Three well dressed women sit on the rooftop drinking and laughing. “Oh, did I tell you? My doctor prescribed me this new low-dose birth control pill called Yaz?” One of the other women responds by launching into a litany of items about Yaz, who should not take it, etc. “Wow, you really know your stuff”, comments the third. “I didn’t go to medical school for nothing” replies the second one. *cue laughter*

If you watch television, you’ve probably seen, and wanted to throw your remote at, this commercial. In recent years commercials for birth control have started to become common, but they haven’t improved. Have you seen the ones for Nuvaring? First there was the woman with the blue lasers around their mid-section, now we have the Nuvaring woman who stands and rhymes while packets of birth control pills fly around her head. The first commercial I remember seeing was for Ortho-Tri Cyclen Lo, where lithe women in gossamer dresses danced by the beach. Wait, what are we buying again? Men get advertisements for erectile dysfunction medication telling them they’ll be stronger! More powerful! Able to have sex whenever they want up to 36 hours! Women get…cheesy rhymes, dancing on the beach and laser beam chastity belts?

Why aren’t we told we can have sex whenever we want? Some women I know aren’t sure if the amount of times they have sex in a given month affects how protected they are, or if they’re protected during the placebo/sugar pills week. I’d like to see that in a commercial: boff all you want, we’ll make more!

Speaking of which, I’m amazed just how influenced women are by these commercials. Women believe that despite all the training doctors have, they should go in with a specific brand in mind. There’s nothing wrong with asking about a particular brand or method; particularly in certain circumstances it’s absolutely appropriate. Want an easy to use method? Definitely ask about Ortho Evra or Nuvaring. Do you have severe PMS? There’s nothing wrong with asking about Yaz. But this should be a starting point for a conversation with your doctor, not an ending point for a request. Of course these commercials say their brand is shiny and has less than zero side effects; someone paid a lot of money to make their brand sound like the greatest thing since sliced bread. Every brand is super for somebody - just maybe not for you.

The opposite phenomenon is drug rating websites, where women talk about how they had every side effect on a particular brand. They want to shout about how horrible this brand was. If you’d had every side effect, wouldn’t you want to tell people? That’s the problem. Everyone with a problem wants to talk, and nobody who isn’t having problems does. If you’re not having any problems, what’s there to say? These websites are giving a one-sided perspective to the subject, and scaring some women. It’s also a matter of numbers. For instance, the third most prescribed pill in the U.S., Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, had over a million prescriptions for it written in 2004. Even if you see 100 “bad” things, that’s a fraction of the total number of users.

Be an active consumer for your own health: listen, look and learn. Use what you see on TV and read on the internet to talk to your health care provider - make her or him stop, listen, and talk to you about your options like an adult. If s/he won’t, get a new doctor. And watch out for flying packets of birth control pills.