At the same time, it’s important for us to add some nuance to the scary images that have emerged recently. Sometimes the media gives the impression that we don’t know about the side effects linked to hormonal contraception, as if we were playing Russian roulette with the health of young women. Fortunately, this is incorrect and sensational. You can be confident that the pack of pills you pick up at the pharmacy contains one of the most carefully studied medications in the world. Researchers have huge amounts of statistical material to examine since many millions of women have taken birth control pills over vast swathes of the planet since the 1960s. Unknown, serious long-term effects from hormonal contraception would have been discovered long ago if they existed, particularly when you consider that the first pills that came on the market contained up to five times as much hormone as the ones we have today.