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Delaying your period with hormonal birth control
Are any birth control pills specifically designed to lengthen the time between periods?
Can you delay your period with traditional birth control pills?
Is it better to delay your period with 28-day birth control pills or with continuous or extended-cycle pills?
Content
How does it work?
What is the difference between continuous-use and extended-use birth control?
Which types of hormonal birth control can be used to delay periods?
What are the benefits of delaying your period?
Is it safe for all women to delay menstruation?
What are the drawbacks to delaying your period?
What can be done about breakthrough bleeding?
Can you delay your period with traditional birth control pills?
It's possible to delay or prevent your period with continuous use of any birth control pill. This means skipping the inactive pills and starting right away on a new pack. Talk with your doctor about this option.
Your doctor might recommend a schedule such as the following:
- Take active pills six weeks in a row. You'll need to use two pill packets. Take the active pills from the first packet, discard the remaining inactive pills, and then take the active pills from the second packet. Don't take a break between packets.
- Take the inactive pills from the second packet. When you've taken the active pills from the second packet, you'll have taken six weeks of active pills. Take the inactive pills from the second packet during week seven. This is when you'll have your period. To reduce withdrawal symptoms and unscheduled bleeding, your doctor may suggest taking inactive pills for only three or four days rather than the full seven days.
If you don't have unpredictable bleeding or other significant side effects, your doctor might suggest you take the active pills continuously for nine weeks in the next cycle and 12 weeks in the cycle after that.
