Hormonal birth control explainer: a matter of health

Politics often interferes where it has no natural business, and one of those places is the discussion among a teenager, her parents, and her doctor or between a woman and her doctor about the best choices for health. The hottest button politics is pushing right now takes the form of a tiny hormone-containing pill known popularly as the birth control pill or, simply, The Pill. This hormonal medication, when taken correctly (same time every day, every day), does indeed prevent pregnancy. But like just about any other medication, this one has multiple uses, the majority of them unrelated to pregnancy prevention.

But let’s start with pregnancy prevention first and get it out of the way. When I used to ask my students how these hormone pills work, they almost invariably answered, “By making your body think it is pregnant.” That’s not correct. We take advantage of our understanding of how our bodies regulate hormones not to mimic pregnancy, exactly, but instead to flatten out what we usually talk about as a hormone cycle. 

The Menstrual Cycle

In a hormonally cycling girl or woman, the brain talks to the ovaries and the ovaries send messages to the uterus and back to the brain. All this chat takes place via chemicals called hormones. In human females, the ovarian hormones are progesterone and estradiol, a type of estrogen, and the brain hormones are luteinizing hormoneand follicle-stimulating hormone. The levels of these four hormones drive what we think of as the menstrual cycle, which exists to prepare an egg for fertilization and to make the uterine lining ready to receive a fertilized egg, should it arrive. 

Fig. 1. Female reproductive anatomy. Credit: Jeanne Garbarino.
In the theoretical 28-day cycle, fertilization (fusion of sperm and egg), if it occurs, will happen about 14 days in, timed with ovulation, or release of the egg from the ovary into the Fallopian tube or oviduct (see video–watch for the tiny egg–and Figure 1). The fertilized egg will immediately start dividing, and a ball of cells (called a blastocyst) that ultimately develops is expected to arrive at the uterus a few days later.
If the ball of cells shows up and implants in the uterine wall, the ovary continues producing progesterone to keep that fluffy, welcoming uterine lining in place. If nothing shows up, the ovaries drop output of estradiol and progesterone so that the uterus releases its lining of cells (which girls and women recognize as their “period”), and the cycle starts all over again.

A typical cycle

The typical cycle (which almost no girl or woman seems to have) begins on day 1 when a girl or woman starts her “period.” This bleeding is the shedding of the uterine lining, a letting go of tissue because the ovaries have bottomed out production of the hormones that keep the tissue intact. During this time, the brain and ovaries are in communication. In the first two weeks of the cycle, called the “follicular phase” (see Figure 2), an ovary has the job of promoting an egg to mature. The egg is protected inside a follicle that spends about 14 days reaching maturity. During this time, the ovary produces estrogen at increasing levels, which causes thickening of the uterine lining, until the estradiol hits a peak about midway through the cycle. This spike sends a hormone signal to the brain, which responds with a hormone spike of its own.

Fig. 2. Top: Day of cycle and phases. Second row: Body temperature (at waking) through cycle.
Third row: Hormones and their levels. Fourth row: What the ovaries are doing.
Fifth row: What the uterus is doing. Via Wikimedia Commons
In the figure, you can see this spike as the red line indicating luteinizing hormone. A smaller spike of follicle-stimulating hormone (blue line), also from the brain, occurs simultaneously. These two hormones along with the estradiol peak result in the follicle expelling the egg from the ovary into the Fallopian tube, or oviduct (Figure 3, step 4). That’s ovulation.
Fun fact: Right when the estrogen spikes, a woman’s body temperature will typically drop a bit (see “Basal body temperature” in the figure), so many women have used temperature monitoring to know that ovulation is happening. Some women also may experience a phenomenon called mittelschmerz, a pain sensation on the side where ovulation is occurring; ovaries trade off follicle duties with each cycle.  

The window of time for a sperm to meet the egg is usually very short, about a day. Meanwhile, as the purple line in the “hormone level” section of Figure 2 shows, the ovary in question immediately begins pumping out progesterone, which maintains that proliferated uterine lining should a ball of dividing cells show up.
Fig. 3. Follicle cycle in the ovary. Steps 1-3, follicular phase, during
which the follicle matures with the egg inside. Step 4: Ovulation, followed by
the luteal phase. Step 5: Corpus luteum (yellow body) releases progesterone.
Step 6: corpus luteum degrades if no implantation in uterus occurs.
Via Wikimedia Commons.
The structure in the ovary responsible for this phase, the luteal phase, is the corpus luteum (“yellow body”; see Figure 3, step 5), which puts out progesterone for a couple of weeks after ovulation to keep the uterine lining in place. If nothing implants, the corpus luteum degenerates (Figure 3, step 6). If implantation takes place, this structure will (should) instead continue producing progesterone through the early weeks of pregnancy to ensure that the lining doesn’t shed.

How do hormones in a pill stop all of this?

The hormones from the brain–luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone– spike because the brain gets signals from the ovarian hormones. When a girl or woman takes the pills, which contain synthetics of ovarian hormones, the hormone dose doesn’t peak that way. Instead, the pills expose the girl or woman to a flat daily dose of hormones (synthetic estradiol and synthetic progesterone) or hormone (synthetic progesterone only). Without these peaks (and valleys), the brain doesn’t release the hormones that trigger follicle maturation or ovulation. Without follicle maturation and ovulation, no egg will be present for fertilization.

Assorted hormonal pills. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Most prescriptions of hormone pills are for packets of 28 pills. Typically, seven of these pills–sometimes fewer–are “dummy pills.” During the time a woman takes these dummy pills, her body shows the signs of withdrawal from the hormones, usually as a fairly light bleeding for those days, known as “withdrawal bleeding.” With the lowest-dose pills, the uterine lining may proliferate very little, so that this bleeding can be quite light compared to what a woman might experience under natural hormone influences.

How important are hormonal interventions for birth control?

Every woman has a story to tell, and the stories about the importance of hormonal birth control are legion. My personal story is this: I have three children. With our last son, I had two transient ischemic attacks at the end of the pregnancy, tiny strokes resulting from high blood pressure in the pregnancy. I had to undergo an immediate induction. This was the second time I’d had this condition, called pre-eclampsia, having also had this with our first son. My OB-GYN told me under no uncertain terms that I could not–should not–get pregnant again, as a pregnancy could be life threatening.

But I’m married, happily. As my sister puts it, my husband and I “like each other.” We had to have a failsafe method of ensuring that I wouldn’t become pregnant and endanger my life. For several years, hormonal medication made that possible. After I began having cluster headaches and high blood pressure on this medication in my forties, my OB-GYN and I talked about options, and we ultimately turned to surgery to prevent pregnancy.

But surgery is almost always not reversible. For a younger woman, it’s not the temporary option that hormonal pills provide. Hormonal interventions also are available in other forms, including as a vaginal ring, intrauterine device (some are hormonal), and implants, all reversible.


One of the most important things a society can do for its own health is to ensure that women in that society have as much control as possible over their reproduction. Thanks to hormonal interventions, although I’ve been capable of childbearing for 30 years, I’ve had only three children in that time. The ability to control my childbearing has meant I’ve been able to focus on being the best woman, mother, friend, and partner I can be, not only for myself and my family, but as a contributor to society, as well.

What are other uses of hormonal interventions?

Heavy, painful, or irregular periods. Did you read that part about how flat hormone inputs can mean less build up of the uterine lining and thus less bleeding and a shorter period? Many girls and women who lack hormonal interventions experience bleeding so heavy that they become anemic. This kind of bleeding can take a girl or woman out of commission for days at a time, in addition to threatening her health. Pain and irregular bleeding also are disabling and negatively affect quality of life on a frequent basis. Taking a single pill each day can make it all better. 

Unfortunately, the current political climate can take this situation–especially for teenage girls–and cast it as a personal moral failing with implications that a girl who takes hormonal medications is a “slut,” rather than the real fact that this hormonal intervention is literally maintaining the regularity of her health.

For some context, imagine that a whenever a boy or man produced sperm, it was painful or caused extensive blood loss that resulted in anemia. Would there be any issues raised with providing a medication that successfully addressed this problem?

Polycystic ovarian syndrome. This syndrome is, at its core, an imbalance of the ovarian hormones that is associated with all kinds of problems, from acne to infertility to overweight to uterine cancer. Guess what balances those hormones back out? Yes. Hormonal medication, otherwise known as The Pill.  

Again, for some context, imagine that this syndrome affected testes instead of ovaries, and caused boys and men to become infertile, experience extreme pain in the testes, gain weight, be at risk for diabetes, and lose their hair. Would there be an issue with providing appropriate hormonal medication to address this problem?

Acne. I had a friend in high school who was on hormonal medication, not because she was sexually active (she was not) but because she struggled for years with acne. This is an FDA-approved use of this medication.

Are there health benefits of hormonal interventions?

In a word, yes. They can protect against certain cancers, including ovarian and endometrial, or uterine, cancer. Women die from these cancers, and this protection is not negligible. They may also help protect against osteoporosis, or bone loss. In cases like mine, they protect against a potentially life-threatening pregnancy.

Speaking of pregnancy, access to contraception is “the only reliable way” to reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortion rates [PDF]. Pregnancy itself is far more threatening to a girl’s (in particular) or woman’s health than hormonal contraception.

Are there health risks with hormonal interventions?

Yes. No medical intervention is without risk. In the case of hormonal interventions, lifestyle habits such as smoking can enhance risk for high blood pressure and blood clots. Age can be a factor, although–as I can attest–women no longer have to stop taking hormonal interventions after age 35 as long as they are nonsmokers and blood pressure is normal. These interventions have been associated with a decrease in some cancers, as I’ve noted, but also with an increase in others, such as liver cancer, over the long term. The effect on breast cancer risk is mixed and may have to do with how long taking the medication delays childbearing. ETA: PLoS Medicine just published a paper (open access) addressing the effects of hormonal interventions on cancer risk.
By Emily Willingham, DXS Managing Editor
Opinions expressed in this piece are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of all DXS editors or contributors.


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Photo credit: Benson Kua.
[Editor's note: We are pleased to be able to run this post by Dr. Kate Clancy that first appeared at Clancy's Scientific American blog, the wonderful Context and Variation. Clancy is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois. She studies the evolutionary medicine of women’s reproductive physiology, and blogs about her field, the evolution of human behavior and issues for women in science. You can follow her on Twitter--which we strongly recommend, particularly if you're interested in human behavior, evolutionary medicine, and ladybusiness--@KateClancy.]

Diversity in Science Carnival #14: Women’s History Month–Exploring the role of women in the STEM enterprise

Women in Science, via the Smithsonian.

“We must believe that we are gifted for something.” Marie Curie

Image of a real Rosie the Riveter from the
Women’s History Month site.
It’s tempting to cast the role of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) as one of struggles and battles because of their sex, rather than as one of contributions because of their minds. But for Women’s History Month and this Diversity in Science Carnival #14, our focus is the role of women in the enterprise of STEM. There’s more to a woman than her sex and her struggles in science–there is, after all, the enormous body of work women have contributed to science.


Our history is ongoing, but we can start with a look back. Thanks to the efforts of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, we can put faces to the names of some of the female STEMmers of history. In a presentation of photographs in an 8 by 9 space, we can see the images of 72 women who contributed to the enterprise of STEM, many of them involved with the Smithsonian in some capacity. As their clothes and the dates on the photos tell us, these women were doing their work in a time when most women didn’t even wear pants.  
Some are Big Names–you’ve probably heard of Marie Curie. But others are like many of us, women working in the trenches of science, contributing to the enterprise of STEM in ways big and small. Women like Arlene Frances Fung, whose bio tells us she was born in Trinidad, went to medical school in Ireland, and by 1968 was engaged in chromosome research at a cancer institute in Philadelphia. From Trinidad to cancer research, her story is one of the millions we could tell about women’s historical contributions to science, if only we could find them all. But here there are 72, and we encourage you to click on each image, look at their direct gazes, ponder how their interest in science and knowledge trumped the heavy pressures of social mores, and discover the contributions these 72 women made, each on her own “little two inches wide of ivory.”

For more on historical and current women in science, you can also see Double X Science’s “Notable Women in Science” series, curated by Adrienne Roehrich.

And then there are the women STEMmers of today, who likely are, according to blogger Emma Leedham writing at her blog Pipettes and Paintbrushes, still underpaid. Leedham also mulls here what constitutes a role model for women–does it require being both a woman and a scientist, or one or the other?

Laurel L. James
Laurel L. James, writing at the University of Washington blog for the school’s SACNAS student chapter, answers with her post, “To identify my role as a woman in science: I must first honor my mother, my family and my past.” Her mother was the first “Miss Indian America,” and Laurel is a self-described non-traditional student at the school, where she is a graduate student in forest resources. She traces her journey to science, one that involved role models who were not scientists but who, as she writes, showed her “how to hang onto the things that are important with the expectation of getting something in return all the while, persevering and knowing who you are; while walking with grace and dignity.” I’d hazard that these words describe many a woman who has moved against the currents of her society to contribute something to the sciences.

A great site, Steminist.com, which features the “voices of women in science, tech, engineering, and math,” runs a series of interviews with modern-day STEMmers, including Double X Science’s own Jeanne Garbarino, and Naadiya Moosajee, an engineer and cofounder of South African Women in Engineering. You can follow Naadiya on Twitter here. Steminist is also running their version of March Madness, except that in honor of Women’s History Month, we can choose “Which historical women in STEM rock (our) world.” The 64 historical STEMinists in the tourney are listed here and include Emily Warren Robling (left), who took over completion of the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband’s health prevented his doing so; she is known as the first woman field engineer. Double X Science also has a series about today’s women in science, Double Xpression, which you can find here.

Today, you can find a woman–or many women–in STEM just about anywhere you look, whether it is as a government scientist at NOAA like Melanie Harrison, PhD, or at NASA. It hasn’t always been that way, and it can still be better. But women have always been a presence in STEM. In the 18thand 19th centuries, astronomer Caroline Herschellabored away through the dark hours of just about every night of her adult life, tracking the night sky. Today, women continue these labors, and STEM wouldn’t be what it is today without women like Herschel willing to stay up all night with the skies or spend days on end in the field or lean over a microscope for hours just to add a tiny bit more to what we know about our world and our universe.


Caroline Herschel
For women in science, we’re there–at night, in the lab, in the field–because we love science. But as the non-science role models seem to tell us, we stick to it–and can stick with it–because we had role models in and out of science who showed us that regardless of our goals, our attitudes and willingness to move forward in spite of obstacles are really what drive us to success in STEM careers. Among the links I received for this carnival was one to Science Club for Girls, which is sponsoring a “Letter to My Young Self” roundup for Women’s History Month. The letters I’ve read invariably have that “stick with it” message, but one stood out for me, and I close with a quote from it.

It’s a letter by Chitra Thakur-Mahadik, who earned her PhD in biochemistry and hemoglobinopathy from the University of Mumbai and served as staff scientist a Mumbai children’s hospital for 25 years. She wrote to her younger, “partially sighted” self that, “The future is ahead and it is not bad!” She goes on to say, “Be fearless but be compassionate to yourself and others… be brave, keep your eyes and ears open and face the world happily. What if there are limitations? Work through them with awareness. –Yours, Chitra”
Links and resources for women in STEM, courtesy of D.N. Lee

Stay tuned for the April Diversity in Science Carnival #15: Confronting the Imposter Syndrome. This topic promises to resonate for many groups in science. I’m pretty sure we’ve all felt at least of twinge of imposter syndrome at some point in our education and careers.  Your editor for this carnival will be the inimitable Scicurious, who  blogs at Scientific American and Scientopia.

UPDATE: Carnival #15 is now available! Go read about imposter syndrome, why it happens, who has it, and what you can do about it. 

By Emily Willingham, DXS managing editor 

DoubleXpressions — Nazneen Rahman, Cancer Doctor and Jazz Singer



