Articles
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?
What is the difference between continuous-use and extended-use birth control?
In general, there are two ways to use hormonal birth control to reduce the number of periods you have:
- Continuous-use birth control is when you take active hormones for a year or longer, with no breaks. Because you do not stop taking active hormones, you do not have withdrawal bleeding.
- Extended-use birth control is when you extend the amount of time you take active hormones to longer than the typical 21 days. But over the course of the year, you periodically take breaks from the hormones, during which you experience withdrawal bleeding.
