most GP’s state it takes 2-3 months for a normal cycle to return but a lot of women experience no period (amenorrhea) for considerably longer after stopping the pill.
“I see about six new cases of post pill amenorrhea every month” says Dr Gerard Conway, consultant in reproductive endocrinology at University College London Hospital. “Often blood tests will come back as normal, so it can be harder to pinpoint the actual cause. Some women may have a more sensitive reproductive system where the hypothalamus (the hormone-regulating gland in the brain) is triggered to close down more easily than those of others.” and this is where I see the problem lies that we are all so unique. Some of us will be much more effected by the pill than others and although some women will fall pregnant immediately after stopping the pill, many will not. So in these cases it is possible that the pill might actually be the cause of whats stopping them from falling pregnant in the first place.
As a homeopath specialising in treating fertility problems I use homeopathic remedies to naturally rebalance the hormones and endocrine system so that the body is able to remember its natural rhythm again. Thus enabling ovulation to happen exactly how it should, allowing for natural conception to occur.