

Why Birth Control Hasn’t Changed Since 1960 - bsmith
http://fertilityforecast.com/blog/why-birth-control-hasnt-changed-since-1960

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cbhl
You do realize that the "symptothermal method" is simply "don't have sex
during the part of the menstrual cycle that results in babies"?

Apps exist to track the menstrual cycle already.

Plus using hormones to modify the menstrual cycle has other known positive
side effects (such as, avoiding a week or more of severe cramping in some
women). Plus, traditional birth control (i.e. condoms) allow a woman to have
sex when her hormones would naturally cause her to want it (hint: when it
would result in a baby).

Frankly, I'd rather deal with the people in India who are injecting polymer
into the vas deferens. (In the USA, this procedure is known as "Vaselgel",
although AFAIK it's not FDA approved yet.)

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bsmith
> You do realize that the "symptothermal method" is simply "don't have sex
> during the part of the menstrual cycle that results in babies"?

Yep. Did you read the post?

> Apps exist to track the menstrual cycle already.

Of course. But they don't actually implement algorithms to automatically
determine the fertile window (what we're doing).

> Plus using hormones to modify the menstrual cycle has other known positive
> side effects (such as, avoiding a week or more of severe cramping in some
> women).

But do these benefits outweigh the costs of increased rates of cancer, blood
clots, and stroke? Clearly there are pros and cons—and individual women should
make the choices best for themselves—but science shows NOT using hormones to
be emphatically safer.

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foobarbazqux
Does your fertile window calculation account for the fact that sperm can live
for 5 days?

The main problem I have with the symptothermal method is that it means the
woman only has sex when she least wants to, i.e. outside the fertile window.
Having sex during your period is the worst and after it ends there's only a
couple of days before you hit 5 days before ovulation.

~~~
bsmith
> Does your fertile window calculation account for the fact that sperm can
> live for 5 days?

Yep. But a caveat is that sperm can ONLY live for 5 days during the fertile
window when fertile cervical fluid is present.

> The main problem I have with the symptothermal method is that it means the
> woman only has sex when she least wants to, i.e. outside the fertile window.

Well, if a woman is on the pill, she is ALWAYS outside the fertile window i.e.
has a depressed libido.

~~~
foobarbazqux
Yeah, this explains it well enough:

[http://www.drnorthrup.com/womenshealth/healthcenter/topic_de...](http://www.drnorthrup.com/womenshealth/healthcenter/topic_details.php?topic_id=128)

~~~
cbhl
Well, damn. TIL.

Now I'm wondering if there is an interaction between anti-depressants and the
pill.

