Oral contraceptives do not impact women’s fertility: Study
POSTED September 9, 2009 - 11:04 | POSTED BY Neharika Sabharwal
Last edited by Harpreet Bhagrath on September 9, 2009 - 11:52
Although the pill allows women to control fertility and delay child birth, it does not affect her ability to conceive after she goes off it. Pill use by itself is not associated with any long-term impairment of fertility or ovulation problems.
To examine the conception rate after cessation of oral contraception, a study was carried out by the researchers from Bayer Schering Pharma and ZEG-Centre for Epidemiology and Health Research in Berlin.
Analysis of data
As a part of the European Active Surveillance Study on Oral Contraceptives, the researchers followed 60,000 European women for five years from 2001-2004. During this period, 2064 confessed that they stopped using the pill because they wanted to become pregnant.
The prospective study revealed that after cessation of the pill, nearly 21 percent conceived during the first cycle, while 45.7 percent regained fertility after three cycles of going off the contraception. Within one year, or 13 cycles, 79.4 percent had become pregnant.
The study established a success rate of 88.3 percent in conception, as one in five women who did not get pregnant in the first 12 months, 45 percent of them got pregnant in the second year (26 cycles) of stopping the pill.
Observations by the researchers
The researchers stated that there did not appear to be any effect of oral contraceptives in terms of impaired fertility, irrespective of the length of time the pill was taken or the type of hormones used.
The researchers, however, clarified that women who had been on the pill for too long did have a slightly lower rate of pregnancy than those who had used it for a short period. This they believed was not related to long term use of the pill but was due to the effect of age.
Also, the rate of conception was lower in women older than 35 years and those given to smoking.
Furthermore, oral contraceptive use has also been associated with a decreased risk of cervical, ovarian, and uterine cancer.
"Because of their high efficacy, there is a perception by some women that the use of oral contraceptives may be associated with an impairment in fertility after their discontinuation.
"These findings suggest that previous oral contraceptive use does not negatively affect the rate of pregnancy," stated the researchers.
The findings of the study have been published in the US journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.
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