One wonderful thing about modern birth control is that a woman has many choices. Several decades ago, she effectively had none. The advent of the birth control pill put the control of a woman's fertility in her own hands, right where it belongs, for the first time in recorded human history.
But the birth control pill was just the beginning. Today, a woman can receive an injection, she can take a daily pill, she can use a barrier method such as a diaphragm or a cervical cap, or she can have an intrauterine device implanted.
The important thing is that a woman, with the help of her health care professional, determine which method is right for her—right for her body, right for her lifestyle.
Some women prefer not to use any of the above mentioned methods, and instead want to use what is known as a natural progesterone cream. If used as a method of birth control, these women should expect it to fail miserably.
The reason is because products sold specifically as natural progesterone creams are not to be used for birth control, they are to be used in perimenopausal women as a form of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), if at all, and even then they shouldn't be used without speaking with one's physician first.
'Natural progesterone' is a misnomer, because it's not actually progesterone in the natural form such as your body produces. Instead, it is what's known as a bioidentical hormone because its molecular structure so closely mimics the structure of human progesterone. But instead of being a natural hormone, natural progesterone creams have a much different background: sometimes referred to as "wild yam creams", they use a wild yam known as Dioscorea villosa to develop the precursor hormones used in bioidenticals.
Some experts believe that such creams can work to relieve menopausal symptoms for some women, but they are not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, and therefore you don't really know what you're getting when you buy them. Using them may raise the progesterone levels in the blood, and they may not. It can vary from one cream to the next.
One thing is for certain however: it won't work very well at all as birth control.
Even when natural progesterone comes in the form of micronized progesterone (or USP) and requires a physician prescription, it is still going to be prescribed for symptom relief in menopause.
At best, progesterone creams might be regarded as an extremely mild form of birth control that would likely require the use of a back-up barrier method.
Either way, always discuss issues like using a new form of birth control with your health care professional first. Making such decisions based on the internet is taking too many risks with your health and your future.
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