WOMEN who take birth control pills for years actually improve their future ability to conceive, according to a British study.
Alexandra Farrow at Brunel University in Uxbridge, Middlesex, and her colleagues asked 8497 pregnant women to complete questionnaires. They inquired, among other things, about the women鈥檚 contraceptive pill use and how long it took them to conceive.
They found that even when they allowed for other factors such as age, smoking and drinking, women who used to take the Pill conceived quicker (Human Reproduction, vol 17, p 2754). 鈥淭hose who鈥檇 taken it for longer took less time to get pregnant,鈥� says Farrow.
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The mechanism is still unclear. But it does fit nicely with preliminary findings from the 1950s,when Catholic physician John Rock first tried using female hormones to stop ovulation 鈥� in an attempt to boost fertility.