How does birth contol handle periods? I know itll depend on the medication but i guess it takes like a month to "stop" the cycle? Im not entirely sure
Only hormonal birth control will affect your cycle, except for the copper IUD which due to causing inflammation of the uterus tends to make you bleed heavier.
There are four main types of hormonal birth control: the pill, the depo shot, hormonal IUDs, and implants. I’ll go through them each individually.
The pill is the most diverse of the hormonal contraceptives as there are many different brands and hormonal configurations. Depending on brand you’d start either first day of your period or the day you stop bleeding and then take three weeks worth of hormonal pills and then one week of “sugar” pills, or pills that don’t have the hormones. During that last week you get your period. You can also skip taking the sugar pills and skip that period. The hormones will block it from happening. If you take the sugar pills or not doesn’t affect your risk of becoming pregnant.
With the depo shot you get it either every month or some variants every third week. During the first six to twelve months you may have spotting or irregular periods but this usually stabilize within a year. After that cycles are regular, or for some may stop.
Hormonal IUDs have a lower level of hormones in them than other hormonal contraceptives since they only need to be effective locally and not traverse the full body. Depending on the brand it one lasts 3-5 years. They are inserted just as you’ve stoped bleeding because the uterine lining will be thin, but you are still recommended to use a condom during the first month. Depending on brand and your body you may stop bleeding.
Implants are thin pieces of plastic inserted into the arm and will last 3 years. They are insterted on the first day of your cycle (the first day of the period) and like with an IUD you’re recommended to use a condom the first month. Most people experience reduced bleeding but some may stop completely.
All hormonal birth control work by hindering the body from ovulating. Regardless of if you have a period or not, and egg is never produced so that’s how they hinder pregnancy. Because they are started just at the beginning of your cycle, before an egg has had the opportunity to even starting to grow, they are very efficient from the get go, but because we sometimes mistake spotting for a period, we may get it wrong and an egg has already been released and so we get pregnant right away. Using a condom for four weeks will make sure that even if we started at the wrong time, the next ovulation will be hindered and so we will be up in the 99.7% effectiveness.
-mod liz
