Warning over new TikTok trend urging women to quit the Pill because it ‘makes you ugly and fat’

Younger girls are being urged to ditch hormonal contraception below TikTok’s latest well being pattern that has spooked specialists.

Movies highlighting the advantages of switching to ‘pure’ contraception have racked up tons of of 1000’s of views.

Customers declare the Tablet, in addition to different common types of hormonal contraception, have left them feeling ‘ugly’. Others have complained about contraception inflicting weight achieve, pimples and despair. 

However medics mentioned the pattern was ‘worrying’ and raised issues over the effectiveness of the ‘again to nature’ motion, because it has been known as.

Many ladies turning their again on the Tablet are as an alternative counting on apps which observe menstrual cycles and depend on temperature knowledge to find out when they’re more likely to be fertile — and due to this fact want to make use of safety.

In one other video, TikTok consumer @angelinanicollle wrote ‘while you thought you have been ugly, hated your self, had zero intercourse drive and felt like a robotic on a regular basis however you realized it was simply since you have been on contraception’. In the meantime one content material creator @leeann5.oh shared pictures of herself whereas utilizing contraception and after stopping taking the capsule. ‘On contraception, unable to manage my weight. So sad/depressed,’ she wrote

TikTok customers additionally commented beneath movies about hormonal contraception drugs including they have been ‘getting fats due to the capsule’ and ‘gaining a lot weight’

But these usually are not foolproof, with scores of girls reporting undesirable pregnancies after such apps did not appropriately defend them. 

The hashtag #gettingoffbirthcontrol has racked up over 7million views on TikTok.

One video, watched 1.1million instances, claims pure household planning strategies are 98 per cent efficient at stopping being pregnant.

One other clip, posted from the account @pcos.instructor, states: ‘Hormonal contraception has by no means agreed with my physique. I have been on 5 to 6 varieties of contraception and through this era, I developed cystic pimples, I placed on quite a lot of weight and it actually affected my temper and libido negatively.’ 

She additionally offered a hyperlink to the fertility app Pure Cycles, writing: ‘Use code PCOS for 20 per cent off your subscription (hyperlink in bio). Pure Cycles is for 18+ and doesn’t defend in opposition to STIs.’

Girls utilizing the app have to measure their temperature most days and enter the outcomes into the app, which makes use of an algorithm to calculate their fertility. 

It identifies ‘inexperienced days’, when a girl is unlikely to fall pregnant, and ‘purple days’ when contraception can be wanted.

Dr Janet Barter, chair and president of the School of Sexual and Reproductive Well being, instructed the BBC Radio 4’s Right now Programme that sufferers being ‘influenced’ by contraception data on social media is ‘one thing that is been worrying us for some time’. 

She added: ‘Day-after-day I communicate to girls who’re completely frightened of utilizing hormonal contraception. 

‘Terrified to start out, worrying about whether or not they need to come off it, as a result of they’re listening to data that it is dangerous or that it is going to give them unintended effects.

‘We’re at all times additionally eager for there to be extra analysis into hormonal contraception.

‘However what we do know is that it is extraordinarily secure. So, the Tablet for instance has in all probability had extra analysis on its security than every other pill that you simply would possibly swallow.’

Uncomfortable side effects of the capsule together with nausea, breast tenderness or enlargement, complications, weight achieve, missed durations, temper adjustments, decreased intercourse drive and vaginal discharge, have lengthy been shared.

Rarer unintended effects nevertheless additionally embody blood clots, hypertension, liver tumours and even a raised danger of breast most cancers. 

However Dr Barter added: ‘We additionally learn about its [the Pill’s] effectiveness and we all know that any methodology of hormonal contraception – so that is the Tablet but additionally the patch, vaginal ring, the hormonal IUD, the implant – we all know precisely their effectiveness, we all know loads about their unintended effects.

‘We do know that some girls do endure from temper adjustments or need one other methodology of contraception.

‘But it surely’s so necessary that they’ve the prospect to have a dialog with a healthcare skilled, to allow them to work out what the issue is and what they may do as an alternative.’

But current TikTok movies embody @breakupwithbirthcontrol, who instructed her followers: ‘I’ve used the fertility consciousness methodology for the final 5 years of my life to efficiently forestall undesirable being pregnant, to heal my PMS, to lastly lose my cussed stomach fats and to cease having such intense temper swings and despair and anxiousness.’

In one other video with over 17,000 views, TikTok consumer @angelinanicollle wrote ‘while you thought you have been ugly, hated your self, had zero intercourse drive and felt like a robotic on a regular basis however you realised it was simply since you have been on contraception’. 

In the meantime, one other TikTok account @leeann5.oh shared pictures of herself whereas utilizing contraception and after stopping taking the capsule. 

‘On contraception, unable to manage my weight. So sad/depressed,’ she wrote.

Research present that hormonal contraception itself does not trigger weight achieve. Nevertheless, it could improve urge for food in some girls, which can see them eat extra.

The NHS notes that the pure fertility consciousness methodology of contraception — which may additionally embody measuring cycle size and adjustments to cervical secretions — could be as much as 99 per cent efficient if adopted persistently and appropriately.

‘Pure household planning could be very efficient if it is executed completely,’ Dr Barter famous.

‘However doing it completely entails an enormous quantity of enter. So, the temperature could be affected by all types of issues: journey, adjustments to your sleep sample, if you happen to’re not nicely that may have an effect on your temperature change,’ she added. 

‘Not all people logs their durations each month and naturally, it entails not having intercourse on the times when it is not secure to have intercourse, which is round ovulation, which is the time that the majority girls really feel like having intercourse.

‘And if the truth is you might have intercourse, however you defend your self with a condom, then the effectiveness of that’s solely pretty much as good because the effectiveness of the condom.’

‘Hormonal contraception has by no means agreed with my physique. I have been on 5 to 6 varieties of contraception and through this era, I developed cystic pimples, I placed on quite a lot of weight and it actually affected my temper and libido negatively,’  one other TikTok consumer @pcos.instructor mentioned. Within the video she marketed the app ‘Pure Cycles’. ‘Use code PCOS for 20 per cent off your subscription (hyperlink in bio). Pure Cycles is for 18+ and doesn’t defend in opposition to STIs,’ she wrote

Uncomfortable side effects of the capsule together with nausea, breast tenderness or enlargement, complications, weight achieve, missed durations, temper adjustments, decreased intercourse drive and vaginal discharge, have lengthy been shared. Rarer unintended effects nevertheless additionally embody blood clots, hypertension, liver tumours and even a raised danger of breast most cancers. However Dr Barter added: ‘We additionally learn about its [the Pill’s] effectiveness and we all know that any methodology of hormonal contraception – so that is the Tablet but additionally the patch, vaginal ring, the hormonal IUD, the implant – we all know precisely their effectiveness, we all know loads about their unintended effects’

The rising curiosity in ‘pure’, ‘hormone-free’ and ‘non-invasive’ strategies of stopping being pregnant comes after the UK started providing the Tablet through over-the-counter contraception. The transfer, which was introduced in 2021, was hailed as a ‘landmark’ second. Fertility apps together with Pure Cycles, Flo and Clue, declare to have tens of millions of customers worldwide. However in 2018, a Fb advert for Pure Cycles was banned by the UK’s Promoting Requirements Authority, after its claims that it was ‘extremely correct’ and ‘offered a clinically examined various to different contraception strategies’ have been discovered to be deceptive

She mentioned: ‘So, we’d really feel that these strategies are good if you happen to’re somebody for whom being pregnant would not be a catastrophe. 

‘However for every lady, you must take a look at your priorities at this specific level in your life and take into consideration what’s most necessary. 

‘If not getting pregnant is a very powerful factor, then considered one of these apps in all probability is not for you.’

The rising curiosity in ‘pure’, ‘hormone-free’ and ‘non-invasive’ strategies of stopping being pregnant comes after the UK started providing the Tablet through over-the-counter contraception. The transfer, which was introduced in 2021, was hailed as a ‘landmark’ second.

Fertility apps together with Pure Cycles, Flo and Clue declare to have tens of millions of customers worldwide. 

However in 2018, a Fb advert for Pure Cycles was banned by the UK’s Promoting Requirements Authority, after its claims that it was ‘extremely correct’ and ‘offered a clinically examined various to different contraception strategies’ have been discovered to be deceptive.

Right now, the Swedish-based app, which prices £69.99 a 12 months, claims to be 93 per cent efficient with typical use and 98 per cent efficient with good use.

For comparability, with good use, condoms are 98 per cent efficient, whereas the Tablet, implant, IUS and IUD are 99 per cent efficient, in line with the NHS.

Pure Cycles permits its customers to both plan a being pregnant or forestall it, with prevention the preferred use amongst younger girls.

Whereas it was the primary contraception app cleared by the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) within the US in 2018 and licensed within the European Union in 2017, the NHS doesn’t suggest the app as a contraception methodology.

In 2017, Swedish well being officers additionally raised issues after 37 girls at one of many nation’s largest hospitals have been mentioned to have sought a termination in any case allegedly grew to become pregnant whereas utilizing the app. 

However they discovered the speed of reported unintended pregnancies to be consistent with the 93 per cent effectiveness fee. The investigation was closed in September of 2018 with no motion required by Pure Cycles. 

The British Being pregnant Advisory Service (BPAS) advises the contraceptive methodology with the bottom failure fee for typical use to be the implant, with a failure fee of simply 0.1 per cent.

That is adopted by male vasectomy, with a failure fee of 0.15 per cent, and the hormonal implant, which has a failure fee of 0.7 per cent. 

In response to the service, the capsule has a failure fee of seven per cent, and condoms a failure fee of both 13 or 21 per cent, relying on in case you are utilizing male or feminine variations.

BPAS places the fertility consciousness methodology, which has similarities to the thought behind Pure Cycles, at round a 15 per cent probability of failure. 

Lauren Hanafin, the top of name and communications at Pure Cycles, instructed MailOnline at the moment: ‘Nearly all fertility apps usually are not supposed for use as contraception and shouldn’t be used or marketed as such. 

‘Pure Cycles, whereas an app, is a regulated medical gadget and is meant for use to forestall being pregnant within the US and Europe.’ 

She added: ‘We’ve acquired the correct regulatory clearances in addition to do quite a lot of work to coach girls on the variations between fertility apps and a contraception app as they’re very totally different by way of how they work and their effectiveness in relation to stopping being pregnant.’