What do oral contraceptives do?

The way the birth control works is fairly straight forward. Okay, so I'm sure controlling the hormones involved isn't so simple, but the affect on a woman's body is fairly easy to understand. From what I can tell, it plays out the same way whether you're on a combination pill (estrogen and progestin), or the minipill (progestin only).

(Sorry, I haven't really talked about the difference between the combination pill and the minipill. Having to research my posts takes way more time than just throwing my thoughts all slap-dash together in a few paragraphs.)

Basically, when a woman takes an oral contraceptive, it causes the mucus in her cervix to thicken, while thinning the lining of the uterus, preventing an egg to implant there. Taking an oral contraceptive can also prevent ovulation all together. Simple, right? Hm.

Here's a website from the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals that has a nice animated graphic on how menstruation works and how it's affected by different birth control methods: http://www.arhp.org/hormonalcontraception/

Here's a link to the Mayo Clinic's resources on oral contraceptives: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/birth-control/MY01182/DSECTION=birth-control-pills

Here's a link to a fact sheet by the American Collage of Obstetricians and Gynecologists on the pill:
http://www.acog.org/~/media/For%20Patients/faq021.pdf?dmc=1&ts=20130416T2308279410

Here's a link from the Women's Health Resource Center, which is run by a non-profit organization called Healthy Women: http://www.healthywomen.org/condition/birth-control-pills

Finally, once again I give you the Wikipedia page on how oral contraceptives work (do you see a theme emerging?):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pill#Mechanism_of_action

Ciao,

Andrea

The history of oral contaceptives

As promised, today I'm going to provide a little history behind the development of oral contraceptives, or the Pill. I don't feel it's necessary to re-write the facts out in detail, but I hope the links below will be useful and provide some insight into how the pill came to be.

In short, humans have tried to control fertility dating back to the Greeks. The mechanics of how pregnancy occurs, however, wasn't discovered until the late 1800s. The earliest commercially available forms of birth control include materials such as diaphragms and suppositories, which were introduced in the 1890s.

In the 1930s, scientists started to understand that high doses of steroids such as androgen, estrogen, and progesterone prevented ovulation. At first these hormones were synthesized from animals, but due to the high cost of production alternative methods were tested, and eventually were extracted from Mexican yams. Further investigation into the use of progesterone to prevent ovulation began in the 1950s, including trials of treatments in women beginning in 1951. By 1957 the FDA approved the use of a drug called Enovid for use in menstrual disorders (the use of birth control wasn't permitted by law for some time yet).

Reports of side effects of the pill began to circulate in 1962 (including blood clots and heart attacks). Throughout the remainder of the 1960s data was gathered on the safety of the pill, culminating in the mandatory addition of a patient safety sheet to birth control pill packages in 1970. By the 1980s new, lower hormone doses of birth control became available.

Journal of the History of Medicine:
http://jhmas.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/2/117.full.pdf
This article provides history om the development of the pill.

PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/index.html
This site provides a variety of information, from history, to how the pill works.

CBC Digital Archives:
http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/health/reproductive-issues/the-birth-control-pill/looking-back.html
This link provides a look at the history of the pill from a reproductive rights standpoint.

American Chemical Society: 
http://portal.acs.org/portal/PublicWebSite/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/progesteronesynthesis/CNBP_027297
This link provides history on isolation of progesterone for prevention of pregnancy.

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pill#History
The wikipedia article on the history of the pill, easy to read, but never the first line for information.

Ciao,

Recall alert for birth control pills

Since I'm currently writing a series on oral contraceptives, I thought I would post this alert for a recall in all provinces of Canada (except Saskatchewan and Alberta) for Alysena-28 manufactured by Apotex. The code on the packages subject to the recall is: LF01899A. The recall has been issued because there may be two weeks of placebo pills rather than one.

The link to the CBC news story is here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2013/04/08/ns-birth-control-pill-recalls.html?cmp=fbtl

More information on the recall from Health Canada can be found here: http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2013/26663r-eng.php

Ciao,

Andrea