On March 22, I opened my email over breakfast to The Post Most and clicked on the headliner: “Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion.” Written by two female health reporters, Lauren Weber and Sabrina Malhi, the article criticized women who share negative experiences with hormonal contraceptives online. Weber and Malhi called the rising birth control backlash a result of “rampant misinformation about basic health tenets,” and categorized hormonal contraceptives as “safe and effective.” Their argument was essentially aggressive and unapologetic in its entirety, sure of its every sweeping statement: birth control has negligible side effects, anyone who reports otherwise must be confused, and negative accounts on social media are “divorced from scientific evidence.”
I finished reading in disbelief, tears of frustration in my eyes. During the seven months I was on “the pill,” I felt the sickest I ever had in my life. I was prescribed oral contraceptives due to amenorrhea resulting from my polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). While on them, I bled monthly, reducing my risks of osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. But I also gained sixty pounds, endured chronic fatigue, woke up nightly from hot flashes and leg cramps, and became frighteningly disinterested in life.
Despite what the Washington Post negligently asserted to its audience of millions, evidence shows that hormonal contraceptives, especially the pill—the most common form of contraception—can provoke serious side effects. The information leaflet that comes with the pill includes a lengthy list, including acne, bloating, blood clots, elevated blood pressure, depression, fatigue, headache, insomnia, nausea, vomiting, and weight gain. Beyond what is listed on the leaflet, emerging studies link the pill to cancer, heart attack, stroke, and more. But arguably the most alarming side effects are the psychological ones. Study after study finds negative mood changes resulting from hormonal contraceptives, with one 2023 study finding that 43.6% of participants experienced mood changes. The study also found that 83% of participants stated that their providers made no mention of mood-related side effects before they began using contraception.
Nicole Bendayan is a certified holistic nutritionist specializing in holistic menstrual health with over one million followers between Instagram and TikTok. She was interviewed by the Washington Post about her experience sharing information about hormonal and menstrual health, for what she felt would be a very different article.
“I was definitely under the impression that it was going to be a positive article of why women are…[starting to] take their health into their own hands because they’ve been so dismissed and invalidated for so many years,” she explained in an interview with the Independent. “The whole experience was very misleading and I was definitely misrepresented in the article.”
Bendayan was disappointed by the direction the article took, saying that the Washington Post “minimized not only [her] personal experience on birth control but the experience of thousands upon thousands of women. And they also minimized scientific research and evidence… They minimized the side effects that are listed on the box.”
“The article was really a representation of women’s experiences in the healthcare system [being] invalidated, dismissed, misled, and misrepresented,” Bendayan said. “I think that the Washington Post missed out on a really good opportunity to bring attention to the fact that women’s health needs to be further researched and that women need to feel like they’re being seen in the medical system.”
Bendayan also expressed her frustration with the politicization in the Washington Post article. “Women’s health should not be a political issue… To politicize women’s bodies I think is really kind of disgraceful.”
Weber and Malhi wrote that there is “no proven science that the hormone-balancing regimes pushed by some social media influencers such as Bendayan work,” and that experts view this type of work as “often a cash grab.” Yet, Bendayan asserted that the information she shares is based on research articles and evidence-based, peer-reviewed studies. She also said that while she does charge for some of her services, which are a representation of her valuable experience and education, she also provides women with an extensive amount of free information online. Bendayan added, “The whole article in itself was really a promotional piece for Opill, which is a pharmaceutical, and the birth control industry is a billion-dollar industry.”
Bendayan believes in a woman’s personal choice but said that women must be given informed consent by their medical providers. In regard to hormonal birth control, she described three pillars necessary for informed consent to occur. First, patients must be pre-screened for risk factors such as mood disorders, as well as certain types of cancers and tumors. “Practitioners should be pre-screening for a history of mood disorders or predisposition,” she said. Second, patients must receive comprehensive education on risk factors and side effects. “There’s a ton of different side effects so women should be walked through those. It’s up to the doctor to really have women be confident with understanding risk factors or side effects. Further, birth control can impact certain things such as nutrient requirements or your microbiome, so if a doctor tells us that that is a factor, we can take the precautions that we need such as increasing our micronutrient intake or supporting our gut health.” And third, doctors must provide patients with information about alternative resources.
Bendayan says that fertility awareness methods get a bad rap because they get lumped together or aren’t effective, but some, such as the symptothermal method, are scientifically backed to be equivalent in effectiveness to hormonal contraception, when used properly. Additionally, she said, “About 58% of women are on hormonal contraception not just to avoid pregnancy, but also for other issues such as PCOS, acne, painful periods, etcetera. There should be alternative resources that provide information about dietary and lifestyle interventions that a woman could take in order to support themselves and mitigate a lot of those symptoms.”
“If that information is presented and someone still wants to go on birth control, 100 percent, go for it. That’s your choice, but the fact is, it should be your choice having a good understanding of all the information,” Bendayan emphasized.
One study found that while 88% of participants started taking oral contraceptive pills as their first form of hormonal contraceptive, only 29% were still on them by the time of the study. One factor that may have played a role in this is the fact that side effects are the most common reason why women discontinue oral contraception. The data shows that despite women reporting negative side effects and ceasing hormonal contraceptive use at high rates, information providers continue to dismiss and disregard these concerns. The potential effects of hormonal contraception are under-researched and poorly understood—an issue in and of itself—but why is it so difficult to believe the thousands of women who report negative experiences? Why did I spend months trying to explain what I felt to my doctors, only for them to tell me it was all in my head?
My experience is my truth. The woman next to me might have an opposite story: her symptoms—PCOS, painful periods, acne, et cetera—might have improved drastically on birth control. Another woman might not have noticed a difference. Each body is different, and one person’s experience does not negate another’s. I have heard “I don’t know” from the mouths of my endocrinologists dozens of times. I have spent hundreds of hours on medical sites, academic research sites, and Reddit threads reading opposing accounts and evidence. The point is that the unique potential effects of birth control are heavily under-studied and not fully understood. But the Washington Post did not acknowledge any of this.
My decision to stop taking the pill was one I made on my own. And sure enough, in the month following, my body and face debloated, a fog lifted from over me, and for the first time in months, the blue California sky was bright again. The pill left my body scarred, defeated, and corrupted. The months that followed were a taxing, gradual recovery.
I long ago made peace with the fact that I cannot rely on the medical system to take care of me. Unfortunately, it falls on me to run trials on my body, make calls about how to treat myself, and try to understand my body with whatever resources I can find. Weber and Malhi point to the fact that women all over the world are getting health information from social media, and perhaps we should ask ourselves why that is. The doctor’s office can feel like a hostile place, especially for women on hormonal contraception who report negative experiences. The medical system is failing them. Doctors are failing them. They are prescribed hormonal contraception without warnings about potential repercussions, and if they report symptoms that are out of the ordinary or not sufficiently concerning, they are met with incredulity and told to deal with it.
I am a firm believer that hormonal contraceptives, in all their approved forms, should be freely accessible. But they should never be presented as risk-free options. Before starting patients on hormonal contraceptives, medical professionals should provide them—especially those who struggle with mental health—the academic evidence that exists regarding potential side effects. Additionally, it is a doctor’s responsibility to openly hear patients who report negative side effects and provide them with alternative options or referrals.
“Women’s health is so under-researched and underfunded,” Bendayan said. “It is really unfortunate that the Washington Post made this article into what it is rather than taking the opportunity to call for more research to be done on women’s experiences. There are thousands upon thousands of women who have these experiences, and the fact that [their experiences] are under-researched does not mean [they are] false.”
Bendayan said that she is grateful for the pushback that the article received from readers, so much so that the Washington Post ended up cutting off their comments. “I’m glad that it’s been able to spark a discourse and have women feel confident sharing their personal stories.”
The female body is sensitive, unique, and mysterious. With so much more to be discovered, modern medicine still has many advancements left to achieve in understanding it. What does wonders for one woman may ruin the next. We must accept the individuality of our bodies, encourage further research on women’s health, and work towards a more supportive medical system.
Abril Rodriguez Diaz ’26 (abrilrodriguezdiaz@college.harvard.edu) writes Forum for the Independent.