By Laura Ashley
To be present at birth, I believe, is the closest we ever get to experiencing God as creator and to truly understanding His boundless love as Father. The miracle never gets old; it is always fresh, always astonishing. It takes so many intricate things that must go perfectly right—a delicate dance of biology, timing, and divine will—to knit together a new human being’s life. And yet, one decision—to use hormonal birth control—can ruin some mothers’ chances of ever receiving that incomparable gift.
The birthing room is a sacred space, a sanctuary of miracles where the human and the divine beautifully intersect. For years, as a doula, I had the profound privilege of holding hands, wiping brows, and whispering words of encouragement as new life burst forth. There’s no joy quite like witnessing a mother meet her child for the first time. I’ve been blessed to attend countless births, each one a unique symphony of effort and grace. But over the last decade, a subtle yet persistent and discordant note began to echo in my work, a troubling pattern that chipped away at the edges of that sacred joy.
It started subtly then became undeniable: a disturbing problem among vibrant, first-time mothers, generally in their early thirties. These were women who had meticulously planned their lives and carefully scheduled careers, relationships, and their families. Most had been on hormonal birth control for a decade or more, some since their teenage years, and had ceased its use months prior, believing that would be ample time for their bodies to “reset.” But what I witnessed in the quiet intensity of those birthing rooms told a different story.
Destruction of the uterine wall
I am the mother of 10 children—seven rambunctious sons and three beautiful daughters. Our home has always vibrated with the joyous chaos of a large family—a symphony of laughter, learning, and unwavering faith. I have never taken hormonal birth control, having entrusted my fertility wholly to God’s providence. This personal journey gave me a unique perspective in stark contrast to the struggles I witnessed.
I started to see a tragic increase in miscarriages within this group of new mothers that resulted in silent heartbreaks and dreams dissolving before they could fully form. Then, a more insidious trend emerged: placentas that struggled toadhere, or adhered only partially, to the uterine wall. Conditions like placenta previa or placenta accreta, once considered less common, seemed to whisper through the hospital halls with increasing frequency. Doctors, too, were observing this, grappling with the complexity of these cases. It felt as though the very foundation for life was faltering.
What I came to understand was the insidious complexity of modern hormonal birth control. Beyond merely suppressing ovulation or thickening cervical mucus, many of these modern contraceptives are designed to alter the uterine lining, making it inhospitable to the implantation of the newly created baby. The intention is clear: If fertilization does occur, the nascent life—a unique, unrepeatable human being—will be unable to implant, silently aborted before a woman might even know she was pregnant.
But the tragedy deepened, reaching far beyond immediate effect. For some of these young women, who had taken hormonal birth control for many years, that altered uterine environment didn’t simply vanish when they stopped taking the pill. It remained, in effect, a lingering scar on the uterine wall—a subtle, invisible barrier. The womb, designed by God to be a welcoming sanctuary, seemed unable to fully recover its receptivity. It struggled to properly receive the fragile embryo or adequately secure the life-sustaining placenta when these women finally chose to embrace motherhood.
To read the remainder of this article, visit clmagazine.org/topic/medicine-science/the-unseen-scars-of-hormonal-birth-control.
To read additional articles that will inspire and educate, visit clmagazine.org.