This MAHA-Inspired Birth Control Method Is Trending At The Worst Possible Time

TikTok’s favorite birth control method is more like no birth control at all.

On the Gen-Z-beloved app ― approximately 60% of its users are in their teens and 20s ― “natural” birth control is having a moment: Terms like “birth control natural alternatives” are trending, with wellness influencers encouraging other women to quit birth control and track their fertility cycles naturally (or with apps) and use herbal supplements to avoid getting pregnant.

For the last few years, these TiKTokers ― some of whom bill themselves as “holistic healers” ― have been arguing that hormonal birth control comes with too many risks to be safe to use, from depression, negative changes in gut biome, balding, and even irreversible infertility.

“Birth control is one of the most damaging things you can put in your body,” one video by @theworkoutwitch claims, before outlining all the ways birth control supposedly wreaks havoc on your body’s biological stress response.

“The birth control industry ain’t gonna like the fertility awareness women UPRISING,” another TikToker wrote, while claiming natural methods are 98% effective at preventing pregnancy.

Birth control ― taking it, not taking it ― is a highly personal choice, but OB-GYNs we spoke to said the seemingly sudden shift toward discouraging young people from safe forms of hormonal birth control is alarming. It’s not surprising to them, though, given the current political climate, which is decidedly anti-science.

“The increasing fear-mongering about hormonal birth control, and advising against birth control in general, is definitely tied to anti-science movements that advocate for a more ‘natural’ approach,” said Karen Tang, a gynecologist and author of “It’s Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (But Were Never Told).”

The “natural is best” movement ― ushered in by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) creed ― also has “crunchy” online health influencers advocating for things like drinking raw milk and avoiding vaccines and vitamin K shots for newborns, Tang said.

Religious conservatives and pro-natalist movements that argue for higher birth rates have long villainized birth control. Elon Musk, perhaps the most prominent pro-natalist these days (he has 14 known children of his own), tweeted last year that there is a “clear scientific consensus” that “hormonal birth control makes you fat, doubles risk of depression & triples risk of suicide.” (Not true.)

“People such as Musk who have spoken out against birth control are not doing it from a place of altruism and sympathizing with women, but instead wanting women to accept more pregnancies and resume a more traditional role in the home,” Tang said.

It’s not a coincidence that the rise in birth control misinformation is happening at a time when reproductive health and rights are under relentless attack, said Raegan McDonald-Mosley, an OB-GYN and CEO of Power to Decide, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works to ensure young people have access to trusted, high-quality sexual and reproductive health information and services.

“It is especially troubling to see this now, in the post-Dobbs landscape where abortion is banned or restricted in many states,” McDonald-Mosley told HuffPost.

“The reality is, this is not new,” she said. “Spreading lies and confusion about birth control [has] always been closely tied to abortion bans and restrictions.”

Anti-abortion organizations like Students for Life have been setting the groundwork for this for years, pushing a narrative that hormonal birth control causes abortions and causes problems like infertility, said Jennifer Lincoln, an OB-GYN and author of “Let’s Talk About Down There: An OB-GYN Answers All Your Burning Questions…without Making You Feel Embarrassed for Asking.”

“Now that we have RFK Jr. at the helm, legitimizing all this rhetoric in the name of MAHA, we’ve got the perfect storm of women being too scared or unable to get the birth control that would work best for them,” Lincoln said.

“Where will those women end up? Possibly with an undesired pregnancy and when that happens, I don’t think any influencers who sell these hormonal detoxes are going to be around to help,” the doctor said.

When influencers refer to “natural” birth control, they’re usually referring to fertility awareness methods (FAMs), or natural family planning (NFP).

Fertility awareness‐based methods of family planning “involve identification of the fertile days of the menstrual cycle, whether by observing fertility signs such as cervical secretions and basal body temperature, or by monitoring cycle days,” according to the National Library of Medicine.

Fertility awareness‐based methods are generally used in combination with abstinence or barrier methods during the fertile time. Lincoln said this approach can definitely be a viable option for people who want birth control without hormones, though there are other non-hormonal ways of preventing pregnancy too, like the copper IUD, condoms, diaphragms and spermicides.

“I think it’s important that we OB-GYNs don’t talk down to people who want to use FAM because for some people, it does work great,” she told HuffPost. “There is an FDA-cleared app called Natural Cycles that has some great data behind it in terms of effectiveness.”

But Lincoln ― who’s debunked some pill-trashing TikTok videos on her own popular social media accounts ― thinks influencers and politicians who push this method as somehow “better” than birth control are projecting their own religious or ideological values onto others.

“We should just leave other people’s uteri alone and let each person decide what is best for them,” the doctor said.

TikTok doesn’t tend to be the best source for factual information, and the “dangers” of hormonal birth control promoted by some on the app are highly overblown, Tang said.

“To put it into context, any potential side effect or risk of hormonal birth control is also a risk of pregnancy, and the rates of any risk ― mood changes, weight gain, blood clots ― are far higher in pregnancy,” she said.

The risk of cancer is particularly emphasized in these anti-birth control posts, but the reality is, hormonal birth control actually decreases your overall risk of the diseases, because it significantly decreases the risk of uterine, ovarian, and even non-gynecologic cancers like colon cancer, according to the doctor.

“The increased risk of breast cancer is far less than 1%, it’s a few cases in a thousand especially for young women,” she said. “We actually prescribe birth control to lower risks of uterine and ovarian cancer in patients with risk factors for these cancers.”

Hormonal birth control can be a lifesaver for some women in terms of allowing them to reliably not get pregnant or treat legitimate medical conditions like painful periods or PMS, Lincoln added.

To find a birth control method that works for you ― not just one touted on TikTok ― McDonald-Mosley said to check out Bedsider.org, an online resource for birth control and sexual health, with useful tools like the method explorer, which allows users to compare birth control options.

It’s a resource that “provides accessible, medically accurate information,” she said.

The best method for you may not be the pill, and that’s fine. Hormonal birth control is a tool, and that means it isn’t one-size-fits-all, nor does it mean it’s going to work for everyone, Lincoln said.

“That said, I can confidently state that hormonal birth control is not like how it is often portrayed on social media, where wellness influencers ― many without any medical training ― claim that it causes cancer, will make you infertile, and will harm your body,” she said. “These are just inaccurate takes.”