Contraception and Depression (A Twitter Reaction Post)
Depression vector created by pch.vector - www.freepik.com and Inkscape.org
if your girlfriend takes birth control go tell her thank you or buy her flowers or just fucking hug her for extra second bc those things are literally depression pills & y’all don’t realize what they go thru just so y’all can nut
— A ひ (@etoxico7) August 21, 2022
Hello, my friends in stemscocial, it's another evening where I confirm tweets about depression, today I was feeling like I would have covered it all, but all of a sudden, boom!! I see this. I hope @etoxico checked properly before posting this.
To say the truth, when I was a medical student I think I can recall reading something like this when we studied contraception in Obstetrics and Gynecology. It's been close to 4 years I have had to go back to revise that so my memory is a little off.
In this post, I will try and refresh my memory while teaching about contraception a bit.
In my last post, I wrote about the cost of managing depression from the management itself, down to the extra expenditure involved. What we found was that the extra expenditure may cost even more than the cost of treatment, but it is worst of it the condition becomes complicated.
My name is Dr Ebingo Kigigha, I am the main writer here in medic Vibes, I am a medical doctor, and illustrator and I sing for fun at times. At Medic Vibes, we try to take away any misconception people might have about depression.
Depression is the 4th leading cause of disability, the condition presents with a sad mood, a lack of interest in previously pleasurable activities, weight changes, changes in sleep pattern and changes in appetite.
People who are depressed may be dealing with Major Depressive Disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Persistent Depressive Disorder, perinatal Depression and others.
Those who are depressed are at greater risk of suicide than the general population because they can have suicidal ideation.
They may also express this wish in the things they say, particularly things related to death.
If you know someone who is depressed and is showing these signs and symptoms here are some numbers to call:
Check your country's suicide hotlines here.
Contraception and Depression
Contraception, as the name implies, is any method, tool, or drug used to prevent conception. It is also known as birth control.
They come in different forms, from the Gif I put up you can see the Contraceptive pill, the condom right above it, and below it, you can see the Intrauterine Device, the injectables, the patch and surgical sterilization.
According to WebMD After several studies, there is no conclusive evidence of a link between depression and use of the contraceptive pills. There is also a link between lesser cases of premenstrual depression and contraceptive pills.
They also added that a woman’s reaction to contraceptive pills is not predictable really. A study found that when 16-year old used hormonal contraceptives there were more complaints concerning sleeping less and crying more.
What is certain is that if a woman has a mood disorder contraceptive pills could make it significantly worse.
Tips
Selecting a hormonal contraceptive depends on how easy it is for you to use, your lifestyle, what you can afford and your wish to have a child in the future.
If you are looking for one that is easy to use, any options that are too intrusive are out of the question, such as Intrauterine Device or the Jadel strip.
Those who are uninterested in having children may go for sterility.
It is however important that you have this discussion with your family planning physician before making a decision on which to go with.
Hive Stories
In @andreina57 post
DEPRESSION: It can lead to death.
She discusses depression in a very expressive manner with illustrations. She draws attention to the fact that depression can be a killer if left untended. In her own words, many things are responsible for depression in this day and age.
This is a link to her post, you can learn so much from it.
Questions
- What did you learn about contraception and depression?
- What is the relationship based on?
- Who are those more likely to be depressed as mentioned in the post?
Nice one Chief. Well, maybe by idiosyncratic drug reaction, some contraceptive pills can cause depression but I don't think that depression is a known side effect of contraceptive pills.
Yeah I still remember it from our labour ward manual those times
Considering these pills are hormonal, one can see why they could cause depression.
Exactly. But the reverse was the case for premenstrual depression.
Interesting