Sick of the Pill? Try Natural Family Planning
Jesse, the mother of a newborn in Bloomfield, NE, began taking the birth control pill Yasmin and never suspected it would cause problems. She had talked to her doctor about its possible side effects and he mentioned only blood clots. But after only a few months on the drug, she suffered severe stomach pains, and a medical exam revealed that she needed gall bladder surgery.
“I thought you could only get blood clots if you were a smoker, so I wasn't worried about taking this drug,” Jesse argues on a lawyers’ website. “I guess I trusted doctors and drugs in general…. I wasn't worried about Yasmin."
Jesse is one of the many women suing Bayer Pharmaceuticals after taking the very popular Yaz and Yasmin birth control pills and suffering serious complications.
According to court documents, six new cases filed in Pittsburg last month allege fraud, civil conspiracy and commercial bribery, specifically indicating Bayer made "false representations"
The civil suits filed seek punitive and compensatory damages totaling $150,000. Nationally, more than 150 complaints have now targeted Bayer for the marketing of its contraceptives.
The Food and Drug Administration in September sent a letter of warning to Bayer Health Care, warning them of inadequate manufacturing safeguards in the making of their birth control pills.
Fed Up
“People all over are becoming fed up with the physical problems with artificial birth control, and this is one of the reasons they try Natural Family Planning,” says Monica Cassidy, of the Couple to Couple League of Chicago. “You don’t fool with mother nature.”
Natural Family Planning (NFP), with its reliance only on a thermometer and charts, is completely safe and a good alternative to artificial methods. According to the Couple to Couple League International, the method is 99% effective when used correctly by motivated couples. Proper education is necessary for this high effectiveness rate.
NFP is not often heard about because it cannot compete with the multi-million dollar advertising budgets of the pharmaceuticals.
Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central at http://www.ccli.org.
The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Fri., Jan. 29, 2010 at 7:30 pm at Holy Family Hospital in Des Plaines. To register, and for a list of classes, go to the CCL Central class locator at www.ccli.org. For Chicago chapter information, go to http://www.naturalfamilyplanningchicago.com.
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