A new study has found that women taking oral contraceptives such as birth control pills as well as patches and injectables are at increased risk of suffering certain types of stroke.

The Daily Mail is reporting on the new study, published in journal MedLink Neurology and conducted by researchers from Loyola University in Chicago, which found that women taking birth control pills have an increased risk of suffering from an ischemic stroke which occurs when an artery to the brain is blocked. This type of stroke makes up around 85 percent of cases as opposed to hemorrhagic strokes which are caused by bleeding in the brain.

This is because the pills, patches, and injectables raise the risk of artery blockage by making blood more likely to clot.

The risk is low for women without any risk factors, but the study found that women are not being accurately screened for these factors which include high blood pressure, age, diabetes, and smoking.

“Among women at risk of the medical emergency, only 15 percent recall being advised not to take birth-control pills, while just 36 percent have been told to stop taking the medication,” the Mail reports.

Even after being told to quit taking the contraceptives, some 15 percent of women persisted in doing so.

As a result, researchers are calling for more effective doctor-patient communication.

This study follows research released earlier this year which found that women who start their period before 10 years old, or who enter menopause before age 45, are at increased risk of stroke and heart disease.

Published in the BMJ journal, Heart, researchers observed more than 267,000 women and 215,000 men, none of which had heart disease when they entered the study. The average age for women at the beginning of the study was 56 with six out of 10 having never smoked.

The average age at which the women started having periods was 13 and nearly two-thirds had undergone menopause at an average age of 50.

During the seven-year monitoring period, there were 9,054 cases of disease, of which 34 percent were in women. Twenty-eight percent of these cases involved stroke.

“ . . . [W]omen who had periods before the age of 12 were at 10% increased risk of heart disease when compared to those who had been 13 years or older,” the study found.

“Likewise, women who had undergone early menopause (before the age of 47) had a 33% heightened risk of heart disease, and 42% increased risk of stroke, after taking other potentially influential factors into account.”

The study’s author, Dr. Kathryn Roxrode from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said: “These women should be monitored carefully and they should be aware that they are at higher risk, and motivated to adhere to the healthiest lifestyle behaviors to decrease the risk of hypertension and subsequent stroke.”

These studies prove that effective women’s health care is a lot more involved than just providing free pills and abortions. If we used half the money spent on political lobbying for “reproductive rights” for more comprehensive women’s health care, American women would be much better off.

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The birth control industry frequently touts how the numbers of women harmed by these products is minimal – but every woman’s life matters! Click here to read more information about how artificial contraception is harming women.