Customer Reviews

Birth Control Without Fear: Wild Yam (Woodland Health)

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Published in 1986, this is an interesting little 8 page booklet. The author, Willa Shaffer, is an experienced midwife and herbalist who conducted a study of the effectiveness of wild yam used as a natural form of birth control on several women since 1981. If taken the way Willa Shaffer describes, she purports the method to be very effective as a means of birth control. Needless to say, I have recently started on her program and have been taking the wild yam supplements. The only complaint I would make about the book is that the author is vague in some of her descriptions about the study she conducted and I would prefer to know more details. In general though, this is a great book to check out if you're interested in natural forms of birth control.

I had high hopes for this booklet, and for Wild Yam as a method of birth control, but this booklet left me with more questions than answers.
Shaffer makes a great argument in favor of Wild Yam and offers an interesting history of the herb, while warning that if not taken as prescribed, pregnancy can (and in her examples, usually does) result.

Although Shaffer says to take "three capsules in the morning and three at night" she never says what size the capsules are (those of us who take lots of vitamins know that capsules come in a wide variety of sizes!). This to me is the biggest failing of the booklet. How does a woman who's not willing to experiment with dosages (i.e., possibly get pregnant) figure out how much to take? In my mind, Schaffer should have at least said something like, "Take 75 milligrams in the morning and 75 milligrams at night." Anything else just boils down to guesswork on the part of the reader.

Also, I was disappointed in the value for the money. It seems a bit much to pay $3.95 for the booklet and at least that much for the shipping and basically get a slim 8 page brochure in return.

The information was ok and interesting but it was written by a layperson. There is no information about what species of wild yam was used, so people could use the non therapeutic one and wonder why they are getting pregnant. Also no information was given to how much milligrams of wild yam was in each capsule. A person could use a capsule that contains a smaller mg's of the product than this lady trialled while still consuming the number of capsules they recommended because the trials capsule were 200mg of wild yam where their's was only 150mg capsules. They may be potentially at risk of pregnancy. Therefore more research needs to be done to get the exact amount and species used. As a practitioner (Naturopath) I find this information very risky and contentious, however worth pursuing for further research....

Make sense, wild yam for birth control. I started taking it right away, but I had to kind of "just do it." She doesn't give dosages in milligrams, so I am taking 1,500 mg twice a day. Why? She says 3 capsules twice a day, and GNC sells 500 mg capsules. I guess I'm taking enough--I have no idea, but so far, so good, and no side effects...