Puzzled by the onslaught of advertising that touts pregnancy prevention along with bonuses like clearer skin and a period-free lifestyle, Jennifer Meyer balked at a birth control pill that would reduce her monthly cycles to just four per year.
“It’s just not something we should stop,” says Meyer, a 33-year-old graduate student at Wayne State University. She’s using a traditional pill because she says it’s convenient, inexpensive and feels like the more natural choice. But she also has thought about whether an intrauterine device, or IUD, might be worth trying.
Meyer is like thousands of women bombarded — and sometimes confused — by ads touting new ways to prevent pregnancies.
Companies marketing prescription birth control methods like Seasonique, the multi-month pill; Mirena, an IUD, and others spent $188 million on advertising in 2008, according to a report from the New York-based Nielsen Co., which does market research. That’s an increase of about $40 million over spending in 2007.
In these ads, drug companies offer “birth control plus” — better skin, fewer cramps, a period-free vacation or a reduction of premenstrual syndrome symptoms, the personality and physical changes that may occur in some women just before their period begins, says Andrea Tone, a professor of the social history of medicine at McGill University in Montreal.
Dr. Brent Davidson, chief of women’s health services at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital, says he routinely fields questions from women trying to wade through the choices to pick the best option. He weighs a woman’s health history, her insurance coverage and family planning goals when making a recommendation. “The key is we have choice — many more than our parents’ generation — and safe choices,” Davidson says.
