A deluge of ‘toxic, blatant false information’ about the contraceptive pill on social media is causing thousands of young women to reject the medication and risk unwanted pregnancy, doctors have warned.
The method of contraception is 99 percent effective for preventing pregnancy when taken at the same time daily, and is safe, according to decade’s worth of studies.
However in recent years scare stories have begun to surface on social media about the medicine – claiming it is ‘unnatural’ and therefore, ‘unsafe’.
‘Birth control is unnatural and I don’t believe in using it,’ said one TikTok user. Others claim that ceasing taking The Pill will lead to health benefits. ‘Mental health has improved, lost weight and overall feel like completely new person,’ another TikToker said.
Elsewhere, social media users liken the medication – which contains synthetic versions of reproductive hormones – to ‘poison’.
Doctors across the US are seeing women enter their office and tell them they wish to stop taking The Pill, for unknown reasons.
Doctors across the US have seen young women come into their offices with questions after watching influencers spout unfounded medical advice, Dr. Michael Belmonte, an OB/GYN, told the Washington Post.
‘I am seeing those direct failures of this misinformation,’ he said.
Meanwhile other experts have voiced concern about a suspected rise in birth rate related to the trend.
‘If we all of a sudden have hundreds and thousands of women coming off the pill, then we are going to see an increase in the birth rate,’ Douglas Black, the former president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, said in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Experts say this is especially prudent because of the rising restrictions on abortion care in the United States after Roe V. Wade fell in 2022.
Many women now live in states such as Texas, Georgia or Idaho, where abortion is outlawed. If they have an unwanted pregnancy, they’re left without options.
Yet there were a million abortions in the United States in 2024- the highest number since 2014, suggesting an uptick in unplanned pregnancies, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
The warnings come in the same week that one type of contraceptive pill was made available over the counter. The version currently approved in the US, called Opill, contains progestin alone- foregoing estrogen, which is in the combined pill and associated with a small increased risk of blood clot.
But increased availability may have limited benefits in guarding against unwanted pregnancies if women don’t want to use it.
Experts say doctors are partly to blame for this mass ditching of The Pill – as they fail to explain side effects properly, leaving women to turn to social media for answers.
However, Dr. Danielle Jones an OB/GYN and vlogger, said in a video: ‘The existence of those things- bad doctors, side effects on birth control- does not justify sharing blatant false information.’
One side effect includes an increased risk for blood clots, affecting roughly one in 3,000 a year.
People also frequently complain of irregular bleeding, according to Planned Parenthood.
Even with the side effects, birth control is still incredibly effective and can help manage a host of other hormonal related complications, like acne, PCOS and unwanted pregnancy, according to Dr Jones.
What’s more, the risk of blood clots with pregnancy is higher than that of The Pill – it happens in around two in every 1,000 women every year.
Another reason for the problem is due to the distrust of gynecologists among women of color, due to the long history of exploiting black communities, says
The foundations of gynecology in America are rooted in exploiting women of color, according to Kimberly Baker, a professor at UTHealth.
So called ‘pioneers’ of gynecology like Marion Sims regularly operated on black women without anesthesia, the UCSF researchers explained.
It was also commonplace to sterilize black women without their consent until the late 1970’s.
‘That’s another huge reason why these negative videos around birth control get a lot of fanfare, because there’s already the stigma attached to it, and that’s steeped in our history,’ said Ms Baker.
Another famous critic of The Pill Elon Musk, father of 11, who claimed last month that hormonal birth control makes you fat, doubles risk of depression & triples risk of suicide.
In response to the increasing distrust of providers, organizations like the American College of Gynecologists have pushed providers to change how they counsel patients on birth control.
”There is a long, painful historical record of the devaluing of the reproductive needs of many patient populations,’ said Dr Jen Villavicencio, an OB/GYN working with the American College of Gynecologists.
‘As lifelong learners, it is the privilege and responsibility of obstetrician–gynecologists to learn from the past in order to better support patients regarding their contraceptive choices with respect and dignity,’ Villavicencio said.
Yet another reason anti-pill narratives are taking hold is because popular conservatives have picked up those talking points.
Influencers like Brett Cooper – a political commentator who has 4million YouTube subscribers – said that birth control has been pushed on society by big pharma, and claims it raises suicide rates, cancer risk and infertility.
Peter Theil funds one of the most hip new menstrual cycle apps called 28. It was founded by Brittany Martinez, who also founded the conservative women’s magazine ‘Evie’.
Elon Musk, whose obsessions’ with declining birth rates have led him to fathering 11 children, has spoken about how the pill causes depression.
These claims are taken out of context in order to drive particular conservative talking points, Jones said.
Since Roe fell, legislators in Missouri have attempted to pass laws restricting insurance coverage of IUD’s.
Extensive data has shown that birth control is safe and effective, Jones told NBC.
‘If birth control is safe enough to advocate that it should be over the counter, there’s absolutely no reason it should start to become a topic of legislation about who can access it and why.’
