Dr Natalie Crawford

Our fat cells and the peripheral tissues, the tissues outside of the ovaries can produce something called estrone.

And then we have this fetal estrogen called esterotrol, if I'm pronouncing it correctly.

And so they've compounded, they've been able to formulate that.

So it is one of the natural estrogens and they've put it in a birth control pill that is available in the UK.

Studies have proven, within the shadow of a doubt, that relying on natural family planning at most stages is not a reliable form of contraception.

So I would not recommend that.

So in popular culture, you would call that natural family planning.

Avoiding intercourse.

We have to factor in when we're looking at, you know, I was trained and taught to only look at birth control through the lens of contraception.

Right.

We know that they might have some weird bleeding and maybe a few headaches and things.

For some, a DVT, if they have, you know, deep venous thrombosis, you can have blood clots.

It'll increase your risk, especially if you have a pre-genetic disposition to that.

But what we didn't talk about were mental health, mood, and some of the long downstream libido effects.

Right.

And so then I'm looking at it through the lens of, you know, I'm only looking on the lens of she doesn't want to be pregnant.

A younger patient, so you're talking about 18, is less likely to remember to do something every day.

Correct.

So then to take the impetus of remembering to take a pill every day or change a patch once a week for the patch option, then we're looking at maybe a vaginal ring that she inserts for three weeks and removes for one for her period.

If you had to pick one.