Women who take contraceptives that affect their hormones while preventing them from conceiving children are more likely to be diagnosed with clinical depression, a new study revealed recently.
In the study published in JAMA Psychiatry last week, four researchers reviewed the medical history of over a million female individuals from Denmark, spanning the period between 1995 and 2013.
The research showed that taking female hormonal contraceptives doubled the risk of depression. It also revealed that taking these pills tripled the chances of teenage girls being prescribed antidepressants.
The study further stated that teenage girls who use progestin-only pills were twice as likely to also take some antidepressants compared to young women who do not use these birth control pills.
The study's co-author Dr. Øjvind Lidegaard, a clinical professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Copenhagen, explained that the research shed more light on the risks of using contraceptives, especially among adolescents aged 15 to 19 whom the study found to be most vulnerable to depression when taking these pills.
"We have to realise among all the benefits, external hormones [also] may have side effects. And the risk of depression is one of them," Lidegaard said, as quoted by Life Site News.
Even non-oral forms of female contraception also have negative effects, according to the study. Based on the research on Danish women, those who used long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) such as the patch or the vaginal ring suffered "a three-fold increased risk for first use of antidepressants."
Dr. Joseph Meaney, director of outreach and expansion at Human Life International, meanwhile said that this study further highlights the fact that using contraceptives should never be an option, because they affect the body of those who use them.
"This is simply one more confirmation of the negative consequences of medicating healthy, fertile women as if they were sick," Dr. Meaney also told Life Site News.
