Davina McCall has voiced her concerns as a mother about her daughters taking the contraceptive pill and opened up about her own experiences of taking it.
The TV presenter, 55, previously investigated the menopause which helped to empower a generation of overlooked women.
She is now turning her attention to the contraceptive pill with a new Channel 4 documentary, The Pill, that will shine a light on how – 60 years after how it was first made available – women who don’t want to fall pregant still face a number of undesirable side effects.
McCall, who is mum to daughters Holly, 21, Tillie, 19 and son Chester, 16, has revealed that both of her daughters have tried the pill and while one got on fine with it, the other appeared to struggle.
“Both of my daughters took the pill, and one of them got on absolutely fine with it but my younger one had a terrible time in sixth form with her mental health and she has often wondered whether her pill contributed to that,” she told OK! Online.
McCall was just 15 when she secretly obtained the pill against her dad’s wishes.
While she eventually went on to swap the pill for the Mirena coil, the London-born star now wonders if the synthetic hormones she was putting into her body had a detrimental effect on her own mental health.
Despite now being an advocate for health and exercise, McCall has been open in the past about her recreational drug use as a teenager which escalated into heroin addiction in her twenties.
“My life was quite chaotic and emotional at the time, as it is for many teenagers, and it’s very hard to say how much of a part the pill played in that. I’ve got no idea,” she reflected.
“Mood changes are widely recognised as a potential side effect of hormonal contraception. But when it comes to depression or anxiety, the research is limited,” she added to the publication.
