The activist at the helm of the anti-grossophobia Instagram account Corps cool warns of the ineffectiveness of the morning after pill in fat people. An important message.
"I got pregnant three times. Three unwanted pregnancies. And this despite taking emergency contraception, or the morning after pill, all three times.", said in a column for Vice, dated October 26, 2020, the anti-grossophobia activist Corps cools. A testimony that raises a real public health problem. "As I have never taken the subject of contraception lightly, I have always found it a little weird to have lived through this thing three times ", she explains. Among these avenues for reflection, Corps cools assumes at the time of these pregnancies a "super fertility", a "unconscious desire for pregnancy" or quite simply, real bad luck, relays Terra Femina.
Three abortions, an overnight pill and a series
But one day she watches the series Shrill and that is the revelation. In one scene, a pharmacist announces that emergency contraception does not work well on bodies over 75 kilos."I learn in a TV series, at the age of 29 and after three abortions, that the morning-after pill doesn't really work on fat people. While clearly, it's quite obvious that I weigh a lot more than 75 kilos – like a bunch of people elsewhere. It made me a bit of a jerk ", explains the activist. From there, she undertakes research: questions to the medical profession, careful consultation of the notices and the site of the High Authority of Health … But no information. "Nothing is specified on this subject except, sometimes, of this mention which leaves me on my hunger: 'High body weight or BMI: limited data, but not conclusive of a decrease in efficiency. for the two molecules used: Ulipristal acetate (EllaOne) and Levonorgestrel (Postinor, NorLevo, Lévonorgestrel Biogaran) ", deplores Corps cools.
She ended up stumbling across the work of the gynecologist and endocrinologist J. Berdah in the journal Prescrire, where the expert indicates a "Clear decrease in contraceptive efficacy when BMI increases". "With Levonorgestrel acetate, people with a BMI over 26 are 2.09 times more likely to get pregnant than people with a so-called 'normal' BMI. And 4.41 times more likely for people with a BMI. greater than 35. With Ulipristal, we speak respectively of 0.97 and 2.62 times more likely to get pregnant despite taking ", details the fat activist. In an interview with a medical gynecologist, she also learns that "the French recommendations of the CNGOF (National College of Gynecologists and French Obstetricians) speak well of emergency contraception in this context and advance the same figures. And the two articles recommend the insertion of an IUD within five days who follow unprotected intercourse as a means of emergency contraception for fat people. " So why this obvious lack of information?
See also: Marie de Bauer's interview on her film The big life of Marie
The devastating impact of medical grossophobia
In July 2020, Auféminin spoke with Marie de Brauer, journalist who released the documentary in May 2020 The big life of Marie. She denounces, among other things, the grossophobia of the medical profession, which prevents an effective care of fat people. With some gynecologists, poor follow-up sometimes doubles as humiliation, as she told us during our interview. "Why do you want to take the pill? Either way, no one will want to make love to you! Don't expect to have a child, you are fat. I may be exaggerating in the terms used, but the message for that purpose ", she remembers. One of the objectives of fat activists and anti-grossophobia activists: that the medical profession really learns about obesity and does more research on how to properly treat patients, especially on the subject of contraception.