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We Need To Talk About The Pill More

If you are like me, you received only a basic amount of knowledge of birth control at school. And just in case this is still the case for you today I’m going to let you in on something… the pill… isn’t just a form of birth control.

Now I certainly didn’t find that out from school, or even from my own relatives. In fact, it was my doctor. You may not see a problem with that, we probably learn lots of stuff we weren’t aware of from our doctors, but the ins and outs of the pill shouldn’t be one.

Now I go to a catholic school (unfortunately) and all I ever learned about the pill was “Its birth control” and “The Catholic Church doesn’t believe in it”. So imagine my surprise when I went to the doctors asking for help on regulating my period and getting rid of my acne and they suggested putting me on the pill.

I very quickly had to understand that the pill wasn’t just birth control and that it’s actually used for a variety of other healthcare issues. So why are we never taught about this in school? I could have gone my whole life without knowing there was something out there that could help the problems I was having.

Some would argue that a deeper knowledge of the pill comes with age, because as you mature you meet more people and are exposed to more information. And to an extent I agree. I wouldn’t expect a 7 year old to tell me that the pill can help fight against acne. However, on the other hand, we can’t guarantee that people are going to acquire that kind of information. Healthcare is too important to simply assume that someone is completely informed on a certain area of it.

So how can we tackle this? Firstly, schools should stop shying away from educating their students on birth control. And while they’re doing that they should also tackle the shame we’ve instilled in those who use forms of birth control.

I am on the pill. Now I wouldn’t have admitted this when it was first prescribed to me. The problem with the education we receive on the pill right now is that the word “pill” is synonymous with sex.

If I had said as flippantly as I do now that I was on the pill I probably would have been looked at with horrified and confused faces.

Now it’s different. I don’t feel like I need to shy away from admitting I’m on the pill. I’m on it for my health and nothing other than that. And if people are on it as a form of birth control, there is nothing wrong with that too.

Other than educating our students on the various uses of the pill such as period regulation, acne prevention, menstrual cramps, excess hair growth and helping PMS, we should also teach the potential dangers of the pill. Once again this is something I never learned at school and even wasn’t made aware of by my doctor. These include mood swings, breast pain, migraines, acne, changes in body weight and high or low blood pressure.

So it’s about time our sex Ed was shaken up and we were taught that the pill isn’t all about preventing pregnancy. And that we receive information that helps us when we leave school rather than put us at a disadvantage. The main complaint about school is that what we learn can’t be utilised in the real world, so let’s hope in the coming years, our schools start to teach healthcare the right way.

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