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Using Birth Control Pills to Move the Menstrual Period to a More Convenient Date
If you are taking your pills on a monthly schedule, because you dont mind having a period
every month and like the reassurance every month that you are not pregnant; or if you tried
taking the pills on a longer cycle, but had too much breakthrough bleeding, you can still use
the pills to move your period off an inconvenient date.
There are two ways to do this: The first is to continue with active pills for another week or
two and thus postpone the pill period. Then you stop for 7 days and have a withdrawal
bleed and start with a new pack of pills. Your next withdrawal bleed should now fall
according to the new pill pack. This generally works well, but some women will start
spotting or even bleeding during the extra week(s) they have added to the first pill pack.
If you do not want to take the chance of any unplanned bleeding or spotting, this second
way may work better for you: Instead of delaying the bleeding, you can have it come a
week early. By stopping the active pills after two weeks instead of taking all 21 pills you
cause the bleeding to start within a couple days of stopping the pills. You wait 5 to 7 days
and start a new pack. Your next period will now come according to the schedule of the new
pack. If you need to move your period by two weeks, you can do this two months in a row.
That will work better than to move it two weeks in one pill cycle.
The effectiveness of the pill as a birth control method will not be compromised by these
modifications in the pill schedule, as long as you do not go longer than 7 days without
active pills. If you start a new pill pack late or miss one or more pills during the first week of
a new pill pack, your chance of ovulating is approximately 25%.
Other non-surgical options of avoiding monthly bleeding include progesterone containing
IUDs and Depo-Provera injections. Both methods take up to a year to stop the bleeding
and neither works for more than about 50% of women.
Non-contraceptive Benefits of
Birth Control Pills
Cycle-related:
Cancer reduction:
Ovarian
Endometrial
Colorectal