It is a fact that periods appear just at the wrong moments to make your life miserable. It is a nightmare if your date is approaching just when you have a big event coming up or planning a holiday.
But some birth control pill tricks can help you skip your worries about sanitary napkins, tampons and period cramps to give you the freedom to enjoy life.
Why do periods happen?
Every month an egg is released from your ovary and your uterus is lined with blood to receive the embryo. When you fail to get pregnant, the lining of blood is shed from your body in the form of your period to help you prepare for another cycle.
The week of your period is your non-fertile week that gets you ready for a new cycle or period of fertility where you can get pregnant.
Taking birth control pills is a popular form of contraception to prevent from getting pregnant.
How do birth control pills help in delaying periods?
A traditional pack of birth control pills contains 28 pills for a normal 28 days menstrual cycle. 21 pills are active in nature and contain hormones that control your fertility to prevent you from getting pregnant.
The rest of the 7 pills are inactive and make you bleed normally like you do on your period. This is a phase of withdrawal bleeding that maintains the cycle.
However, if you skip taking the inactive pills that let you have your period, and instead, start a new pack of active pills, you don’t have to face your period at all. Bleeding during the phase of taking inactive pills does not happen for the same reason as a normal period.
This is an estrogen related withdrawal bleeding that happens as a bodily response to the withdrawal of the pills. Therefore, it is not necessary to have the bleeding at all.
You can skip it if you want to. Birth control pills help to regulate this menstrual cycle and thus you can skip the bleeding phase for personal reasons.
This means that you can prevent from having a period if you take the active pills that suppress your fertility for 21 days and then skip having the inactive pills.
Instead, you again start taking the active pills so that there is no break in between at all. It is safe to do so for 2-3 months as per experts. Yet, you can go to the doctor once to know about this in details and get checked whether you are fit to do so.
Also understand very well which pills are the active ones in your pack and which are the inactive ones.
Benefits
By delaying your period, you can be completely free from having menstrual symptoms during a time you are not ready for it. It may be health reasons that may drain you out further if you have your period.
Conditions like anemia, migraine and asthma get worsened during your periods as they make you more fatigued and irritated. Due to other personal reasons like vacations, sports, important events coming up or an examination too it would be better if you do not have it during certain periods of life.
It is also helpful for those with irregular periods or heavy, prolonged periods of bleeding.
Risks
Experts say that there is no risk in stopping or delaying your periods using birth control pills since this is not your normal period that can cause health risks if stopped.
Therefore, you can easily delay them or prevent them from happening without any worry. But even though they are safe, you should consult a doctor to ensure you are medically safe to use birth control pills to delay your period.
Do not be scared if you see spotting between periods during the first few months of using birth control pills as these are common. They go away with time you’re your body begins to adjust to this schedule.
However, it is recommended that all women at first should ask their doctors for their opinions as each body works differently and there may be other complications that can arise. So, it would not do you much harm to ring up the doctor once.