Not too many days go by in my clinic, where I don’t hear a woman tell me how their doctor put them on the oral contraceptive pill to regulate their periods. Reasons for this could be painful periods, heavy periods or irregular periods, maybe due to PCOS or maybe for unknown reasons. The common belief is that they are experiencing a regular period, usually lighter, maybe less painful.
How does this work? How can the pill regulate your period to a “normal” cycle? What most women don’t understand is that the pill shuts down your reproductive cycle, it shuts down your hormones, and the synthetic hormones in the pill take over. What this means is, that you are actually not getting a period while taking the oral contraceptive pill. Pill withdrawal bleeds are not periods. These bleeds are induced bleeds due to the withdrawal of hormones. They are organised to be every 28 days, but they could be every 50 days. Whenever you stop taking the pill, the body experiences withdrawal from the synthetic hormones and you have a “period”.
The pill does not regulate hormones, it switches them off entirely. This is where I come in. I see women every day who struggle to conceive and quite often previous use of the oral contraceptive pill has a big impact on their fertility. The body needs to “learn” again to produce the right hormones in the right balance without the help of synthetic hormones.
So if you are struggling to conceive and your doctor wants to put you on the pill to regulate your hormones, which is a bit ironic anyway, as the pill is a contraceptive, don’t be fooled. It is not possible for the oral contraceptive pill to regulate your hormones. It’s probably what messed up your hormones in the first place.
If you have any concerns please email leah@naturalfertilityaustralia.com.au.
