Dr Louise Newson [00:00:02] Hello. I'm Dr Louise Newson, and welcome to my podcast. I'm a GP menopause specialist and founder of the free balance app. My mission: to break the taboos around women's health and hormones, shining a light on the issues we've been too afraid to talk about, from contraception, sex and testosterone to menopause related addictions and beyond. We're covering it all. I'll also be joined by experts and inspiring guests, sharing insights and real stories, as well as answering your questions and tackling the topics that matter to you the most.  

Dr Louise Newson [00:00:42] So, what a privilege today on my podcast to have my middle daughter, Sophie, who's a student at King's College London, sitting with me to talk about contraception. Who'd have thought Sophie. So, thanks so much for coming. Contraception is something that means different things to different people, actually, because so much is just not getting pregnant. But as a doctor who specialises in hormones, I think a lot about the type of hormones that are used for contraception. So, I'm really keen to talk to you a bit about not just your contraception, but in general, what people think of your age? You're 20, you've got lots of friends, lots of people, presumably either thinking about contraception or using contraception. So just talk to me a bit about what it means.  

Sophie Anderson [00:01:31] Yeah okay, well, a lot of my friends, including myself, have been on some form of birth control for a really long time, and for the most part, it is not for the reason to stop getting pregnant. Most of my friends I know have been on it because they were having really heavy periods or really bad cramps, or it was to improve acne or their low mood. So, when I do think of birth control, 90% of the time, is not the case of it actually being used for birth control. It's for the case of being to control, like external things.

Dr Louise Newson [00:02:03] See, that's really interesting actually, because as a doctor, I did a lot of family planning, all about planning your family. It seems so old fashioned, doesn't it even using those words, but actually, it's all about stopping that person getting pregnant, whereas you've already said it's not even about that. It's about how to regulate your hormones, and that is a massive issue. And I remember going to I was doing a presentation years ago at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and some people were quite hostile in the audience, and they were telling me that I was trying to medicalise the perimenopause, they said, but you don't medicalise adolescence and puberty. And actually, that stuck with me, and I thought, why don't we try and make adolescents and those hormonal changes better for women, because so many people have really heavy periods, they have painful periods, and they just said, oh, it's just normal, because your hormones are changing. You're still young, you're adolescent, or you're, you know, going through puberty, but actually it really affects a lot of people. So, you're saying people are turning to those treatments to try and improve,  

Sophie Anderson [00:03:08] Yeah, people I think are turning to treatments and just taking whatever is recommended by doctors. And I think I didn't really hear about the word hormone up until you started speaking about it a lot more.

Dr Louise Newson [00:03:22] Really!

Sophie Anderson [00:03:23] Yeah. I didn't really, like, probably understand what it was. And especially all of my friends, like, they didn't really understand. And when being told that, like, 16, 17, whether to choose between the hormonal or the non-hormonal coil, for example, or whether to take the combined or mini pill, progestogen-only pill (POP) they had no idea, what the actual like the repercussions of these were. And they didn't really understand hormones. They either saw it as like a really positive thing, but they needed to balance their mood and not properly understanding, or they thought it was a really bad thing to mess with, and therefore have avoided using anything hormonal, which therefore has not helped their periods in perhaps the way that it could have helped if they were properly educated but I don’t think you are educated in the same way about hormones, because you are just a teenage girl for the most part, when you start to go in these types of birth controls.  

Dr Louise Newson [00:04:11] But don’t you think that’s quite a failing in education? Because I know when I had sex education at school, it was all about not getting pregnant but actually understanding what your own hormones do. Surely it is really, really important when thinking about which hormones to use and how to regulate your hormones, do you see what I mean? Because I think a lot of people think hormones is something that we give people, which, yes, they can be, but actually the first thing we need to do is understand what the hormones are happening in our body. And I think until we don't know that we don't know what we're doing, and that's what's happening with your friends in some ways

Sophie Anderson [00:04:47] Yeah, I think it's especially hard as a teenager, because as a teenage girl, you are stereotyped as super emotional because of your teenage hormones, and therefore the implications that these hormones can have as part of birth control, they're not considered properly. You know, I've had cases of friends who really struggled with their hormones as a teenager, just because they were super emotional, and then they are put on these pills with these hormones that don't align correctly with their body. And, you know, I've had a friend tell me that she remembers being 15,16 like doing homework for her GCSE’s and just sobbing for hours being so upset and not knowing what was wrong with her and what's been brought up time and time again. And when I spoke to my friends about it was this feeling of not being balanced and not being in control, which, you know, can be argued to be normal, but when coupled with something that you're supposed to use to help control your hormones, or being given hormones, that is actually like, quite scary and quite worrying.  

Dr Louise Newson [00:05:44] That's really worrying, isn't it? And I see that a lot, because I see a lot of women and younger people who have PMS, premenstrual syndrome, PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and they just expect to feel rubbish before their periods because their mood really flattens or lows. And then when they go and speak to someone, they often get given birth control, a type of contraception. And it's taken me years, and I feel really embarrassed to say it that I didn't realise there was such a difference between our natural hormones and the hormones that we prescribe, and it's only doing the work that I do on hormones in HRT and realising the difference. It then takes me back to thinking, goodness, I used to be like those doctors your friends have seen to say, well, we'll just give you some hormones to make it or sort of smooth that all out and make you feel better and help your skin and whatever. But actually, they are not natural hormones. And they are not just not natural hormones. They're suppressing your own hormones. And actually, hormones are really important. You know, I wouldn't give you something to stop your thyroid hormone or stop your insulin because you were getting sugar cravings and say, oh, let's just stop.

Sophie Anderson [00:06:52] What you said about PMS. I think that's really important to mention, because, again, as a young girl, PMS is really normalised, and I don't think it's something that should be normalised. You know, a lot of my friends suffer on it, even though they are on forms of birth control. And it's just like, this is expected. You know, the week before my period, I will cry over stupid things, and this is normal, and this is okay, and obviously it's not. It's something that like we should counteract, and it's something that like we should change things about it. And in terms of hormones and young girls being prescribed incorrect hormones, I've got one of my housemates, actually, she had been on various types of the pill when she was 15,16, to help with her hormones, to help with her low mood. And these pills that she was on caused a massive imbalance in her hormones, and she was really upset a lot of the time. And then because of that, she strayed from using any hormones. And when she was offered the hormonal the non-hormonal coil, she opted for the non-hormonal and because of that, she has not had much improvement in her PMS, in her cramps, in her heavy periods, and she still has quite a hard time with her. And I think this lack of education and this crossover between general teenage hormones, where you do get super upset, and being attributed, oh, it's PMS like everyone has, I think that creates something really complicated.

Dr Louise Newson [00:08:10] I think so, and I think it's really unfair for people to normalise something that is affecting them. And how do you define normal? That's another conversation, but it's really basic physiology. When you you might have done those graphs in in biology, where our hormones fluctuate, so we have this spike of oestrogen progesterone in the middle when we release an egg, and then the second half of our cycle, we get a peak of oestrogen and progesterone. Then it goes very, very low. So that crash of hormones causes, often, this PMS type symptom. So we know what it's related to. And in medicine, I'm always taught treat the underlying cause. 10.41 So I see a lot of people in the clinic who have PMS like your friend, have been given different contraception. It hasn't helped or even made them worse.  

Sophie Anderson [00:08:57] Yeah, I think when you say about natural and synthetic hormones um I think that's something that is starting to become a big conversation in the menopause, but it's not at all for people my age, and in terms of birth control. And my dermatologist told me yesterday that actually the use of synthetic progesterone in a lot of these birth controls is a cause for acne and people go on the pill for acne, and there's so many different types of pills out there. And I've been on two or three myself, I never once heard from any GP or doctor the importance of natural or synthetic hormones, or the difference or the breakdown of them and these different types of brands of pills.

Dr Louise Newson [00:09:37] It's really important. And I learned a lot actually, when I was preparing for the theatre tour. You know that I did because I wanted to understand the history of the hormones and what, what sort of has gone wrong, almost, and, and I'm very interested in sort of chemistry and science and so how these hormones work different in their body. And it's a bit like those jigsaws, you know, we used to do with when you were little, where you fit in, like a shape of a duck into a hole and a shape of an elephant into a different hole. And it's sort of so when you've got those hormones, you want the same structure going into the hole, which is the receptor, and then it works properly in the body, whereas these hormones have been chemically altered, so you might have an extra ear on your elephant, it's not going to fit in the puzzle in the same way. I know that sounds a bit weird, but it won't fit on the receptor, but if it does fit on the receptor, it won't have the same effects in the in the cells. And it also blocks your natural hormones floating around to have an effect as well. So, it has like a double negative, almost, which people don't often realise. And they made those hormones that way because they wanted to make money out of them. They want to put them to market. But I think what's really ironic with all of this is that they were never tested as contraception. So, we've got contraceptives where they never did the studies looking at contraception. What they did is they looked at the lining of the womb, made sure that people weren't having heavy periods, and so a lot of people didn't have periods or had light periods. So, they said, This is great. We can probably use this as contraception. But they were never really tested. And then, because they work all throughout the body, they don't just work on the womb, they haven't really tested the effects on the heart, on the on the brain, on the rest of the system. And it's with time, people have done more and more studies now showing there is an effect on mood in a negative way. For many people, there are risks of clot there are small risks of even cancers. But everyone's ignored that because generally you give the contraceptive to well people, so the risk is small. Their background risk is small, so let's not worry. But actually, there are risks that are not really being discussed, and I think they're being spoken about more by your generation, because you share things a lot more freely and openly than even my generation, because we weren't didn't really talk about it, and then we didn't have social media, so you couldn't just, like put it on snaps or WhatsApp or chat about it.  

Sophie Anderson [00:12:06] No, you’re right, but I also think another thing relating to almost saying, cause low moves, perhaps you can shed some light on because I don't really know much about it. But another thing I have my friends saying, because I asked her a lot in preparation for this podcast is that they go on a pill and it's not quite right for them. They feel imbalanced. They give it three months, which is recommended time, and they come off this said pill because they feel worse for it, they don't feel good. And then, because they've come off that pill, they feel even worse. So, they've gone from feeling a little imbalanced, just super imbalanced on the pill, totally depressed and causing worry. And I'm just wondering, like, what causes this and how can this be counteracted, because it's been a really common problem with my friends when trying to navigate the pill, and it's actually something that has put them off it totally.

Dr Louise Newson [00:12:56] It's interesting. One of the things is that when they when people have the pill, they will still have a still have effects, they will still help the receptors a little bit depending on the type of contraception it's used. They're all synthetic, but some are more synthetic than others. You know, they've got extra bits, meaning that they really won't affect the receptor. So, some people will definitely have benefit and feel better, because they might have come from a place of not having enough hormones. And we know that a lot of people who are younger don't have enough progesterone. So, they have enough hormones to have regular periods, but they don't have enough hormones to really get into the brain and get, you know, people's mood and energy and everything else, right. So, they have the contraception, which will help a little bit, and then they come off it, and they're back to where they were before. And sometimes that isn't enough, if you see what I mean, and that's the problem, and it's really hard, because then you say, well, is it a hormonal problem, or is it because she's stressed? Is it because there's other things going on, and so much is just blamed on society. And mental health, as you know, is just blown up, especially people your age, but increasingly in the clinic, but also people I speak to, they go on the contraceptive for whatever reasons, and then their mood lowers, and then they're given antidepressants, and then they might put on weight, and then it's just like layers and layers of problems, but no one even thinks about the contraception being related to it?  

Sophie Anderson [00:14:24] Yeah, I think only kind of now and at university and stuff, people have actually been taking birth control as a form of contraception, because as a 15 16, year old, it is really used in that way. But you said something really interesting that I also would like you to shed light on, because myself included, and every single person that I have spoken to about birth control has said that it has made them put on weight, especially in instances of pills. And I'm wondering why this happens, why like different pills cause this more than others, and how this perhaps being avoided because as a teenage girl.

Dr Louise Newson [00:15:03] you don't want to be putting on weight  

Sophie Anderson [00:15:04] Being extremely hormonal and putting on weight can honestly feel like the end of the world sometimes, you know.  

Dr Louise Newson [00:15:10]  yeah, definitely, there's different reasons so, and a lot of it hasn't been done, because very few studies, really good studies have been done looking at this, but I think it is really important. So, one of the things that the oestrogen, so in the most birth controls, they've got oestrogen and progesterone. It's combined pill. So, the oestrogen bit is always synthetic, and so that will block the natural oestrogen working in the body. And the oestradiol that I talk about, the anti-inflammatory, the good oestradiol, is nowhere to be seen in your body because you're having this synthetic type

Sophie Anderson [00:15:41]  and there's no birth control at the moment with natural oestrogen?

Dr Louise Newson [00:15:45] No. (laughs) So then, then what the body does is, then it wants some natural oestrogen, but it can't produce it if it's all been blocked. But the fat cells can produce a very weak type of oestrogen called oestrone, and its usually fat cells that are in the midline. So, a lot of people find they put on weight in the middle, and that's their body producing this type of oestrogen. Saying, oh, look, this is better than nothing. I'll give you this type of oestrogen. But then the other thing is the progesterone, this synthetic progesterone, can cause a bit of fluid retention as well, because it also interferes with the way the kidneys work, for example. So, you get a bit of fluid retention, bit of bloating as well. Lots of people get bloating, don't they, as well. So, it's not just fat that they put on. They're sort of they, a lot of people say, gosh, I've, you know, certain times of the month, my tummy is a lot bigger. They might have some swelling of their ankles, and that's often related to the progesterone as well. And then these hormones can affect the metabolism as well and the body, so like how quickly you burn food, it can also they can affect your stress hormones, which then can affect your sugar metabolism. Can also affect even your thyroid. There's all our hormones work very closely together. So like when you're stressed, you're more you're more angry that you experienced earlier, it's because your sugar levels are changing and that affects your emotions. And that's the same with our sort of oestradiol progesterone. And then the other thing that happens when people take contraception, it increases something called your sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) which binds testosterone. So, then people on contraception often don't have testosterone in their body. Now, testosterone is a female hormone, as you know, as well as a male hormone, but testosterone is really good, often for mood, energy, concentration, stamina, as well as libido. When I was learning about contraception, I was taught that testosterone would be blocked, but people said, don't worry about low libido, because young people often have a higher libido anyway. So, it doesn't matter. Actually, I think it does matter. But that aside, if you're blocking your testosterone and then you have low mood, reduced energy, poor motivation. Well, you'll probably put on weight because you're not going to the gym, you're not eating as healthily. So, it's a combination of things.  

Sophie Anderson [00:18:06] Why do you think so many of these things are normalised? For example, low mood, PMS, putting on weight, having problems with the pill, and then another issue of, if you have the arm the implant, then consistent bleeding for months on end, and then being doubled up with the pill. Why do you think all these sorts of hormonal things are normalised for young girls?

Dr Louise Newson [00:18:30] I think one of the things is because it's about it's for women. Can you imagine men being put up with all this? Absolutely not. It wouldn't happen. Do you know? It's just so I think it's about women, and I think it's about lack of research, lack of proper really thinking about the problem. And the other thing is, it's about contraception. It's not allowing women to get pregnant. It's back to the old times thinking about women. Our purpose in life is to reproduce, to have a healthy womb, end of conversation. Which is totally wrong. And the history of the way that these hormones were produced, they did really awful experiments on very high doses of contraception to women in Puerto Rico who had awful times, and they ignored that data. And so that's the problem. We haven't got good studies, and it's just been, I mean, it was amazing when the contraceptive came out in the 60s, because it was all about sexual liberation and freedom, and women thought, this is incredible, and I get that, but I don't know if you remember when we went to the women's revolt exhibition, it was last year, and there were things, there was the people wrote in the 1970s about ban the depot, that injection, the Depo-Provera, the injection of progesterone, which is a bit like the implant. And women were saying in that there were posters saying ban the injection, because it's synthetic. And they were so much forward thinking. The women were saying, stop having these man-made medicines, literally, man-made medicines. And they could see that it was affecting their mood. They were putting on weight. They were feeling awful. That was 1979, and it's now 2025 and people are still saying, hang on. I don't feel well, I don't feel right. I'm putting on weight. My mood is awful. But then some people will be saying, yeah but, that person's not going to get pregnant. And that's really important. And that worries me, because recently, less people have been using contraception, partly because they've been thinking and knowing more about the risks and side effects.

Sophie Anderson [00:20:37] And having horror stories themselves, completely traumatises them and puts them off it.

Dr Louise Newson [00:20:42] Absolutely. And then people have been saying, well, people shouldn't be talking on TikTok or social media about their own experiences or the risks of clot, for example, because more women will get pregnant. But in my mind, it's about Hang on, let's give women a choice. Let's understand that they don't all have to have hormones as contraception. Like you're saying. Your friend who's not on a hormonal treatment for contraception, she's on the non-hormonal coil, but she's having some problems with bleeding, but that can be addressed in a different way, because hormones that we often prescribe, the natural hormones, are not contraception because they're really, really low dose, but actually, often giving a low dose of progesterone can be transformational for people with heavy bleeding or with PMS, but we're giving that but she's Got the non-hormonal coiling for contraception. So that is something I think people will use more and more, because a lot of people, even some of your friends, have said, oh, I just feel so much better when I'm not on the pill. But it is nice to have a reliable contraception.  

Sophie Anderson [00:21:46] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think what you said about TikTok is quite interesting. And you said earlier about my generation being more freeing, I am in a mostly girl family. I live in an all-girl house right now. Talking about periods and birth control is something that has always been super open for me, and I think that is really important, and people are sharing their stories, which is helping people kind of educate themselves and be like, hey, like, I had a similar experience. Let's talk about it. But then on the flip side of that, I think that is also risk of people with no kind of credential giving their advice, which can come across as fear mongering, a lot of videos of people talking about their awful experiences, which cannot be diminished. But then you have these videos of people saying things like, birth control can cause cancer, it can cause infertility. I'm just wondering if you can talk a bit about that, because I've even had some friends say that they are worried about the fact they are on birth control in case it leads to infertility in the future.  

Dr Louise Newson [00:22:51] And that's what's really difficult. Because firstly, when people put negative things out because they've had bad experiences, it's always going to be amplified more. Because generally, if you've got a good experience, you just get on with your life. You don't bother telling people.  

Sophie Anderson [00:23:03] Yeah

Dr Louise Newson [00:23:04] So, it's always very skewed, and that is really difficult. And it's really easy just to believe everything that you see. We all do it in the news, on TikTok, on social media, so,  

Sophie Anderson [00:23:14] And anyone can put on you know a doctor's jacket and glasses and be like this is what I think, and you are susceptible, especially as teenage girls on TikTok to believing these things  

Dr Louise Newson [00:23:24] Totally. So that is really, really important and then, but the problem is also it's really hard to find out proper information. And also, I think, as a doctor, it's really difficult to define what a risk is. So, you're when you say about risk of cancer, yes, there have been studies showing that with the synthetic hormones, there is a small risk of cancer. We've known that for many years with all types of hormones, but it's only been HRT that everyone's got really scared about. But actually, the risk is there, but it's small, but you're looking at benefits as well. So, for some people, going on the pill is transformational. Their mood is better, their skin is better, everything else. So, they'll accept that small risk, whereas other people, if they feel worse and they feel dreadful and maybe they smoke, they are overweight, they have an unhealthy lifestyle, their risk of a cancer is going to be higher anyway. Then again, it's looking at that risk. But the problem is, you can't put the same people in the same box and say every risk and benefit is the same, but it's really hard, because how do you get that information properly, that is balanced, that's individual for you. And I spoke to someone the other day who tried 16 different types of contraception, and you're like, oh my goodness me. When did someone say to you, It's probably you're not going to find that right type. There must be something else that's causing your symptoms, and let's just start all over again, really. And I think it's really difficult, because it's really hard, you know, it's really hard to access a doctor who understands as well, isn't it

Sophie Anderson [00:24:57] Yeah, yeah. I mean, um, most of my positive experiences with birth control have been from your advice, somebody super educated in hormones, and my friends that have just turned to their GPS with lack of, like, super specialised care, which is important, you know, to have access to these GPS, but that is where these kind of horror stories are coming from, and kind of brushing off of slightly more serious or inconvenient symptoms. For example, as I mentioned earlier, having the implant and bleeding for three months straight. This is brushed off as normal wait it out when actually that really affects the individual. And also, why can that happen? Because this is such a common thing that I've spoken to with so many of my friends that have had the implant. They've had these cases where they just will not stop bleeding for months and months and months, they’ve been told to wait it out, and the only way for it to stop is if they double up with the pill as well, which feels counterintuitive. So eventually the point where they get it taken out and give up. So why does that happen?

Dr Louise Newson [00:26:05]  Well, again, it's because of the way the synthetic hormones acting on the womb, affecting your own hormones as well. And some people have this, breakthrough bleeding it's called, but what happens often in medicine is that a lot of doctors don't like to admit that maybe it wasn't right, so it's easy just to sort of give another treatment and another treatment. And you see this all the time. They're layers of treatment. So, you treat a side effect with a treatment, and then you might get another side effect and have another treatment, which actually isn't helpful in often you want to unpick. One of the things that you said earlier was about is there a natural type of contraception. And actually, there is one and you're on it called Zoely but actually this is the most body identical that we have. And what's really frustrating is it's more expensive than Microgynon or some of the other contraceptions that have been around for ages. But it's a relative thing, because when you look at cost, it's not just the cost of the medication. We have to take into account the cost of all the consultations going back and forth to the GPS, with the bleeding, with the bloating, with the side effects, everything else as well. And you'll probably hate me saying this, but when you went from the contraception you were using before to this one, your mood was better, your energy was better. You just were easier to live with. But it's very easy to say, oh, well, that's because I was 18 then, and I was more, you know, I was just growing up and everything else. But there was definitely a change. And I don't think it was a coincidence, because I see it a lot in the clinic, because you're having something that is biochemically and biologically more like your own hormones, so you're sort of replacing like for like. And that's where I find it really frustrating when I speak to people and say, Look, speak to your doctor about having this type of contraception, and they're told, No, it's too expensive, but it's not really expensive if it's really improving quality of life, making people more able to function, to work, to contribute to society and everything else as well.  

Sophie Anderson [00:28:07] Yeah God, I mean, you’ll remember this, I remember when I got my first period, when I was what like 12? I remember saying to you like, Jesus Christ, do people do people actually go to work like, do people carry on with their normal life? Like surely you take like two days off and just lie in bed? I just couldn't comprehend fact that like this was normal, and that woman are meant to just live like this.

Dr Louise Newson [00:28:30]  I do remember that very clearly, because you came downstairs to the kitchen and you were in floods of tears, and you just said, No, this is not normal. This pain is not normal. This bleeding is not normal. There is no way that I could ever get a job

Sophie Anderson [00:28:41] But I just couldn’t comprehend that woman still went to work like nothing had happened. I think I had a new firm respect for women that day for sure.

Dr Louise Newson [00:28:51] Yeah, but you know what? Isn't it interesting? Because I do think, can you imagine daddy or some of your male friends going through what women do every month? Because I don't think it would happen  

Sophie Anderson [00:29:01] No  

Dr Louise Newson [00:29:02] and and I, not long ago, I spoke to someone, and she was saying she's not a doctor, and she was saying, it's absolutely ridiculous that people are not coming into work because of heavy periods. And actually, hang on. Have you spoken to women who can't stand up because they flood so much, they can't sit in a meeting because they need to go and change their sanitary for protection,

Sophie Anderson [00:29:19] You know they can’t do fun activities, if there’s not a bathroom for example, like, a little boat trip, if they're on holiday, time at the beach, if they don't have immediate access to the bathroom within an hour, due to such like heavy periods, because I think it can be so debilitating, and that's what is so frustrating, but also can be so wonderful about birth control, because if you find the right one for you, like I feel I have, then it is a blessing, so much easier, but there is just so much trial and error, and I feel like each experience is so unique to you. What is right for one person will not be right for another. I'm having a good time on Zoely, but another friend may need more hormones or, I don't know, need something that has a stronger effect. And I think that is just so hard to navigate because it leaves people slightly traumatised and slightly cut off birth control, like, totally. You know, when I'm messaging my friends I'm saying, hey, I'm going on this podcast with my mother, please tell me your stories of birth control. Um, maybe five out of 10 times it'd be like, yeah, so that is why I'm now not on anything. I'm trying out nothing. I'm trying because that experience was too awful. It was too like I was so out of control, whatever. I just couldn't navigate the random, the heavy bleeding, the constant bleeding, the cramping, the feeling that I had no balance in my life, and all of that.

Dr Louise Newson [00:30:38] It's really hard, isn't it? I think it's really difficult for people, not just your age, because you know you need contraception up until your menopausal so it's decades, and if you don't get it right, it just can really, really adversely affect people's lives. And I really worry about how we can change this conversation so that people can be given a choice, a choice of contraception, a choice of type of hormones, and also more knowledge, knowing there are difference between the different hormones and what synthetic and natural really means. So, I'm very grateful that you have been so open, including about your first period, which I forgot about until you told me just now. But I always finish Sophie with three take home tips. So, what three things would you want people your hate to say age or generation? Three things that you think they should know early on about hormones?

Sophie Anderson [00:31:33] One, I would say it's really important to know that you can advocate for yourself if you are on a birth control, if you're on a pill that is making you really depressed, if you're got the implant and it's making you bleed a lot, you're having a bad experience with a coil. You can be like; this isn't right for you. And because you're young, you're a young girl, you may not be taken as seriously. It is super important that you do have that right. You can be like, No, this isn't working for me. Another point would be just making sure that you're really educated in your hormones and not seeing it as much as a buzzword as it can be. Because, you know, when these girls have had these bad experiences and it's like, oh, it's due to being pumped with hormones it’s like, no, it was the wrong type of hormones and the wrong type of hormone for you, not shying away from it totally, which is really a really hard thing to say, but it's really important in order to get the right treatment in the end.

Sophie Anderson [00:32:31] And then a final takeaway point is how important it is to be open with each other, because I am so blessed to live in a generation where we can talk about periods. It's not a massive thing. It's not embarrassing for me to fight tampons from Sainsburys.  I'm not shocked if I see content about periods and birth control on TikTok, and I think it's important to make use of that and be able to be honest with people that you can trust, and confining people about things that worry you, and just knowing that it's not something that should be stigmatised or embarrassing or to be subject it's part of life.

Dr Louise Newson [00:33:04] Thank you. Thank you for being so open and honest. And I'm sure loads of people will really, it will resonate with what you said. So, thanks for coming. Sophie.

Sophie Anderson [00:33:13] You’re welcome, thanks for having me.

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