How to Debunk Social Media Myths About Postpartum Hormones

I’m worked up. Actually, I’m pissed.

Have you ever seen something on social media that just enrages you?

Not because it is a video of something horrific. Not because it doesn’t align with your beliefs, values, or politics.

But because it is literal actual bullshit. The person who posted positions themselves as an expert. But has given zero thought to the impacts and implications of the misinformation they are spreading.

That’s where I am today.

I’m about to let slip a huge (very poorly kept) secret that every pregnant person and new parent REALLY needs to hear. REALLY HEAR. Like write it on a Post-it note and stick it to your mirror. Repeat it to yourself as your daily mantra.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS THE WORST PLACE TO GET PREGNANCY, BIRTH, AND POSTPARTUM INFORMATION.

I’m aware of the irony—I post perinatal information to my IG account ALL THE TIME. But stick with me.

Last night, I watched a reel on Instagram that hurt my heart. It was from a “birth advice” account. It was simple—a woman talking to the camera, captions on. The hook hooked me. “Did you know that the change to your hormones after pregnancy is equivalent to going from taking 100 birth control pills a day to zero pills by day 3 postpartum?”

My immediate thought was “eegh that sounds rough.” But as I watched the rest of the clip, my brain started clicking. I thought:

That seems a little weird… most birth control pills rely on estrogen, progesterone, or some combination of the two… 

What about all of the other hormones in your body after birth?

How does she know this? Where did she get that information from?

How would they measure that? How many women are getting their hormone levels measured three days postpartum?

I lay in bed, petting my cat (Chickpea), and staring at the ceiling. I thought about 30K people following her account. I thought about the 157K views on that video. And I got pissed. I’m still pissed.

I’m not pissed at the content creator (okay, no, actually I am). I’m pissed at the vortex that is for-profit social media. I’m pissed about how people share information on Instagram with no thought of how they are impacting other people’s lives. I’m pissed about the lies. The dishonesty. And the lack of responsibility.

We can get into WHY social media is not the place to find good pregnancy, birth, and postpartum information some other time. Today, I have another job to do.

Today, I’m debunking the myth that content creator is selling. Hop-in birth nerd—We are getting down and nerdy. I’m going to walk you step-by-step through how I found a credible answer to the question: are the hormonal changes 3-days postpartum equivalent to 100 birth control pills?

(Bonus: You can follow similar steps to find answers to most of your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum questions!)

Step One: Get (just a little) friendly with Dr. Google

First things first. The reel (which I refuse to link) claims that your hormone levels will drop drastically in the first three days postpartum. I don’t dispute that. But to figure out how postpartum hormones relate to birth control we need to know what hormones are in birth control pills.

I feel like many people on birth control know this already, but let’s make sure we are right.

I started with a Google Search*: “Average hormonal content of birth control pills.” That gave me the Mayo Clinic website (I trust the Mayo Clinic as a source because they are a world leader in women’s health care).

According to the Mayo Clinic, “Although the amount of estrogen in combination pills can be as low as 10 micrograms (mcg) of ethinyl estradiol, most pills contain about 20 to 35 (mcg).

This tells me two things: one the hormonal content of birth control pills is different depending on the pill. It varies in terms of the amount of estrogen in the pill, and what hormones other than estrogen are in the pill (note the term combination pills).

Just to be sure I understood the term “combination pills” correctly, I scrolled further in that article from the Mayo Clinic:

“Combination pills are grouped based on whether the dose of hormones stays the same or varies:

Monophasis: Each active pill contains the same amount of estrogen and progestin.

Biphasic: Active pills contain two combinations of estrogen and progestin.

Triphasic: active pills contain three combinations of estrogen and progestin.

Neat. We don’t need to know all of that to answer our question. What we needed to know was what hormones are in birth control pills—and it told us, estrogen and progestin.

So far, one Google search has taught us that birth control pills contain estrogen, progesterone, or a combination of estrogen and progestin, AND the average amount of those hormones in each pill. Magic.

Step Two: Dig Deeper with Google Scholar

I tried several things to get the next puzzle piece. I searched “how do hormones change after birth” in Google—I got results, but none of them were sources I trusted (they were mostly mom blogs, which can be a great resource but aren’t the type of source I’m looking for). So, I searched “rate of hormonal change after birth” in Google Scholar. None of the articles returned had titles that fit what I was looking for, so I tried “Rate of hormonal change postpartum.” And voila, I found this article from 1998 (possibly outdated, but I’m making an educated guess that the research on the rate of hormonal change post-birth has not changed a lot over the last 20 years).

You may have to play with the keywords you put into Google or Google Scholar. Be tenacious. Think outside the box. For instance, I got better results using the word “postpartum,” than “after birth.”

I skimmed the article’s abstract **, looking for info that might contain the answer to my question (how quickly do hormones change postpartum?).

The abstract told me that the article reviews research on “hormonal etiologies in postpartum depression, in particular for progesterone, estrogen, prolactin, cortisol, oxytocin, thyroid, and vasopressin.” Do I know what a hormonal etiology is? Nope. But Google told me etiology is the cause or causation of a disease or condition. So, this article looks at how changes in different hormones cause postpartum depression. Cool. It probably has the info I’m looking for.

You don’t need to understand every word in an article to read it. While you read, keep a list of words you don’t know yet. Look them up in Google. Researchers often use ten-dollar words because they are writing the article for other experts in their field. This doesn’t mean you can’t read the article—but you may need to look up some words to build your vocabulary. Don’t let the ten-dollar words scare you off!

Step Three: Figure Out What the Research is Saying

Then, I skim. I’m not going to read the introduction—I don’t need to know that hormone changes cause postpartum depression. I need to know how quickly hormones change after someone gives birth.

So, I scroll through the article until I see that information. It tells me that during pregnancy levels of estrogen and progesterone rise (good to know), and that those levels “drop sharply” with the removal of the placenta. Okay, so we know there’s a drop, but by how much does it drop?

It turns out that this article isn’t going to tell me how much estrogen and progesterone change in the first three days postpartum. But it does tell me that they return to pre-pregnancy numbers three weeks postpartum.

Step Four: Find More Sources

I quickly searched for another article and found this one from 2012. It says, “When pregnancy reaches gestation, progesterone levels range from 100-200 ng/ml and the placenta produces about 250mg/day.

This didn’t fully answer my question but it gave me some numbers to work with. Look at the units. Remember I said that most birth control pills contain 25 micrograms (mcg) of progesterone? At the end of pregnancy, the placenta produces 250 milligrams (mg) of progesterone daily. One milligram is 1000 micrograms. This is not the 100 birth control pills that the reel talked about—it’s a lot more.

Step Five: Thinking About What You Learned

All the journal articles I looked at highlight that A LOT OF DIFFERENT HORMONES ARE CHANGING POSTPARTUM. It is not just the estrogen and progesterone you find in birth control pills. It’s also gonadal steroids, thyroid hormones, pituitary hormones, and cortisol (if you want to learn more, check out this article).

Maybe you’re thinking “Great, Kelsey, you just figured out that the hormonal shift is much bigger than the woman in the reel suggested. Her point stands that the hormonal fluctuations in the first three days postpartum are rough.”

Yep, they are rough. But the implications comparing those hormone changes are so much further reaching.

By ignoring the fact that birth control pills do not contain the majority of hormones that change postpartum, she is completely erasing a multitude of factors that contribute to postpartum depression and other physiological changes (and we all know changes to our bodies can directly impact how we are feeling).

Her advice may lead some people to start taking birth control pills postpartum to regulate their hormones, without understanding that regulating estrogen and progesterone is only part of the puzzle (and mega-dosing with birth control is not recommended).

She is positioning herself as an expert, walking the fine line of giving medical advice, without fact-checking. If she fact-checked, she would know that the comparison she is making between birth control pills and postpartum hormone fluctuations is not valid.

You deserve high-quality perinatal information. And the people who claim to be experts on social media SHOULD be doing this research BEFORE THEY POST.

I’m still pissed, but I feel slightly better knowing you have the information you need at your fingertips. It is my absolute honor and privilege to be able to share evidence-based pregnancy, birth, and postpartum information with you.

* I don’t recommend turning to Dr. Google as a definitive source to answer your pregnancy or postpartum questions. A lot of the information you find during a Google search may take you on the wrong track, or amplify your fears. Keep it in mind as a good starting place, as long as you are engaging with credible sources.

** An abstract is a preview of the article. It will tell you what the article is about, how the researchers did the research, and what the results of the study are.