Effective Pregnancy Prevention With Birth Control Pills

The modern birth control pills or combined oral contraceptives were introduced in the market for the first time in 1957 in the US but it took another four years (1961) till they received approval from the UK health department.  Currently, almost one third of women in the United Kingdom of 16 to 49 years of age use these pills to keep them safe from the risk of unwanted pregnancy. There is no denial of the fact that planning your sex life is the best way to stay safe from the risk of pregnancy but the charm of spontaneity and passion remains missing to a great extent. More importantly, a romantic encounter is something that you cannot plan all the time, and contraceptive accidents can happen. A woman, in such situations, comes under greatest trouble as she doesn’t have many options that can get her out from this unintended situation. The combined oral contraceptives or birth control pills are indeed of great help in such cases as they successfully protect a woman from getting into the complications related to unwanted pregnancy.

In order to understand the wide acceptability of combined oral contraceptives in the UK, you need to understand the pregnancy process and the way these medications work. The pill or the combined oral contraceptive contains two artificial female sex hormones, oestrogen and progestogen. A woman becomes pregnant when the normal level of these two hormones decreases. Oestrogen functions as the main component of the pill. It mimics the actions of the natural hormone and makes your physical system believe that ovulation or release of an egg has already occurred from the ovary. Artificial progestogen, on the other hand, increases viscosity of the mucus at the womb’s neck. Finally, the combined effect of these two hormones makes the density of the womb lining thinner than its natural situation so that a fertilised egg cannot attach itself to the womb lining to grow. It is due to these reasons that the modern birth control pills are capable of providing almost complete protection from the risk of unwanted pregnancy, provided that you take them correctly.

The two most popular combined oral contraceptives in the UK are Dianette and Microgynon. These two pills function in the same way as described above. Users of these medications have also suggested that they received relief from irregular or painful periods, skin problems and excess body hair. Dianette and Microgynon contain the right proportion of oestrogen and progestogen and you need to take the medication of your choice for 21 consecutive days, starting from the day one of your menstrual cycle. The best way of taking these medications is to take a single pill at a particular time of day. There is no need to worry about the cycle as the medication packs will bear clear mark of ingestion. Once the 21 days period is over you need to maintain a seven day pill-free period and you will be completely protected against the risk of pregnancy during this period. If you forget to take a single dosage try to make it up as soon as you remember. The birth control pills may cause some minor side effects like a rise in blood pressure, nausea and headache. However, these problems occur only in the first month and once you are habituated to these medications these problems will stop occurring.