Common Side Effects
Different sources note different incidences of side effects. The most common side effect is breakthrough bleeding. A 1992 French review article said that as many as 50% of new first-time users discontinue the birth control pill before the end of the first year because of the annoyance of side effects such as breakthrough bleeding and amenorrhea. One study found that women using birth control pills blinked 32% more often than those not using the contraception.
On the other hand, the pills can sometimes improve conditions such as pelvic inflammatory disease, dysmenorrhea, premenstrual syndrome, and acne, reduce symptoms of endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome, and decrease the risk of anemia. Use of oral contraceptives also reduces lifetime risk of ovarian cancer.
Read more about this topic: Combined Oral Contraceptive Pill
Famous quotes containing the words common, side and/or effects:
“For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”
—Bible: New Testament St. Paul, in 1 Timothy, 6:7.
The words also appear in the Book of Common Prayer, “Burial of the Dead.”
“As I went forth early on a still and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping; on this side huddled together, with their gray hairs streaming, in a secluded valley which the sun had not penetrated; on that, hurrying off in Indian file along some watercourse, while the shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide their diminished heads in the snow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Whereas Freud was for the most part concerned with the morbid effects of unconscious repression, Jung was more interested in the manifestations of unconscious expression, first in the dream and eventually in all the more orderly products of religion and art and morals.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)