Contraceptives

You’ve held that warm little body in your arms for the first time and know all about GIVING birth but before you face the issues that come with rearing your darling bundle of joy, fairly soon you’ll have to face the issue of how to CONTROL the timing of the next (?) birth. So do you just go back to the birth control method you were using before, assuming this was effective and the gorgeous darling was ‘planned’(!) or do you need to change to a different method now?

‘Low dose’ is a term used in birth control terminology to refer to the amount of ESTROGEN present in a contraceptive. To ‘qualify’ as low dose, there has to be only 0.035mg or less of estrogen present. You may be thinking at this point that it would be OK for you to use a low dose pill as it sounds reasonably safe BUT If you have decided to breastfeed, you should avoid using ANY birth control method that contains estrogen- namely, a combined contraceptive pill, a hormonal patch (which you know I do not recommend to anyone as a method of birth control anyway) and the Ring. Estrogen can affect your milk supply and also pass through to your baby. All is not lost though - This article does a good job of answering all those other questions you may have around birth control and pregnancy including:

• I’ve always been on the Pill, but now I’m breastfeeding. That means I can’t go back on it, right?
• I’m not sure whether I’m done having babies, so what’s long-term but not permanent?
• I’ve heard there’s a type of sterilization for women that isn’t surgical. Does it work? Is it permanent?
• I’d like to use “fertility awareness” as my birth-control method. How can I be sure I’m doing it right?

NB. Oral contraceptives may decrease the amount of folate in your body. Folate is important for the development of a healthy baby, so you should talk to your doctor if you want to become pregnant soon after you stop taking oral contraceptives.

I am researching birth control methods for women over 35 at present so come back later if that means you, for an update on the latest options.

Will Taking Contraceptive Pills make a Pregnancy Test Inaccurate?

If you suspect that you may be pregnant and you are taking a contraceptive pill like Mircette, it is wise to stop taking your pills until you have at least carried out a home pregnancy test - this will ensure that there are no risks to the fetus. You may be wondering though, if a home pregnancy kit works by measuring hormone levels- and you have been taking synthetic hormones in your Mircette contraceptive pill - “Will I get an accurate result from my DIY test?

Pregnancy tests do not measure estrogen and progestin, the two hormones in combined oral contraceptive pills so even if you get pregnant while taking an oral contraceptive, you can rely on the result of the test being accurate. Taking Mircette will NOT interfere with your pregnancy test result.This is true whether you are still taking Mircette or have recently stopped taking it because of your suspicion that you may be pregnant.

Mircette is an extremely effective oral contraceptive pill so it is highly unlikely that you will become pregnant while taking it, unless you have missed several days of taking your pill. If you have stopped taking Mircette or any other brand of oral contraceptive pill, now is the time to decide if you wish to become pregnant now or sometime in the near future. If you do not wish to get pregnant at this point in your life, you should resume taking the pills and use back up contraception for a week.

But don’t estrogen levels rise when you are pregnant and oral contraceptives, like Mircette, contain estrogen?

Yes, when you are pregnant estrogen levels are higher but this is NOT the hormone that is measured by a pregnancy test kit. All pregnancy test kits measure beta HCG (a placental hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin).  A urine or a blood sample can be used to measure beta HCG.

Most home urine pregnancy tests will turn positive  10 - 16 days after conception occurs. If you were not taking oral contraceptives, this would be around the time of your first missed period. When you are on oral contraceptives, ovulation could have occurred at a more irregular time so that if the pregnancy test is negative, you are either not pregnant OR you are less than 14 days pregnant from the date you ovulated.

If you were to become pregnant while taking oral contraceptives, a normal ‘withdrawal bleed’ would not occur.

Source:  Dr. Rick Jelovsek MD.

Are you ready to stop taking your contraceptive pill and become pregnant?
Some of the questions that are frequently asked about fertility after taking oral contraceptives include:

* How long will it take my cycle to regulate after discontinuing the pill?
* Will previous pill use impact my future fertility?
* How long will it take me to get pregnant after discontinuing the pill?
* Can I start charting right after discontinuing the pill?
The latest study, done at Dusseldorf University is a few years old but the findings are worth reviewing. In short, you can be reassured that even if it takes you a couple of cycles to get back to ‘normal’ menstruation, your fertility should not be affected.

The study was done with two groups of women. One that had recently stopped taking an oral contraceptive and one that had never taken an oral contraceptive. Measurements were taken using basal body temperature charts over a period of time.

I found this information at www.FertilityFriend.com - it’s a great site if you are planning a pregnancy- and thought that the content would be helpful to a number of visitors to this site who are either thinking of beginning a course of hormonal contraceptives or who wish to stop taking an oral contraceptive in order to conceive.

Below is a simplified ‘overview’ of the findings but the full report can be found here.

After discontinuing oral contraceptives:

• 57.9% of women ovulated in their first menstrual cycle

• cycles were longer, sometimes up to the 12th cycle

• cycle ‘disturbances’ ( a cycle lasting longer than 35 days- not bleeding time , just the time lag between periods starting) were more frequent in the post pill taking group than the non pill taking group and it could be up to 7 cycles before ‘normality’ was established

• cycle disturbances were reversible but can take longer to regulate (9 months or more)

Age and Previous Births are other factors that may also affect the time it takes to become fertile after taking oral contraceptives:

Women 25-29 were compared with women aged 30-35 in two groups- those who had previously given birth and those who had never given birth.

The study found that those women who had previously given birth (regardless of age) had only a slight impairment of fertility which did not last long.

Women 25-29 who had never given birth had some impairment of fertility bit this did not last long either.

Women aged 30-35 who had never had children and had been on oral contraceptives, took the longest time to conceive but there was no evidence that the ‘pill’ caused permanent sterility.

If you ARE wishing to conceive, talk to your own doctor and also chart your own monthly cycles (take and record a graph of your daily temperature) as soon as you stop taking the ‘pill’. This will help you to become familiar with your ‘fertility’ progress and alert you to any other possible causes for concern if it’s taking longer than you expect for you to conceive.