A deluge of “blatant and toxic misinformation” about the birth control pill on social media is pushing thousands of young women to reject the drug and risk unwanted pregnancy, doctors have warned.
The birth control method is 99 percent effective at preventing pregnancy when taken daily at the same time and is safe, according to studies conducted over a decade.
However, in recent years, scare stories have started to surface on social media about the drug, claiming that it is “unnatural” and therefore “dangerous.”
“Birth control is not natural and I don’t believe in using it,” one said. TikTok user. Others claim that stopping the pill will result in health benefits. “Mental health has improved, I have lost weight and overall feel like a completely new person,” another The tiktoker said.
Elsewhere, social media users are likening the drug – which contains synthetic versions of reproductive hormones – to “poison”.
Across the United States, doctors are seeing women walk into their offices and tell them they want to stop taking the pill, for unknown reasons.
Doctors across the United States have seen young women come to their offices with questions after seeing influencers issuing unfounded medical advice, Dr. Michael Belmonte, an obstetrician-gynecologist, told the Washington Post.
“I see the direct failures of this disinformation,” he said.
At the same time, other experts have expressed concern about an alleged increase in birth rates linked to this trend.
“If all of a sudden hundreds and thousands of women go off the pill, then we’re going to see an increase in the birth rate,” said Douglas Black, former president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada. THE Journal of the Canadian Medical Association.
Experts say this is especially prudent because of increasing restrictions on abortion care in the United States after Roe V. Wade fell in 2022.
Many women now live in states like Texas, Georgia and Idaho, where abortion is banned. If they have an unwanted pregnancy, they have no options.
Still, there were one million abortions in the United States in 2024, the highest number since 2014, suggesting an increase in unplanned pregnancies, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
The warnings come in the same week that a type of birth control pill was made available over the counter. The version currently approved in the United States, called Opill, contains a progestin-only, estrogen-free drug found in the combined pill and associated with a slightly increased risk of blood clots.
But greater availability could have limited benefits in protecting against unwanted pregnancies if women do not want to use it.
Experts say doctors are partly to blame for this mass abandonment of the pill because they fail to adequately explain side effects, forcing women to turn to social media for answers.
However, Dr. Danielle Jones, an obstetrician-gynecologist and vlogger, said in a video: “The existence of these things – bad doctors, birth control side effects – does not justify sharing blatant misinformation.”
One of the side effects includes an increased risk of blood clots, affecting around one in 3,000 people per year.
People also frequently complain of irregular bleeding, according to Planned Parenthood.
Even with the side effects, birth control is still incredibly effective and can help manage a host of other hormonal complications, like acne, PCOS, and unintended pregnancy, according to Dr. Jones.
Additionally, the risk of blood clots during pregnancy is higher than with the pill: this occurs in around two in 1,000 women each year.
Another reason for the problem is due to women of color’s distrust of gynecologists, due to the long history of exploitation in black communities, he says.
The foundations of gynecology in America are rooted in the exploitation of women of color, according to Kimberly Baker, a professor at UTHealth.
So-called “pioneers” of gynecology like Marion Sims routinely operated on black women without anesthesia, UCSF researchers said.
Until the late 1970s, it was also common to sterilize black women without their consent.
“That’s another big reason why there’s a lot of noise about these negative birth control videos because there’s already a stigma attached to them and that’s ingrained in our history,” Baker said.
Another famous critic of The Pill, Elon Musk, a father of 11, claimed last month that hormonal contraception makes you gain weight, doubles the risk of depression and triples the risk of suicide.
In response to growing distrust of providers, organizations like American College of Gynecologists have pushed providers to change the way they counsel patients about birth control.
“There is a long and painful history of devaluing the reproductive needs of many patient populations,” said Dr. Jen Villavicencio, an obstetrician-gynecologist working with the American College of Gynecologists.
“As lifelong learners, obstetrician-gynecologists have the privilege and responsibility to learn from the past in order to better support patients in their contraceptive choices with respect and dignity,” Villavicencio said.
Another reason anti-pill rhetoric is gaining momentum is that popular conservatives have taken up these talking points.
Influencers like Brett Cooper – a political commentator who has 4 million subscribers on YouTube – have said birth control has been imposed on society by big pharmaceutical companies and claimed it increases suicide rates, the risk cancer and infertility.
Peter Theil Fund one of the hippest new menstrual cycle apps, called 28. It was founded by Brittany Martinez, who also founded the conservative women’s magazine ‘Evie’.
Elon Musk, whose obsession with falling birth rates led him to father 11 children, explained how the pill causes depression.
These claims were taken out of context in order to provoke particularly conservative arguments, Jones said.
Since Roe fell, Missouri legislators attempted to pass laws restricting insurance coverage of IUDs.
Ample data has shown that birth control is safe and effective, Jones told NBC.
“If birth control is safe enough to warrant selling it without a prescription, there is absolutely no reason why this should become a subject for legislation on who can access it and why.”