Ironically, contraception “It’s a very unsexy piece of science,” says Alice Pelton, founder of The Lowdown, a contraceptive review platform run by women for women. Women’s Reproductive Her health field is “horribly underserved,” Pelton said, receiving only a fraction of the funding it deserves. Contraceptive side effects are common and quality medical advice is scarce. Women suffer as a result.
On stage at WIRED Health in March, Pelton explained how The Lowdown is a cure. The key, she believes, is to provide women with a wealth of information, both solid data and personal accounts of others, to help them identify the best contraceptive method for them.
When Pelton was 16, she took birth control pills. She found it had completely changed her personality, made her feel depressed, damaged her relationships, and made her job difficult. She’s “one of millions of women like her,” she says, who “does it the wrong way and experiences devastating side effects.” [contraception]”
In 2018, Pelton came up with the idea for The Lowdown after noticing a friend of hers was suffering from a similar problem. It’s a platform populated with crowdsourced information about contraceptives of all shapes and sizes, from pills and patches to injections and her IUD.
Since its launch the following year, The Lowdown has grown rapidly. Pelton said it is now visited by 2 million women each year and contains information about 100 of her contraceptive methods and brands. The startup also rolled out a contraceptive subscription service that gives women access to a wider range of methods than are available locally.
In its next phase of growth, The Lowdown will focus on using the data it collects to develop services that solve reproductive health problems. The team is already building a contraceptive recommendation tool and a calculator that tells what to do if someone misses the pill. “We’re just getting started,” says Pelton.
“Community-driven healthcare has the power, potential and scalability to transform the lives of billions of women,” she adds. “Women are not sick, they are not patients. Their problems are being treated the wrong way.”
