My sister got engaged recently and when I asked what her biggest fear was when she finally gets married, her answer: “I hate all birth control/family planning methods out there. I don’t want to grow fat”. Most young mothers out there have similar fears. The thought of getting out of shape as a result of spacing children is an ever-present terror. Like my sister, most are worried about the side effects of family planning methods on the market. Her fears evoked the need to share my experience with her.
First, a confession: my ignorance of how these things work almost got me barren. A friend recommended a certain type that seemed so convenient to use. I never sought any gynaecological guidance before starting on my mission to space my children. A month passed and soon it was a year. I religiously stuck on the routine. After a year and a half, my husband started complaining about my sudden loss of weight. Within the next few months my friends recognised the same and I realised that my appetite had terribly gone down.
By two years, I was too malnourished for anybody’s liking. It took a doctor friend’s visit to my home to realise that actually all my problems started the day I chose a family planning method without the consent of a doctor.
Even though I had plans of stopping because I was going to conceive my second child, the doctor warned that it may take some time. I tried for a baby for another year with no success.
A wrong family planning method will cause loss of appetite. You wake up feeling nauseated. You want nothing to eat and everything smells bad. Of course the lack of food will result into weight loss, dehydration, dizziness, constant headaches, a dry skin and poor eye sight. Or weight gain that comes as a result of excess appetite.
Sometimes it will be abnormalities in your monthly cycle as another side effect of a wrong family planning method. You can over bleed or not bleed at all. Both cases are dangerous to you. At other times, it will be mood swings; as if in the early stages of a pregnancy, if you got on the wrong family planning method, you could end up being irritable all day long.
The lesson I learnt from my experience was that some family planning types work better on different body types. Before you get your life ruined by self-medication, please visit a gyn for guidance. It’s healthy spacing children but how we do it matters a lot.
