David PerlmutterPresident,, Perlmutter Health Center · Board-Certified Neurologist | Functional Medicine Pioneer | #1 New York Times Best-Selling Author | International Speaker | Host of The Empowering Neurologist Podcast

Long-Term Health Implications of The Pill

23 Aug 2015 · 2 min

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In this monologue, the speaker discusses concerns about how oral contraceptive pills may alter a woman's microbiome, both in the gut and in the birth canal. While definitive evidence is lacking, emerging data suggest that the gut microbiota can change after pill exposure, and the impact on the vaginal microbiome—critical for seeding the infant’s first gut flora during birth—is still uncertain. Consequently, the speaker recommends that women who plan to become pregnant should allow a substantial interval between discontinuing the pill and attempting conception, to give the birth‑canal microbiome time to revert to its natural state before it inoculates the newborn during delivery.

Chapters

One of the, let's say, concerns about the birth control pill has been what is its effect upon the bacteria in the person taking it, and specifically what might lasting effects be not only on the gut bacteria, but should that woman then decide to go off the pill, might there be an effect upon the The microbiome that lives within the birth canal, the bacteria that live within the birth canal. And I think some of that information, a lot of that information is still unknown, but there is now some data that's accumulating indicating that at least there are changes in the gut bacteria that may happen as a consequence of exposure to birth control pills. So we don't have all the answers as it relates to that. I would say that as a matter of recommendation, that should a woman wish to become pregnant, that I would allow a significant amount of time to elapse between the time of stopping the birth control and then trying to become pregnant. Because you've got to understand that with birth, your baby will be inoculated by the bacteria living in the birth canal. That process puts bacteria into the baby's gut, basically through the nose and through the mouth. And that is the first microbiome for that developing infant. We don't yet fully understand how that birth canal microbiome is changed by having been on birth control pills previously.