Birth control is a huge deal for women. It effects the entire body, and, the mental health of many women around the world. Unfortunately, a birth control pill for men is off-limits, since there is no product that has been licensed for use – they are either not effective, or it has too many negative side effects (depression is one of them).
The contraceptive options for men are not that many, and researchers are still looking for new solutions to this problem. A bigger problem, however, is that they have not found a way to improve the contraceptives currently used by women.
The birth control pill for women has come with some very big changes: it helped women get in control of their own fertility, and manage conditions, such as painful periods, and heavy menstrual bleeding. However, birth control is still not enough for women. Despite their help, they come with many nasty side effects, and, in some cases, they can mess the quality of life.
Women have to deal with irregular bleeding, headaches and bloating. They may also have to deal with high blood pressure, blood clots or stroke, as well as, decreased sexual desire or depression.
These side effects represent the main reason why women stop taking them in the first year of use. The pill needs to be improved, and not only, but we might also need something entirely new.
There are also hormonal IUDs but they also have numerous side effects, such as irregular or missing periods, hair loss, nausea and headaches and depression.
Clearly, there’s room for improvement. But little to no investment is put into the process of improving birth control solutions. From 2017, there were only 12 clinical trials about contraceptive meds. Only 2% of the revenue made by pharmaceutical companies from selling contraception goes into research.
