Today, millions of women around the world use hormonal contraceptives that have expanded beyond the Pill to patches, implants, injections and uterine devices. Decades of research support their safety, and serious but very rare side effects such as blood clots are finally much better understood. But other areas of research lag, and we still don't know as much as we'd like about how these medications affect women's mental health.
So when a study came out linking hormonal birth control and depression, the headlines went wild. The stories made for good clicks, but not so great science reporting. Insufficient skepticism about a single study makes it easy to imply birth control definitely causes depression when the study shows nothing of the sort.
