Hormonal Birth Control Awareness

Amanda Esche

The issue I want to address with my quilt block is the lack of research into and knowledge of hormonal birth control. There are so many side effects and issues with birth control, which is due in part to a lack of research, and also due to companies being focused on their profits instead of the livelihood of the consumer. There is also a lack of knowledge on different types of birth control, and how each one can affect you. From the beginning of birth control research, birth control has had side effects that can be debilitating or even life threatening. In 1970, large scale human trials of the birth control pill were conducted on working class women in Puerto Rico, with serious side effects including blood clots, strokes, depression, and breast cancer (Topini 2026, 3). While many women want or need to use birth control, there are a lot of side effects that can commonly force them to stop the use of hormonal birth control. Decreasing the amount of side effects by researching and developing birth control further can be a way to increase their use and help women be healthier. Discontinuation of hormonal contraceptives during the first year of use is common due to experiences of health concerns such as irregular bleeding patterns, weight gain, headache, and negative effects on mood and sexual desire (Johansson et al. 2023, 2). One form of birth control is an IUD. IUDs can be massively effective, and they are a long-term, but reversible, form of birth control. They are one of the lowest maintenance forms, as they can last for years, but there is a lot of stigma and fear around their use. IUDs started to show up in the 1900s. One infamous IUD design was the Dalkon shield. Upon its release, it was thought to be the best and last IUD design, but it was found to cause so many problems that damage claims had to be paid out to 197,000 women. This has created a long lasting impact on IUDs, and the use of them has been low ever since. (Nye 2022, 3). One thing that is being done to try and spread information about this is that the population division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the UN has published data on contraceptive methods since 2003. In their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, one of their goals is “By 2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes”(Genazzani et al. 2025, 2). Increasing awareness and knowledge of birth control is a big part of the issue. The more people know, the better they can make their decisions, or advocate for changes. Sadly, the funding side has not been getting as much attention. Funding for women's contraception in 2023 was $107 million(Impact Global Health 2025), while funding for erectile dysfunction in the same year was $1.24 billion(Barnes 2024). Funding is another large part of the problem. Without funding, you can not conduct research, and so things can be rushed or not done at all. This leads to the debilitating side effects that are present in products. 

I chose this topic for a couple reasons. The first is that it is something very relevant to me, as I am currently on hormonal birth control. I have gone through a couple kinds, and finding one that does not make the problem worse is difficult. Some side effects are pretty bad, and trying to get information about your options is not the easiest process. I also know that this is an experience that many women have, and is something that is widely known about but not well understood. The piece is covered in text from the warnings and precautions section of a birth control information sheet. I wanted to emphasize the fact that this is under researched, and that there are still a lot of risks involved with hormonal birth control. I used black text on a white background, which is how the text appears on the birth control information sheet, and I also wanted to make sure that the text stood out from the background, and showed itself as the main focus of the piece. The text I included is from my actual birth control safety sheet because I wanted to incorporate my personal experience into the design, as well as it being about birth control in general. 

Citations: 

Barnes, Sarah. 2024. “Closing the Women’s Health Gap Report: Much Needed Recognition for Endometriosis and Menopause.” New Security Beat (blog). February 14, 2024. https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2024/02/closing-the-womens-health-gap-report-much-needed-recognition-for-endometriosis-and-menopause/. 

Genazzani, Andrea R., Tiziana Fidecicchi, Domenico Arduini, et al. 2025. “Contraception Today and Family Planning: A Comprehensive Review and Position Statement on the Ethical, Medical, and Social Dimensions of Modern Contraception.” Gynecological Endocrinology 41 (1): 1–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/09513590.2025.2543423. 

Impact Global Health. 2025. “Is This the New Era? Funding for Sexual & Reproductive Health R&D 2018-2023.” Impact Global Health. Impact Global Health. https://www.impactglobalhealth.org/insights/report-library/a-new-era-srh. 

Johansson, Lydia, Julia Vesström, Siw Alehagen, and Helena Kilander. 2023. “Women’s Experiences of Dealing with Fertility and Side Effects in Contraceptive Decision Making: A Qualitative Study Based on Women’s Blog Posts.” Reproductive Health 20 (1): 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-023-01642-8. 

Nye, Robert A. 2022. “Contraception: A Concise History by Donna J. Drucker (Review).” Journal of the History of Sexuality 31 (1): 1–4. EBSCOhost. 

Topini, Carolina. 2026. “Resisting Population Control: Global Women’s Health Activism and Contraceptive Controversies, 1980s–1990s.” Third World Quarterly 47 (2): 400–418. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2024.2437465.