Birth Control Side Effects You Should Know About

There are many types of birth control that come with a plethora of side effects. Putting hormones in your body will always have some kind of effect. You can almost expect these common side effects if you take a form of birth control. These side effects include:

• weight gain
• headaches
• tenderness of breasts
• low sex drive

There are some additional side effects that may occur. These side effects may go away with time, but if they do not, you may want to switch your birth control or use another method such as condoms, spermicide, etc. These additional side effects include:

• "spotting" (bleeding in between periods)
• nausea

It's very ironic that most women get on birth control so that when "the moment" is right, they can go ahead and have no worries. In fact, that moment is a lot harder to get to when you begin taking birth control, because your appetite for sex is decreased dramatically. It's a common complaint among many women who take birth control.

Another one that you hear almost always is that women who begin birth control immediately gain 15 lbs of extra weight. It may be water weight. Who really knows? It's definitely not a confidence booster either.

If you are thinking about getting on birth control, weigh your other options. Condoms, when used correctly, have almost the same success rate of birth control. They are right at 98%. There are some things you can do to make sure your condoms will be just as effective as they should be. Those things are:

• making sure it's the right size
• making sure it's a trusted brand
• checking for holes
• keep it in a temperature controlled area (no wallets)
• make sure it's been purchased recently (don't try to use an old condom)

If you take your birth control pills correctly, they are 99.9% effective. You make the pill less effective when you take it at different times of the day or when you skip days. Most women never take the pill at the same time and do forget the pill at least on occasion. In that case, they are just about equal to condoms in effectiveness.