Women who have just stopped taking the pill should not become pregnant in the first three months. A Dutch study shows that there is an increased risk of preeclampsia and premature birth. The pill is increasingly causing a stir due to side effects. ‘Whether this is the drop that breaks the camel’s back I don’t know, but it does provide more insight into how we can treat women correctly,’ says lead researcher Marleen van Gelder.
A Dutch team of researchers has discovered that women who become pregnant within three months of stopping the contraceptive pill have a slightly increased risk of preeclampsia or premature birth. This is reported by the Radboudumc in Nijmegen (the Netherlands).
Whereas preeclampsia usually occurs in less than 3% of pregnant women, this group turned out to be 4%. The same increase was true for the risk of preterm birth. ‘The risk of these complications was therefore 1.5 times higher in our study compared to women who had not used the pill in the year before pregnancy’, says lead researcher Marleen van Gelder.
No cure yet
Both premature birth and pregnancy poisoning carry many complications for mom and baby. Premature birth refers to a child that comes into the world when it is not yet ready, before the 37th week of pregnancy. ‘This can have consequences just after birth, but can also cause complications once the child is a bit older or even an adult. So the impact does not only end up on the child, but sometimes also on the whole family,’ explains van Gelder.
The only way to treat preeclampsia is for the woman to give birth.
Pregnancy poisoning causes all sorts of different complications and can even be fatal for the mother. However, there is no cure for this yet. “The only way to treat preeclampsia is for the woman to give birth. Regardless of the moment in the pregnancy.’
Is the bucket overflowing?
The contraceptive pill is increasingly discredited because of its side effects, such as thrombosis or depressive symptoms. Now that an increased risk of preeclampsia and premature birth are also added to this list, in the case of a pregnancy within the first three months after stopping the pill, it is not surprising that there are concerns here and there.
‘I don’t know if this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but it does give us more insight into the consequences that oral contraception can have,’ says Marleen van Gelder. ‘We should also not forget that there are many benefits associated with the contraceptive pill. I think it’s especially important that we know how to treat women well and give them advice, before, during and after pregnancy.’
It has been proven that your body needs three to four months to restore the natural hormone balance after stopping the pill.
Further research and advice
After these results, van Gelder also wants to delve deeper into the subject. There were not enough participants to find out exactly which types of the pill in combination with the moment of stopping would cause more or less risk. More research will also be done in the future into the risks of hormonal alternatives such as the IUD, the contraceptive injection or the implant.
For now, Van Gelder’s advice is to wait a while after stopping the pill before trying to conceive. ‘We don’t know exactly whether the threshold is three months, because every body is different. It has been proven that your body needs three to four months to restore the natural hormone balance. Until then you can consider using a non-hormonal contraceptive’concludes Marleen van Gelder.
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