[wanna be a young mother]

Ok so I thought this was very interesting! I called my REI (infertility Dr.) the other day and asked him about birth control. I did this b/c my OB is on my case about NOT getting pregnant to soon with my second.....long story! Anyway my OB keeps trying to push birth control on me. I told her I didn't want to b/c I was on it for so long before that I thought it might be one of the reasons I had such a hard time TTC in the first place(took us 27 months!). She said if anything is would make me more "regular"! So I called my REI. Who by the way is the best of the best here in Chicago. Dr. Morris is all over the news. papers, mag.s, ect. He is VERY good at what he does! He has women from all over the world fly in to see him. Ok anyway back to my point. He's a great Dr. and I trust him 100% so if he tells me something I believe him but his answer to my birth control question took me by total surprise! I asked him if birth control is related to infertility. His answer was this article from his website. Here is what he sent me....


Approximately one-third of reproductive aged women still believe that taking oral contraceptives cause infertility or difficulty in achieving pregnancy after the pills are stopped. This is despite the fact that several studies in recent years have shown no effect of birth control pills on fertility.

Another study looking at the impact of birth control pills on fertility was recently presented at the 55th annual clinical meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

Dr. Maureen Cronin and colleagues followed women who discontinued birth control pills in order to become pregnant. The primary endpoint of the study was the time it took for these women to conceive. They also evaluated other factors such as age of the women attempting pregnancy, the type of hormones contained in the birth control pills used, and the length of time women took birth control pills before attempting pregnancy.

The group of women studied was already participating in a European study of birth control pills. The European study had enrolled about 60,000 new birth control pill users. During the study, 2064 (3.5%) of these women decided to stop birth control pills in order to become pregnant. These women were then studied for at least 2 years.


Birth control pills do not cause infertility
The results of the study were very reassuring. 21% of the women became pregnant within the first month after stopping birth control pills. The normal fertility rate in women for a single month is 20-25%. One half of the women were pregnant by three months. One year after they had discontinued birth control pills, about 80% of the women were pregnant, which also is similar to pregnancy rates among women who had never taken birth control pills.


Long term birth control pill use does not cause infertility
The study also refuted another widely held belief: that conception becomes harder the longer a woman is on birth control pills. Of those women who had taken birth control pills for two years or less, 79.3% had become pregnant within 1 year of stopping compared with 81% of women who had used birth control pills for more than 2 years. There was also no difference in the pregnancy rates based on the type of progesterone contained in the birth control pills. All birth control pills contain the same type of estrogen. No adverse effect was identified when comparing women under or over age 35. Although older women conceived less frequently than younger women, their results were similar to those seen in women who had never taken birth control pills.


Conclusion
One of the factors that tends to foster the belief that birth control pills cause infertility is when the regularity of women's menstrual cycles changes. While on birth control pills, women will have very regular periods regardless of any problems that may exist in their underlying reproductive system. When women stop birth control pills and those underlying problems then manifest themselves, their periods may become irregular. The birth control pills are blamed for causing the underlying problems instead of the more likely scenario which is that the birth control pills were merely covering up the problem.

The results of this study indicate that use of birth control pills do not affect a woman's ability to achieve pregnancy once the pills are stopped. Longer use of birth control pills does not impart a negative effect. The type of birth control pill taken is also irrelevant. Hopefully, the results of this study will become more widely known by both doctors and patients.



**Now my question to you ladies is this....how many of you believe it's true?

Do you think taking birth control is why TTC is so hard?
Do you think it messed you body up?
Do you think this study is wrong?
Do you think birth control causes infertility? or makes it worse?

** I figured this would be a nice debate! b/c I am lost on what to do now!

[quagmire8]

I voted 'i dont know' because all of the studies say that it doesnt make a difference, and they have strong evidence to back up that statement. at the same time, i just dont see how it couldnt affect it in some kind of way! i have known lots of people to come off of b/c and get pg without difficulty, and i have known ladies (myself included) that were on b/c for many years and have trouble! this is an interesting topic of conversation!

[twinzplus3]

I don't think that bc pills affect fertility i.e. the ability to get pg. I do believe that messing with your hormones may be one factor involved in m/c although there are not a lot of studies to support this.

What I also don't see is studies that compare a control group of women who have known fertility issues. (Maybe there are too many variables for that to be feasible?) For example, I've never seen a study that takes a group of women on hormonal bc, and then compares how much difficulty they had or didn't have getting pg. (In other words what I'm wondering is if hormonal bc doesn't exacerbate underlying conditions but has no affect on 'healthy' women.)

[Alejandros Mommy]

Ditto to what Val said...the other thing I was thinking was how about the women's age? Once you reach 26ish your chances of becomeing PG drop...how old where these women and did that play a factor in the study?

[wanna be a young mother]

Lessly-Everyone is under 25. The Dr. sent this for my age group (25 and under). The rate of course goes up for 25 and older!

Very good point Valorie. Somtimes I think the birth control made my PCOS worse. I gained a LOT of weight on it and my insulin resistance go worse as well.

I truly believe most women think that b/c it stops you from "O"ing that it throws your body off into thining it's not supposed to "O" every month. So when you get off it your body continues not to "O" b/c thats what its used to doing. With me PCOS effects "O" and so does birth control. So could the combo be the reason I had a hard time TTC Nevy? Who knows but I do believe it may be a factor!

[landj111]

Yes, I think because I too took birth control pills I'm now struggling with ttc. DH and I have been together for 11 yrs. for the first four yrs of our relationship we didn't think of birth control. I'm so glad we didn't get PG during that time because we had nothing. So, we decided that I should go on the pill. I wasn't very sure even fought against it for a while but, my doc talked me into it. The doc didn't do any kind of tests for anything before hand which now scares the heck out of me, Because not to long after I stopped taking the pill which was about five years now I found out I had a thyroid problem (hashimotos with thyroiditis) I now it seems far fetched but, I never had a thyroid problem before the pill. Yes, I strongly think that the pill caused something to wrong with my thyroid.

[angelic_ky]

i don't know... my cousin fell PG twice really easy after coming off the pill while her sister has been off for 2 years now and still hasn't fallen (both under 25)

[erinellakal]

I can only draw from my own experiences. Before I got pregnant with my first dd I had been on the pill for 6 years. It took me 10 months of ttc to get pregnant. With dd #2 I was only on the pill for a couple of months and it only took 7 months of ttc to get pregnant. After dd #2 i did not take any type of birth control we just didn't baby dance when i was ovulating(we thought!), think people call that the rythym method? We didn't have to TRY at all for this baby. He surprised us!
So the longer I was on the pill before ttc the longer it took me to get pregnant. You can call that evidence that it does effect fertility or coincidence.....you're call!
Oh and with #1 i was 23 and #2 i was 25 when i concieved. #3 i was 27.

[Nitwit]

I definately believe it's poo poo! lol... I got pregnant ON b/c and my friend who welcomed Gabrielle Madison Friday September 21, 2007 got pregnant 3 times on the depo shot! So no... it's POO POO!!!!! lol

[QueenAngie]

Originally Posted by wanna be a young mother

Lessly-Everyone is under 25!

Me too! I'm 25. (Add a few years).

I know friends that the 1st month they went off the pill got quickly pg.

And then there are others that all along had female/hormonal issues,
that had difficulty with conception.

You are correct in noting that sometimes the pill does regulate a problem cycle, but does not fix the underlying problem when the pill is stopped.

It is what it is
and
it does what it does.
When it is stopped.
That's that.
You have what you started with.

I hoped that you all followed that.

********
On a different note, I read in one of those most unusual occurances,
a family with 4 children,
she had a tubal,
he had a vasectomy,
and still they got pg with #5.