[[ I'll start this off by saying I'm not a doctor, again, so if you have any questions about your specific sexual or overall health, your health care practitioner would be the person to as ('cause they know stuff about your dangly bits and whatnot) ]]
The birth control pill is a chemical method of birth control (and department of redundancy department is redundant). As of right now it is being made for women only. There are two types of pills available, estrogen and progesterone pills. They do the same thing in two different ways. When used correctly, the pill is considered over 99% effective. They can't say 100% for anything because there is always a chance. The human body is a miraculous thing and weird shit happens all the time. The pill only protects against pregnancy. It does not protect against any kind of STD or STI.
How it works: Birth control pills inhibit pregnancy in three ways.
1. When taken properly, the pill will keep you from ovulating. No ovulation means no egg which means no baby. Coolbeans right?
2. The pill thickens your cervical fluids. This makes it harder for sperm to travel in your vagina.
3. The pill thins the lining of your uterus, so assuming the first two methods listed above fail, the fertilized egg will have a very difficult time implanting into the uterine wall. If this fails to happen the egg will be flushed from the body with your next period.
There are also different ways to take the pill. First is what is considered "perfect use." Perfect use is what it sounds like; taking your pill at the same exact time every day with no exceptions. Perfect use is what the statics reference when they say that the pill is over 99% effective.
Non perfect use is when you take a pill every day, but not necessarily at the same time. If you take a pill at 9am one day, then 4pm the next day, this is non perfect use. YOU ARE AT A HIGHER RISK OF PREGNANCY WITH NON PERFECT USE.
Personally, I give myself a five minute buffer. I feel comfortable with a 10 minute window (5 minutes before, and 5 minutes after the time I was supposed to take my pill). And I've been on one version of BC pill for years. Unfortunately, there have been no studies on how much time between pills is "too much."It doesn't look like this is something that will even be studied soon. Your best bet is to know yourself and know your body.
There are different kinds of pills, monophasic and triphasic. Monophasic pills are pills that have the same hormonal concentration in them for every active pill. Triphasic pills have a different hormonal concentration for each week leading up to the placebo pills. They are both effective in preventing pregnancy.
BC always has 4 to 7 placebo pills that are inactive that you take at the end of your active pills. This is the time that you'll generally get your period. Depending on your body you can skip these pills and go right into your new pack if you want to try to skip your period.
Moar on this later.
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