Coming Off the Pill, the Patch, the Shot and other Hormonal Contraceptives: Learning How to Restore Menstrual Cycle Health and Endocrine Balance after Stopping Use of Hormonal Contraceptives

Healthy menstrual cycles are the 5th vital sign of a woman's health. If a woman’s menstrual cycle is not healthy she is not healthy. Her health depends on regular ovulation and true menstruation. Stopping the use of hormonal contraceptives and making the necessary changes to return to regular ovulation and healthy menstrual cycling, is one of the most important things a woman can do for her health, short term and long term. This concise, clinical-based guide teaches women and their care providers how to restore menstrual cycle health (fertility) and endocrine balance after stopping the use of hormonal contraceptives. Included are holistic and nutritional suggestions to support menstrual cycle health, including non-pharmaceutical approaches to managing difficult periods and restoring nutritional status. Included are narratives of various women's experiences women when they stop using hormonal contraceptives. This is a companion book to "Justisse Method Fertility Awareness and Body Literacy: A User's Guide" Why A Book About Coming Off the Pill? The fertility awareness educators whom I mentor and myself, see women every day in our clinics that experience reproductive health problems while on and after discontinuing the birth control pill or other forms of hormonal contraception. They report finding few, if any, resources to help them deal with the physiological upheaval these drugs create in their bodies. Many women also report using hormonal contraception to deal with very difficult periods or other hormonal disorders. They report finding little support on or information for using non-hormonal forms of birth control or ways to deal with hormonal disorders without the use of drugs. The intention of this book is to share with women some of those hard to find bits of information; information that we use in our clinical practices every day.

Geraldine Matus HRHPE, PhD Geraldine is the founder of the Justisse Method (1986), Justisse Healthworks for Women (2003), Justisse HRHP Training Program (2003), and Justisse College (2014), and is a Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner Educator. She has worked since 1977 in the field of fertility awareness, birth con- trol education, well-woman care, and reproductive rights advocacy. She completed her training as a lay midwife in 1985, and was deeply involved in the home birth and reproductive freedom movement throughout the 70s and 80s. She completed her doctoral studies in depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2010. She integrates her knowledge of women's reproductive health with her knowledge of depth psychology, combining them to help women become empowered and to honor their bodies as the vessel for their living and being.