This isn't new news, there have been several studies which observed this before. But I'm glad to see it's reaching more people - this study was linked at Drudge Report and Instapundit:
"A study by British scientists suggests that taking the Pill can change a woman’s taste in men — to those who are genetically less compatible."
"...The Pill is thought to disrupt an instinctive mechanism that brings together people with complementary genes and immune systems. Such a couple, by passing on a wide-ranging set of immune system genes, increase their chances of having a healthy child that is not vulnerable to infection."
"Couples with different genes are also less likely to experience fertility problems or miscarriages. Experts believe that women are naturally attracted to men with immune system genes different to their own because of their smell."
"Commenting on the latest study, the researchers said that it could indicate that the Pill disrupts women’s ability to judge the genetic compatibility of men by means of their smell."
"They said that this might not only impact on fertility and miscarriage risk, but could even contribute to the end of relationships as women who stop or start taking the Pill no longer find their boyfriend or husband so attractive."
I
I've seen this among my own family members and friends. Couples who seemed very happy ended up inexplicably breaking up soon after having a baby. After the woman went off the Pill. Know any such couples yourself? Like the margarine commercial used to say, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature. And you definitely can't fool the vomeronasal organ.
"Craig Roberts, who led the study, said: 'The results showed that the preferences of women who began using the Pill shifted towards men with genetically similar odours. Not only could MHC-similarity in couples lead to fertility problems, but it could ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the Pill, as odour perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners.' ”
This admittedly limited study indicates that men find non-contracepting women more attractive:
"Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico and author of The Mating Mind, noticed the pill's connection to waning male desire while studying a group of exotic dancers—women whose livelihoods depend on how sexually appealing they are to male customers. Non-pill-using dancers made about 50 percent more in tips than dancers on oral contraceptives. In other words, women who were on the pill were only about two-thirds as sexy as women who weren't."
"The Swiss researchers found that women taking oral contraceptives (which block conception by tricking the body into thinking it's pregnant) reported reversed preferences, liking more the smells that reminded them of home and kin. Since the Pill reverses natural preferences, a woman may feel attracted to men she wouldn't normally notice if she were not on birth control—men who have similar MHC profiles."
"The effects of such evolutionary novel mate choices can go well beyond the bewilderment of a wife who stops taking her contraceptive pills and notices her husband's 'newly' foul body odor. Couples experiencing difficulty conceiving a child—even after several attempts at tubal embryo transfer—share significantly more of their MHC than do couples who conceive more easily. These couples' grief is not caused by either partner's infertility, but to an unfortunate combination of otherwise viable genes."
"Doctors have known since the mid-1980s that couples suffering repeated spontaneous abortions tend to share more of their MHC than couples for whom pregnancies are carried to term. And even when MHC-similar couples do successfully bring a pregnancy to term, their babies are often underweight."
So maybe those mothers who think they're doing the "responsible" thing by putting their teenaged daughters on birth control should reconsider. They're unwittingly helping their daughters to pick the wrong guy. Young women who think that chemical contraception is so convenient should perhaps think about the inconvenience down the road when they have difficulty conceiving, not to mention the inconvenience of realizing that you married the wrong guy. Truly, those old Italian guys at the Vatican were right, even though they didn't know about these studies at the time of Humane Vitae.
The Catholic Church, BTW, isn't against all birth control, they're against artificial birth control. Natural family planning is quite reliable and it keeps a woman very attuned to her body and rhythyms. Dr. Janet Smith of has a DVD about the downsides of chemical contraception. You can read her lecture about this subject here, or read her other work here.
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