The New Male Birth Control Shot Is Here, And It Actually Works
Usually it falls on the women to prioritize Birth Control, but things are changing! According to a new study man can take birth control shots to prevent pregnancy in their female partners.
According to a study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Endocrinology & Metabolism, men can now take birth control shots to prevent pregnancy!
The shot is currently being perfected, but the shot has succeeded in lowering a man’s sperm count and had a success rate of 96%. Here is what you need to know about the study, and what you need to know to figure out if the male birth control shot is right for you.
Women have a lot of options at their disposal when it comes to birth control, like female condoms, IUDs, patches, and of course, the Pill. Men basically just had condoms and pulling out, and if they wanted something more permanent, vasectomies. Men and women deserve better than this, the responsibility should not fall solely on the women.
Researchers tested the safety and effectiveness of a contraceptive shot in 320 healthy men in monogamous relationships with female partners. The shot contained two hormones, and it worked pretty well. It knocked down their sperm counts significantly, and there were only a handful of pregnancies among partners of men in the trial.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 40% of all pregnancies in 2012 were unintentional. That proves that there is really something that can be done here, which is why the researchers have been trying to find a breakthrough for male birth control for so long.
“The study found it is possible to have a hormonal contraceptive for men that reduces the risk of unplanned pregnancies in the partners of men who use it,” said one of the study’s authors, Mario Philip Reyes Festin, MD, of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. “Our findings confirmed the efficacy of this contraceptive method previously seen in small studies.”
The hormones were able to lower sperm count to under 1 million within 24 weeks in 274 participants. Additionally, 96% of continuing users were successful in preventing pregnancy.
But, get this! A lot of men were actually dropping out of the study because they were experiencing certain side effects. The most common side effect was acne, then there were mood swings and in some cases weight gain.
There has been a lot of eye rolling on the internet about these side effects because women have been experiencing things like mood swings and weight gain for decades because of birth control.
“More research is needed to advance this concept to the point that it can be made widely available to men as a method of contraception,” Festin said. “Although the injections were effective in reducing the rate of pregnancy, the combination of hormones needs to be studied more to consider a good balance between efficacy and safety.”