The inventor of the contraceptive pill has designed it to please the pope, not the women

Since the contraceptive pill was invented in the 1960s, doctors know a dirty little secret: on the medical side, the rules are not necessary. If you take the pill, you can safely skip your menses – and anxious mood swings, acne and debilitating pain this can sometimes come with them – entirely. So, why do women take placebo pills week after week so that their period continues to happen every month? You can blame the pope.

Earlier this week, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health (the official organization setting NHS reproductive health standards in the UK) update of their guidelines, officially stating that there was no health benefit to taking these seven-day monthly pills with the pill. This is the typical protocol of pills for decades, so why this reversal? According to John Guillebaud, professor of family planning and reproductive health, all this goes back to John Rock, one of the gynecologists who invented the pill. Fervent Catholic, Dr. Rock built during the break to please the Catholic Church and, he hoped, get the endorsement of the pope, said Guillebaud. The telegraph.

"In the Catholic Church, the rhythm method is an accepted form of birth control, so he thought that if he could make the female rules sound and regular, it would be easier to practice this method. [and more appealing to the Pope]says Sophia Yen, MD, a California gynecologist and founder of Pandia Health. Dr. Rock's plan did not work – the pope did not follow suit and finally decided that the church would not support Catholics with birth control – but nevertheless, the breaks included allowing a monthly deadline.

In other words, the reason that women who take the pill have regular menstrual periods, month after month, for 60 years, is simply because a man was trying to please another man. Seriously.

This is of course a lot for the annoyance of many women who, according to statistics, would happily skip this week's placebo pills (and the period that goes with them) if they could. In a survey conducted by Pandia Health in 2018, 57% of women aged 18 to 30 years said they would "shut down" their rules if they knew it was safe. Despite this, almost two-thirds of the women said that their doctor had never mentioned this possibility as a method of contraception. One of the reasons may be that the doctors were afraid to rock the boat, says Dr. Yen. "Only recently have doctors accepted this idea better, now that we have other methods of birth control that remove the rules like the IUD, the implants and the depo shot will provera," she said. doctors are able to collect more period.

And having fewer rules can actually be better for your health. Taking the pill daily without breaking for a period each month can help reduce acne, headaches (which can be triggered by a drop in estrogen levels when you take sugar pills) and fewer painful periods, says Dr. Yen. Even bigger problem: this could reduce your risk of ovarian cancer –studies have shown that the more you ovulate (the more periods you have during your life), the more chance you have of ovarian cancer.

Armed with more and more data to counter the misconceptions that have prevailed for decades, "doctors are finally starting to participate," says Dr. Yen. After 60 years of following a plan designed to please the pope, time is running out.