So, recalling from my previous blog entry in regards to whether taking birth control pills will decrease sexual drive in women, if you beautiful ladies out there want some hard, cold evidence about libido and birth control pills, www.pubmed.com would be a great starting point to begin our investigation.
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Poor lady is on her birth control pills and wondering if her pills are affecting her sexual drive. Hope she feels better soon
So let’s take a look at pubmed.com and see what studies have been conducted on birth control pills and libido. Ooo.. 360 results by typing birth control pills and libido in the search engine and WOOHOO and 33 have full text!
For this week’s blog, I will be discussing about a study I found on hormonal contraception on mood and sexual interest among adolescents. I think we can relate more to a study of adolescents since on my part at least, the confusion I had about birth control pills and its effects started when I was an adolescent experimenting with birth control pills.
The video you are about to see is just a brief overview of birth control pill and its POSSIBLE effects on lowering sexual drive in women. As the beginning of the video it says, "this video represents the views of individual presenters and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Psychetruth Channel." So be cautious when you ladies are taking in the information from this video :)
Past Studies on the Birth Control Pill and its Influence on Mood and Sexual Interest
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Not surprisingly, numerous studies have been conducted on the effects of hormonal contraceptives. However, results varied amongst the studies. Some studies demonstrated a negative effect, some a positive effect, and some that demonstrated no effect (Ott & Shew & Ofner & Tu & Fortenberry, 2008, p. 606). Separate studies have been conducted on adults, some on older adolescent participants, usually between the ages of 16 or 18, however no studies have been conducted to determine whether there are differences amongst results in adolescents and adults in terms of mood changes and changes in sexual interest with the use of hormonal contraceptives. Adolescence is a time characterized by moodiness. Let’s just admit it, we were all moody when we were adolescents. It is important to examine whether hormonal contraceptives play a role in affecting mood changes in adolescents or whether we are just very moody and emotional creatures in general, regardless of the use of hormonal contraceptives. Other than mood changes, past studies have shown contradictory results regarding sexual interest or sexual desire when hormonal contraceptives were used. Little is also known about the impact of hormonal contraception on sexual interest among adolescents (Ott et al, 2008, p. 607). Therefore, in this study, young women of the ages 14 to 17 were recruited from three primary care adolescent clinics in a medium size Midwestern U.S. city. This was a longitudinal study in which the young, beautiful women (just like you guys) were followed for up to 41 months. In a broader sense, the study was not only conducted on the associations of hormonal contraceptive use with mood and sexual interest, the study also examined the development of sexual behaviors and STI amongst these adolescence (Ott et al, 2008, p. 607). To keep things brief, the objectives of the study included: 1) to test for differences in positive mood, negative mood and sexual interest by hormonal contraceptive method, 2) To test for differences in mood variability (or change over time) by hormonal contraceptive method and 3) to examine whether stopping or starting hormonal contraceptive was associated with mood and sexual interest changes. In the study, participants completed face to face interviews quarterly and two 12 week periods of daily diary collection per year. Participants kept a diary throughout the study and were required to record any mood changes whether positive or negative and changes in sexual interest while being on hormonal contraceptive. Something very exciting that I think you guys would want to know, participants received $2.00 for each completed diary as well as a bonus for completion of 80% of scheduled diaries (Oh MY!!! Why wasn’t I invited to this study?!) (Ott et al, 2008, p. 609). The exact procedures and measures used to calculate the results I would greatly recommend you ladies to read the full article available on pubmed.com instead. So ready for the results? :) The study concluded that there are changes in mood amongst adolescent hormonal contraceptive users and that the changes differed from those anticipated for adult users (Ott et al, 2008, p. 605). During diary periods characterized by stable use of hormonal contraceptives, participants reported significantly higher mean weekly positive mood compared to periods of non-use or initiating hormonal contraceptive use. Participants also reported significantly lower mean weekly negative mood compared to periods of non-use or initiating hormonal contraceptive use (Ott et al, 2008, p. 611). However, there was no association between hormonal contraceptive use and sexual interest (Ott et al, 2008, p. 613). Mean weekly sexual interest did not change significantly across the 3 month diary period (Ott et al, 2008, p. 611). It is possible that hormonal effects were less influential on sexual interest than behavioral factors, such as relationship quality (Ott et al, 2008, p. 613). Oh Dear… You ladies must be mad at me right now. The results of this week’s blog totally contradicted with last week’s blog. I am confused as you guys are about whether birth control pill exerts an effect on our sexual drives. Well, isn’t this the very reason why studies are conducted upon studies. I never said my mission as the truth blogger was easy. I never promised that I could solve all the misconceptions when it comes to birth control pills. I am here, however to bring out as much as I can the possible perspectives and sides to birth control pills. Instead of blindly believing in certain misconceptions, I want you ladies to be able to assess the situation, the topic with all the information you can get. Anyways, that’s it for this week! Don’t miss out on next week’s blog entry. I’ll give you a heads up, it’s about … how I will be enjoying my week without anymore blog assignments. Haha. Bye ladies.  |
Hey Joy! Can’t believe we are getting closer to the end of the semester. Hope you enjoyed reading my blog. Thank you so much for being my blog’s number 1 follower!
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Reference
Ott, M.A., & Shew, M.L., & Ofner, S., & Tu, W., & Fortenberry, J.D. (2008). The
influence of hormonal contraception on mood and sexual interest among
adolescents. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37(4), 605-613.
Psychetruth (2008, November 15). Sex Drive & the Birth Control Pill, Does the Pill Ruin
Sex for Girls? Women’s Sexual Health. [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssL2RHEoJgI&feature=player_embedded
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