I know, when I was a teenager and started seeing my first boyfriend, it was perfectly normal for my mom to immediately recommend that I take the pill. After all, it was a great form of protection, so she wouldn’t turn me into a teen mom!

Unfortunately, the pill has incredible side effects on the body, not just in the short term but in the long term. Many fertility-related illnesses now find a common link with the birth control pill and various forms of synthetic hormone-based contraception.

What you may not know is that there are perfectly natural ways to determine your fertile days of the month, which don’t involve injecting yourself or upsetting your natural hormonal balance.

You actually only have about 7 days in your cycle that you can get pregnant. These days are called your ovulation days.

You can determine if you are ovulating by measuring your body temperature, since it is always slightly elevated during those days. Now there are new devices that can accurately determine if you are ovulating. Lady Comp is one of the most popular brands. By knowing when you are fertile, you can determine if you want to completely abstain from sex for those few days or if you want to use a condom or diaphragm, which prevents you from getting pregnant, in case you want to have sex during those days. .

I find it frustrating that we have become so reliant on pills and hormone treatments for birth control. These synthetic hormones are not supposed to reside in our bodies and create so many imbalances, which many women have to deal with for many, many years afterwards.

Getting pregnant at a young age is inconvenient and pointless, but pumping teenage girls with synthetic drugs during their growing years is also incredibly short-sighted.

What many people don’t realize is that there are perfectly natural ways to use contraception. Simply knowing and recognizing when we are ovulating is the first step in not only preventing pregnancy, but also realizing when other imbalances occur in our body.

We deserve to be fertile well into our 40s and I personally believe that the use of synthetic contraceptives is simply causing imbalances to prevent this opportunity for many women.