Relationships February 14, 2017
Choosing the right birth control method is harder than it looks. In fact most women spend years playing a nightmarish game of trial and error in which they try a birth control, hate that birth control — hello weight gain, hormonal changes and acne — and then try another one.
This happens because every woman’s body responds to every type of birth control differently. Fun right?
In other words the copper IUD that’s great for your friend, might give you hellish periods. Which means reading about birth control side effects on Mayo Clinic or Planned Parenthood won’t convey the full picture.
In the past women have tried to get around this problem by simply asking other women — either in person or online using crowdsourcing sites like Reddit. But let’s be honest, it’s kind of difficult to find 1,000 friends ready and willing to talk about their birth control side effects on a Tuesday.
Thankfully a company named Iodine, which specializes in crowdsourcing datasets in medicine, has caught on to this problem and decided to make a “Yelp” for birth control. The online tool allows women to express what they’re looking for most in a birth control option — such as regulating their cycle, less time commitment, or hormone free.
The coolest part is, rather than simply rattle off clinical stats about the birth control method — which Iodine does do — the tool utilizes a dataset of women’s real life experiences with different methods and brands which are displayed front and center.
In other words you can “Yelp” your contraceptive options and gauge the risk of side effects based on real-life experiences. Which means you’ll no longer have to ask Janice in accounting how her IUD feels, because TMI.
You can even leave your own review, which means the dataset will keep growing the more women use it. Iodine tells ENTITY over 10,000 women have used the tool since it launched late last year.
Just to be clear, the site is not offering medical advice or telling you which birth control option you should get, it’s simply relaying the experiences other women have had to help inform your decision.
And in case you’re wondering, the tool also accounts for budget — which will come in handy if Donald Trump succeeds at repealing the Affordable Care Act, and birth control is no longer covered ?.
