Q
QContinuum
Guest
Read my earlier post upthread on how the pill works. Short answer: no.
- Status
Q
QContinuum
Guest
Pup, I assume you are talking about the mini pill (progesterone only) or certain IU devices?
The Pill (estrogen + progesterone) does not work to prevent implantation.
The Pill (estrogen + progesterone) does not work to prevent implantation.
P
Pup7
Guest
It actually does.
Progesterone changes the environment of the uterus, no matter what proportion it’s in in the pill. The so-called “mini-pill” - which is progesterone only and has a massive failure rate because of that - has that as its only action.
But every combination pill also does that. It’s the progesterone that creates a “hostile/inhospitable” environment as the “last pass” for prevention of pregnancy.
The purpose of estrogen and its synthetic cousins is to block ovulation. The progesterone and its synthetic counterpart alters the inner environment in the event an egg is released.
No one is exactly sure how a copper IUD works. The progesterone IUD releases a constant level of progesterone to create a hostile environment for implantation - it works better because it’s constant, where the mini pill requires the woman to take it at precisely the same time every day. Hence the high failure rate.
Progesterone changes the environment of the uterus, no matter what proportion it’s in in the pill. The so-called “mini-pill” - which is progesterone only and has a massive failure rate because of that - has that as its only action.
But every combination pill also does that. It’s the progesterone that creates a “hostile/inhospitable” environment as the “last pass” for prevention of pregnancy.
The purpose of estrogen and its synthetic cousins is to block ovulation. The progesterone and its synthetic counterpart alters the inner environment in the event an egg is released.
No one is exactly sure how a copper IUD works. The progesterone IUD releases a constant level of progesterone to create a hostile environment for implantation - it works better because it’s constant, where the mini pill requires the woman to take it at precisely the same time every day. Hence the high failure rate.
Last edited:
Q
QContinuum
Guest
I’m with you on the mini pill.
The Pill doesn’t change the uterine environment; it actually prevents said change, by preventing the release of hormones from the pituitary gland, which in turn also prevents the development and release of an egg. These same hormones prevent the corresponding build up of endometrial lining in the uterus.
I keep hearing how the pill “thins” the uterus and makes it hostile, but in fact the Pill merely locks the uterus in its normal, default state.
The Pill doesn’t change the uterine environment; it actually prevents said change, by preventing the release of hormones from the pituitary gland, which in turn also prevents the development and release of an egg. These same hormones prevent the corresponding build up of endometrial lining in the uterus.
I keep hearing how the pill “thins” the uterus and makes it hostile, but in fact the Pill merely locks the uterus in its normal, default state.
Last edited:
P
Pup7
Guest
The progesterone has the same effect regardless, and yes - it actually does.
Progesterone is progesterone. It doesn’t act any differently because it’s there with estrogen.
The uterus is never in a “normal default state” unless the woman is post menopausal. It prepares for a pregnancy every month from the woman’s first period. It’s never stagnant.
Progesterone is progesterone. It doesn’t act any differently because it’s there with estrogen.
The uterus is never in a “normal default state” unless the woman is post menopausal. It prepares for a pregnancy every month from the woman’s first period. It’s never stagnant.
Last edited:
Q
QContinuum
Guest
Progesterone simply signals the luteal phase doesn’t it?
Last edited:
Q
QContinuum
Guest
Not stagnant. But the pill freezes her cycle in neutral, pre-follicular phase.
I’d argue that there is a default state - menarch. And menopause is a return to that state in a way.
I’d argue that there is a default state - menarch. And menopause is a return to that state in a way.
Last edited:
P
Pup7
Guest
No, it also sustains the pregnancy. Estrogen rises at the start and signals release. Estrogen falls and progesterone begins to rise (because estrogen blocks progesterone).
If you don’t become pregnant, progesterone drops - and you have a period.
If you become pregnant, progesterone rises precipitously, and then all the lovely symptoms - like morning sickness and breast tenderness and enlargement - begin. (That’s why you have those symptoms on the pill - that’s what causes them - it’s the progesterone.)
Part of what progesterone does when you do become pregnant is it changes vaginal secretions to prevent you from “becoming pregnant again” and to make the uterus, as we say, “hostile”. That change is immediate after conception/around implantation, and no one knows how the body knows to do it.
If you don’t become pregnant, progesterone drops - and you have a period.
If you become pregnant, progesterone rises precipitously, and then all the lovely symptoms - like morning sickness and breast tenderness and enlargement - begin. (That’s why you have those symptoms on the pill - that’s what causes them - it’s the progesterone.)
Part of what progesterone does when you do become pregnant is it changes vaginal secretions to prevent you from “becoming pregnant again” and to make the uterus, as we say, “hostile”. That change is immediate after conception/around implantation, and no one knows how the body knows to do it.
Last edited:
Q
QContinuum
Guest
Yet the body produces its own progesterone every cycle. The Pill mimics that. I don’t see it as a “hostile” action to basically pattern after nature.
Last edited:
P
Pup7
Guest
It’s not “hostile” in the way you’re saying.
I’m saying that progesterone NATURALLY creates a different chemical environment in the uterus that is hostile to implantation. Progesterone during pregnancy is what stops your period.
If the period is stopped/changed/altered with the pill, the lining is thinner - and is said to be hostile to implantation.
It changes the consistency and pH of vaginal secretions - they are thinner, and less hospitable to sperm.
Hostile.
(Believe me - I know all about hostile uterus - I clinically have one. )
Young girls with horrible periods (I was one of them) are sometimes put on OCPs to “reset” their periods - thin the lining - and make them less heavy. That happens because of the progesterone. They’re also put on the so-called “mini-pill” for the same reason. Progesterone is almost magic that way.
I’m saying that progesterone NATURALLY creates a different chemical environment in the uterus that is hostile to implantation. Progesterone during pregnancy is what stops your period.
If the period is stopped/changed/altered with the pill, the lining is thinner - and is said to be hostile to implantation.
It changes the consistency and pH of vaginal secretions - they are thinner, and less hospitable to sperm.
Hostile.
(Believe me - I know all about hostile uterus - I clinically have one. )
Young girls with horrible periods (I was one of them) are sometimes put on OCPs to “reset” their periods - thin the lining - and make them less heavy. That happens because of the progesterone. They’re also put on the so-called “mini-pill” for the same reason. Progesterone is almost magic that way.
Last edited:
Q
QContinuum
Guest
Then nature, or nature’s God, designed the uterus to be hostile to life at times. Perhaps why most embryos never implant. I’d always assumed genetic defects were the reason for most failures to implant.
P
Pup7
Guest
That is exactly the reason. 
The deck is stacked against conception every month. No kidding!
When you read about it it’s like - what? Who thought that up? LOL.
The deck is stacked against conception every month. No kidding!
When you read about it it’s like - what? Who thought that up? LOL.
Last edited:
Q
QContinuum
Guest
Seriously!
Last edited:
P
Pup7
Guest
When my husband - a lay person - started having to wade into all this stuff because of my problems, he was like - who does that? 
He’s not particularly religious but it was sort of funny when he’d wonder out loud what on earth was God thinking. You had to laugh.
He’s not particularly religious but it was sort of funny when he’d wonder out loud what on earth was God thinking. You had to laugh.
Q
QContinuum
Guest
I remember in my A&P class from a lifetime ago, the instructor told us that the process early on is so fragile, even a slight temperature increase in the wrong day can cause a spontaneous abortion. Like catching a cold with a fever on Day 28. Or sitting in a hot tub.
I thought she was being dramatic.
I thought she was being dramatic.
Q
QContinuum
Guest
I’m sorry if I’ve been insensitive (I’ve been so accused in the past…).
The whole process is vexing in its inefficiency and wasteful excess.
The whole process is vexing in its inefficiency and wasteful excess.
P
Pup7
Guest
The current science is that at least half of of all fertilized eggs never implant.
There’s belief that the figure may be as high as 75%.
Five to seven days pass between fertilization and implantation; most of us have been pregnant multiple times and never knew it. And we know so early now - even the over the counter tests are very powerful! - that miscarriage rates have “increased” - but it’s likely an artificial increase.
I just struggle when I have walk in pregnancy tests and have to call the patient and give her the news…and a brand new baby at Mass this past Sunday really tested me. I’ve never been so thankful for a kneeler in my life. I needed it.
There’s belief that the figure may be as high as 75%.
Five to seven days pass between fertilization and implantation; most of us have been pregnant multiple times and never knew it. And we know so early now - even the over the counter tests are very powerful! - that miscarriage rates have “increased” - but it’s likely an artificial increase.
Good heavens, no. You’ve been fine. Actually no one has said anything in that regard that’s upset me.
I just struggle when I have walk in pregnancy tests and have to call the patient and give her the news…and a brand new baby at Mass this past Sunday really tested me. I’ve never been so thankful for a kneeler in my life. I needed it.
Last edited:
Q
QContinuum
Guest
The interesting thing is the decrease in sperm counts. Yet we’ve got 7 billion + knuckleheads on the planet, lol.
P
Pup7
Guest
There’s a theory that says that has to do with laptops and all the sitting we do now.
High temps are not friendly to the swimmers!
G
gcshapero
Guest
“Intercourse with one’s legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked whenever the conception of offspring is prevented.”
-St. Augustine
“Contraception is to be judged objectively so illicit, that it can never, for any reason be justified.”
“When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as ‘arbiters’ of the Divine plan and they ‘manipulate’ and degrade human sexuality”
“… through contraception married couples remove from the exercise of their conjugal sexuality its potential procreative capacity, they claim a power which belongs solely to God”
-Pope St. John Paul II
“man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.”
-Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae
“You shall not practice birth control, you shall not murder a child by abortion, nor kill what is begotten”
-The Didache
“There are those who when they have intercourse deliberately prevent having children. They indulge in pleasure not for the sake of offspring but to satisfy their passion. To such an extent has the devil deceived these wretched people that they betray the work of God by perverting it to their own deceits. Moreover, they are so willing to satisfy their carnal desires as to pollute each other with impure seed, by which offspring is not conceived but by their own will evil desires are satisfied.”
-St. Epiphanius
“If any woman has fornicated and has killed the infant who was born of her; or if she has tried to commit abortion and then slain what she conceived; or if she contrives to make sure she does not conceive, either in adultery or in legitimate intercourse—regarding such women the earlier canons decreed that they should not receive communion event at death. However, we mercifully judge that both such women and their accomplices in these crimes shall do penance for ten years.”
-2nd Council of Braga, canon 77
…
- Status