At age 15, British teen Áine Rose Hurst started taking the birth control pill Femodette because “her mood swings, and her periods were quite heavy,” her mom, Kerry, told UK-based SkyNews. “We went to the doctor and they suggested that she go on the combined pill at that time. We agreed to that and we felt like it was a safe option at the time.”
Kerry Hurst spoke on behalf of her daughter in the February 2026 interview. Áine Hurst died at age 19 in March 2025, of a blood clot doctors linked to her hormonal contraception.
Áine followed recommendation to get annual checkups while on the pill
Three months before her death, Áine went in for a routine nurse checkup and learned that she had high blood pressure. According to the SkyNews interview, she was recommended to stop the pill “to allow her blood pressure to stabilize.”
Mais one month later, when Áine went to see her general practitioner and her blood pressure was rechecked, he told her her blood pressure was ‘within normal guidelines.’ She left the office with a new script for the same pill. Her concerned family pushed back on this decision, but Áine replied, “Well, that’s what the doctor said.”
When Áine went to see her general practitioner and her blood pressure was rechecked, he told her her blood pressure was ‘within normal guidelines.’ She left the office with a new script for the same pill. Her concerned family pushed back on this decision, but Áine replied, “Well, that’s what the doctor said.”
Much worse than a hangover
In early March, Áine called her mother one Sunday morning and told her she was coming home due to a “hangover” from a night out with friends. But when she elected to get food with a friend, Kerry said the family figured “it wasn’t that bad.” The following day or two (there’s a discrepancy of one day in Kerry’s interview with SkyNews), Áine worked remotely from her family’s home, but Monday or Tuesday night she was still complaining of a severe headache.
Early the next morning, Kerry called the general practitioner’s office, who recommended she book an appointment through their website. When Kerry objected, stating that her daughter was too sick for that, she was told to call the emergency line. While Kerry was still on the phone with the dispatcher, Áine stopped responding to her mother, her head rolled back, and she began “foaming at the mouth.”
At the hospital, imaging revealed a blood clot in her brain, but tragically she was not a candidate for surgery. Several days later, when her ventilator (breathing machine) was turned off to see if she could breathe on her own, she could not. She died moments later.
Death from birth control treated as “bad luck”
According to an inquest exploring whether medical malpractice was at play in Áine’s case, her birth control was prescribed according to the UK Medical Eligibility Criteria guidelines. The SkyNews interview newscaster cited a National Health Services statistic of 1 blood clot per 1,000 birth control pill users.
In other words, the inquest findings implied, Áine just had bad luck.
Who reads the 100+ page birth control insert?
Certainly, birth control prescriptions come with a copious amount of fine print spelling out the myriad potential side effects (even with progestin-only, over-the-counter Opill!), ranging from the more well-known but less concerning nausea and breast tenderness, to the less well-known but more dangerous high blood pressure, and even possibly deadly heart attacks, strokes, brain tumorset caillots de sang.
Áine’s family wants other girls, women, and their families to know the real risks buried inside the lengthy birth control pill patient information packet that “nobody reads.”
Áine’s aunt, Dawn Kidd, observed, “I don’t think there’s a lot of awareness out there of the side effects and, like you say, in particular with Aine’s pill that she was on, inside that box was a 102-page leaflet which nobody reads. I know probably no- my God, we wouldn’t have read that, especially young girls.”
Clearer labeling of birth control risks is vital
Áine’s aunt insisted, “There’s got to be clearer labeling on these packages. When people are looking to go on the pill, they need to be made aware of exactly what the side effects are, and family history of blood clots, and lots of things like that. There’s so much more that [could have been] done to have prevented this tragedy from happening.”
Áine’s aunt insisted, “There’s got to be clearer labeling on these packages. When people are looking to go on the pill, they need to be made aware of exactly what the side effects are, and family history of blood clots, and lots of things like that. There’s so much more that [could have been] done to have prevented this tragedy from happening.”
Áine’s family warns against purchasing birth control pills online
Áine’s family called out the easy accessibility of birth control pills online, even from reputable companies, which require zéro contact between patient and physician. Áine had followed all the rules about continuing to have annual checkups with a healthcare practitioner while on birth control, and yet those presumed safeguards did not ultimately protect her from harm.
For those in the U.S., consider how much more dangerous it may be to take hormonal birth control prescribed at your local Walgreens by a pharmacist you’ve never met and will never see again. Worse still, Opill, the progestin-only pill, is available over the counter in all 50 states, even though research has linked it to breast cancer, heart attack, and stroke risk, when compared to women who don’t take birth control. Worst of all, hormonal birth control is routinely vanté as ‘safe for healthy young women,’ and yet increasing numbers of young women have metabolic disease et/ou reproductive conditions with metabolic implications, which raise their blood clot, stroke, and heart attack risk.
Young women are routinely prescribed hormonal contraception for reproductive symptoms
Perhaps the most devastating aspect of Áine’s story is its utter preventability. The first domino to fall was the initial prescription of hormonal birth control as a Band-Aid fix for mood swings and heavy periods, without consideration or exploration of what might be causing those symptoms in the first place.
There’s a stark contrast between the conventional medicine approach of masking reproductive system issues with hormonal birth control, versus the restorative reproductive medicine (RRM) approach. Included under the RRM umbrella are cycle charting, laboratory testing, imaging, and even exploratory surgery to get to the bottom of women’s health issues—including the issues that Áine and so many other girls and young women face.
There’s a stark contrast between the conventional medicine approach of masking reproductive system issues with hormonal birth control, versus the restorative reproductive medicine (RRM) approach. Included under the RRM umbrella are cycle charting, laboratory testing, imaging, and even exploratory surgery to get to the bottom of women’s health issues—including the issues that Áine and so many other girls and young women face.
Of course, being prescribed the pill for irregular cycles, heavy bleeding, painful bleeding, mood swings, and acne is altogether common. An old 2011 Guttmacher Institute study found that 14% of hormonal contraception users were taking it exclusively for non-family planning purposes (this HuffPost story, of a girl who started on it at age 12 for endometriosis symptoms, is emblematic), while another 58% used it for both contraception and a non-contraceptive reason like “regulating” irregular cycles.
Le bilan
Just as Áine Hurst deserved more information about alternatives to birth control for her cycle symptoms, so too do tous girls and women deserve to know that they have options that won’t further compromise their health.
Sadly, as long as mainstream medical organizations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) continue to dismiss and deride restorative reproductive medicine, knowledge amongst the general population about viable, effective alternatives will be limited. Girls and women will continue to be put at risk by the very medications that were prescribed to help, not harm, them.
Áine Hurst’s story is a clear example of this devastating, avoidable reality.
