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| Hormones Related to Birth Control and Fertility Treatment |
What medicine is a wonderful thing and allows us to take more control over our bodies. from our article on the menstrual cycle you should know all about how estrogen-progesterone luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormones work in the menstrual cycle. in this article, we are going to look at how these hormones can be used in contraception and compare them to non-hormonal methods. we are also going to look at the use of hormones in treating infertility.
Today we are lucky enough to live in a world where we can control when we have children. women can have a career and do not have to worry about getting pregnant at the wrong time and this is all because of our understanding of the hormones involved in the menstrual cycle because female fertility is controlled by hormones this means that knowledge of these hormones can be used to increase or decrease the chances of fertilization and pregnancy.
It is actually pretty simple FSH causes the egg to mature in the ovary. so if we can stop the production of FSH happening then we can prevent pregnancy from happening and we already know that estrogen prevents the production of FSH so contraceptive pulls just need to contain estrogen.
Progesterone also can act as a contraceptive. it makes the mucus in the uterus very thick and so the sperm cannot get through to the egg to fertilize it. pulls are either estrogen-only combined estrogen and progesterone or nowadays there is a mini pool that is progesterone only.
Each contraceptive pull contained much higher amounts of estrogen. this caused quite significant side effects such as weight gain mood and blood pressure. more modern pools contain much less estrogen and some are even just progesterone.
Progesterone is a lot more gentle on the body. estrogen poles make the body think that it is in a permanent state of pregnancy. oral contraceptives are great in many ways. they give people the freedom to choose when to have a child and when not to have children but it's mentioned above even the more modern versions can cause side effects in people.
There is also an ink risk of developing blood clots so they are not perfect and so people do seek out other methods of contraception instead. into uterine devices IUDs or coils is another contraceptive option they must be fitted by a doctor and have spermicidal properties and prevent implantation or they are also contraceptive implants that work by releasing progesterone into the body and lost for three years.
Whereas the contraceptive injections also make use of progesterone but they only last for between 8 and 13 weeks. non-hormonal methods of contraception include condoms and other barrier methods which stop the sperm from reaching the ovum. now effect of these methods of contraception are depends on whether you use them correctly.
The IUDs and implants are great because they do not have a human error. you cannot forget to take it or put it on. if taken correctly the contraceptive pull is over 99% effective but you need to take it at a similar time each day and remember to take it daily.
Other than condoms and bearing methods all forms of contraceptives come with different side effects and course you consider the different options when deciding which one suits them best. so that is how we use our knowledge of hormones to prevent pregnancy but what about helping women conceive. some women don't produce enough FSH to allow their eggs to mature and so have difficulty becoming pregnant.
Fertility drugs contain FSH and also LH which stimulate the egg to mature in the ovary. remember that LH causes the mature egg to be released from the ovary because fertility drugs contain FSH and LH thus can cause multiple eggs to be released and so increasing the chance of multiple conceptions of twins or even triplets.
Fertility treatments increase a woman's chances of becoming pregnant but it's not a hundred percent assured and there can be other factors to consider. so from this article, you should know that we can use our knowledge of estrogen and progesterone to act as contraceptive poles and we can make use of FSH and LH in fertility treatment.