Women told how to upgrade their lives

For a long time it was believed, let alone what to say, it is still sometimes believed that speaking out loud about women’s health, in particular, contraception issues, is downright indecent. And therefore, for many representatives of the beautiful half of humanity, knowledge in this matter is limited to the advice of girlfriends, the stories of mothers and grandmothers, and not to scientific research and the conclusions of doctors.

And this is fundamentally wrong. According to the Women’s Health Index survey conducted by Gedeon Richter this year, 41% of women prefer a “barrier method” of protection against unwanted pregnancy, 24% of percent believe that coitus interruptus will “protect” them, and only 23% prefer to use drugs hormonal contraception. Moscow hosted a conference “Upgrade Your Life”, dedicated to the topic of women taking combined oral contraceptives.

According to Irina Shestakova, Associate Professor of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine, Faculty of Continuing Medical Education of Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, there are several myths about the use of COCs. In particular, that a woman gets better from their use and her body hair begins to grow, that the selection of these drugs can take weeks and even months, that the use of contraceptives stimulates the growth of cancer cells.

All of these are, indeed, myths. Those drugs that were used 30-40 years ago, indeed, could cause side effects in a woman, in particular, weight gain. But modern drugs do not give such effects, – says Irina Shestakova. – It takes 5-10 minutes for an obstetrician to choose the right contraceptive for a woman, because he knows what questions to ask the patient, for example, how her puberty proceeded, which of the diseases is in the anamnesis. I can also say that in 27 years of my medical practice, there has not been a single case when the prescribed contraceptives would have pushed the growth of cancer cells.

Moreover, a new generation of combined oral contraceptives with native estrogen began to appear on the pharmaceutical market, which, firstly, significantly reduce the risk of thrombosis in women, secondly, enhance brain function, and thirdly, can stimulate the death of cancer cells in breast tissues, fourthly, have a positive effect on the central nervous system. And that’s not all of their “positive qualities”.

“New drugs protect women from unwanted pregnancies by almost 99%,” says Mekan Orazov, Professor of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology with a Perinatology Course at RUDN University. – The proportion of doctors who positively assess the effectiveness and reliability of the use of COCs is 87%. This is a fairly high percentage. It is extremely important that doctors convey this confidence to their patients as much as possible.

By the way

The first combined oral contraceptive was developed in America in the middle of the 20th century. In Europe, the first such drugs appeared in Hungary, and they came to Russia in the mid-70s of the last century. In Russia, COCs are most popular among women aged 20-39. In the first quarter of 2022, this category of drugs accounted for 79% of the recommendations of gynecologists.

Mona Platonov.