When hormones just arenât doing it anymore
By Katie Czenczek, Staff Writer
Sex is great and funâin theoryâbut when it involves straight people going at it, birth control becomes a topic that often dampens the mood, 0r it doesnât get discussed at all and that responsibility automatically falls on the woman. After all, she is the one who could be carrying lilâ Tommy, while the equally responsible guy often holds no accountability.
Moreover, with so few birth control options for men on the market, women have had to put their bodies through some pretty awful ordeals just to have sex. Common side effects of the pill, shot, hormonal IUD, and copper IUD include: Nausea, intermenstrual spotting, breast tenderness, headaches, weight gain, mood changes, missed periods, and the most ironic of them allâdecreased libidos. Some more severe side effects include alopecia, blood clotting, and increased risk of some cancers.
Itâs no wonder that women are starting to look for a noninvasive and natural birth control option.
Products like Daysy Fertility Calculator and other fertility monitor apps promise that the simple act of monitoring your cycle via temperature scans daily can be enough to prevent pregnancy. They promise that charting oneâs basal body temperature, along with entering in your menstrual data, can be enough to indicate whether or not itâs okay for sexy time. When the temperature scan is blinking green for the day, youâre good to go; if itâs yellow or red, then sex is a no-go. Daysy promises that it will âshow you if you are fertile or not with an accuracy of 99.3 per centâ according to Daysyâs website, and is one of the first apps to be considered a government-approved method of birth controlâthough only in Europe, so far.
The benefits of using this method of birth control are that there are absolutely no side-effects, because no hormones are getting flushed into your body. This can be wonderful news for anyone who has suffered from the debilitating side effects of your everyday birth control. Another cool thing about monitoring your own personal fertility is that you can learn a lot about your body and how your cycle works.
However, if you are someone who already struggles with remembering to take the pill half the time, Daysy and other fertility apps may not be the best options for you. The problem with Daysy and other noninvasive birth control options is that these products require you to check your temperature the second you wake up. Every. Single. Day. This requires a lot of discipline and may not be suitable for people who like the security of not having to trust themselves to not mess it up.
Another issue that arises from going the natural route is that, because these methods are not yet approved by the Canadian government, insurance companies donât have to cover them. These monitors and temperature scans arenât cheap by any means, with Daysyâs fertility monitor coming in at the lofty price of $420. Possibly once, and if, these methods get approved, theyâd then become a viableâand affordableâoption for anyone tired of current birth control methods.
For now, it seems that people with uteruses are still damned if they do and damned if they donât in the lovely world of birth control options.
