Men are taking women’s contraceptive pills in Haiti

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Jean Samuel Métellus was 25 years old when he began regularly taking a female contraceptive pill called « Pilplan » to avoid getting his sexual partners pregnant.

The man, originally from Croix-des-Bouquets, spent a year and a half repeating this practice before abandoning it, following the pregnancy, to his « great surprise », of two of his partners at the end of the 2010s.

Métellus, 37, now lives in Canada. Before turning to pills, he was already a father, financially responsible for two children, now aged seventeen and thirteen.

A friend had falsely assured him that his partners would not get pregnant if he took female contraceptive pills, despite the nausea that accompanied their ingestion.

“I believed it,” Métellus told AyiboPost.

Other Haitian men also believe in this false method of male contraception, according to what suggests nearly half a dozen interviews collected by AyiboPost with people familiar with this practice.

Mikaelle Pierre, in her late twenties, runs a small pharmacy in the commune of Trou-du-Nord, in the Nord-Est department.

Two months ago, a local woman came to the pharmacy to buy some medicine and took the opportunity to chat with her.

As the conversation progressed, the woman, also apparently in her twenties, confided in Pierre that she was no longer taking birth control pills because she couldn’t stand the side effects. To remedy this situation, the client admitted to Pierre that she was forcing her husband to take them instead.

Pierre admitted to AyiboPost that she was taken aback by this revelation: « It was the first time I had heard of this practice, » she said.

Family medicine resident Dr. Kerry Norbrun is aware of this practice, which he believes sometimes even results in an abandonment of parental responsibility.

« Sometimes men pretend to have taken the pill to avoid responsibility when their partner tells them they have become pregnant, » he says.

According to Norbrun, there are currently only two recognized methods of male contraception: vasectomy, a surgical procedure that blocks the tubes carrying sperm to the semen, and condoms.

Read also: Men also have a choice of contraception

Although science has been interested in developing a method of contraception capable of rendering male sperm unproductive since the 1970s, research in this area continues today.

YourChoice Therapeutics has developed a male contraceptive pill called YCT-529.

This non-hormonal male oral contraceptive, which aims to block sperm production, has undergone clinical trials with very encouraging results since the second half of 2022. But despite these advances, this pill is still far from being marketed.

According to Dr. Norbrun, contraceptive methods or pills developed for women are not adapted to the male body or biology.

Sometimes men pretend to have taken the pill to avoid responsibility when their partner tells them they have become pregnant.

-Dr. Kerry Norbrun

Most birth control pills block ovulation, thin the inner lining of the uterus to prevent implantation, and alter the consistency of cervical mucus, preventing sperm from passing through. « So, the pill won’t have the desired results for men because they don’t have any of these elements of female physiology, » Norbrun says.

Dr. Berthony Guerrier is a gynecologist. He is also aware of this practice.

The doctor still remembers this « funny » episode that occurred three years ago in a hospital where he worked, in the Nippes department, where a member of the small support staff was mocked by his peers for having revealed to one of them that he had used contraceptive pills to control his reproductive power.

Nearing fifty, this employee, according to Dr. Guerrier, already had about half a dozen children. « He didn’t want to have any more children, » he said.

To avoid these practices, Dr. Guerrier advocates for the democratization of scientific knowledge.

While the short-term consequences may seem harmless, men who take birth control pills can face serious long-term health problems, says Dr. Norbrun.

For the doctor, birth control pills are intended for women. They contain synthetic versions of two female hormones: estrogen and progesterone.

These two hormones are responsible for giving women their unique morphological and physiological characteristics, unlike testosterone in men. In the contraceptive pill, they work together to prevent pregnancy by preventing the ovaries from releasing an egg.

« A man who takes birth control pills will carry these two female hormones in his body, » Norbrun explains. « And long-term, excessive use of birth control pills can cause men to develop female morphological characteristics, such as the development of fatty tissue in certain areas of the body and gynecomastia – the exaggerated development of male mammary glands, due to hormonal imbalance. »

Added to this may be a decrease in libido, erectile dysfunction or even the possibility of thromboembolic diseases such as stroke, among others, according to Dr. Norbrun.

The contraceptive pill remains one of the most popular methods of birth control worldwide. In countries like the United States and Canada, more than 15% of women aged 15 to 49 take it.

But male contraception remains very marginal among couples, in a world where more than half of pregnancies are unwanted. A reality that Haiti is no exception to.

For several decades, the possibility of giving men a means of reversibly controlling their reproductive power has been raised and is the subject of scientific research, supported by funds or initiatives that are interested in the issue.

The contraceptive pill remains one of the most popular methods of birth control worldwide. In countries like the United States and Canada, more than 15% of women aged 15 to 49 take it.

For example, in Durham, North Carolina, USA, the Male Contraceptive Initiative (MCI) is a non-profit organization whose goal is to advance research and development of new reversible, non-hormonal methods of male contraception.

For this organization, efforts in this direction respond to a necessity: the lack of male contraceptive options represents too heavy a burden for women.

Such efforts will be able to promote, among other things, more equitable relationships, individual well-being and better family dynamics, proclaims the MCI.

By : Junior Legrand

Cover : A man sitting on a sofa, ready to take a pill. Photo: Freepik