Pregnancy protection with a side of low libido? No thank you please.
You may have heard some people complain that birth control killed their sex drive. Maybe you've even thought it yourself.
What's behind this, and how can you make sure it doesn't happen to you? We spoke with OB/GYNs Dr. Jennifer Gunter and Dr. Mary Jane Minkin to get more info. Here's what you need to know.
According to the research, some women report a higher sex drive on the pill, some report a lower sex drive, and some totally stay the same.
Lots of studies have looked at this problem, all with conflicting results. Some find a correlation between birth control and low libido for some women (but not all), while others find no significant link. Other studies find that some women report a higher sex drive on the pill or no change at all. Basically, it's a mixed bag.
But when you look at the big reviews of multiple studies on the subject, it looks like the majority of women actually don't report any problems. Only about 15% of women noticed a dip in libido while on birth control, according to a 2013 review in the European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care , which looked at 36 studies between 1978 and 2011. And unfortunately, it's not clear that birth control was actually causing the decrease in all of those cases, since there are a ton of other factors that come into play with desire, says Gunter.
But obviously there are women who swear up and down that the pill zapped their sex drive, so what's going on here?
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