Can I Take 3 Birth Control Pills At Once

News Picture: A Birth Control Pill You Take Just Once a Month? By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Dec. four, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists take developed a method that might eventually allow women to have nascency command pills merely once a month.

In lab experiments, the researchers institute that their tiny drug-delivery device -- contained within a gelatin-coated capsule -- worked as hoped: In pigs, it remained in the stomach, slowly releasing the birth control hormone levonorgestrel for up to one month.

Much work remains before it's set up for human being utilize. But the goal, the researchers said, is to give women an oral contraceptive pick that is easier to take -- and potentially exist more than constructive.

Traditional nascence command pills have to be taken daily, which can be difficult. Surveys have shown that well-nigh half of women on "the pill" missed at least i dose in the previous three months, or took their pills at the wrong time.

Imperfect use means the pill does not always work. On average, the method is 91% constructive at preventing pregnancy, according to Planned Parenthood.

"Certainly one of the theoretical benefits of this drug-delivery system is that it could maximize the efficacy of [birth control pills], because it doesn't depend on daily use," said senior researcher Dr. Giovanni Traverso, from Massachusetts Found of Engineering and Brigham and Women'south Hospital in Boston.

That has withal to be shown. Simply Lyndra Therapeutics, a company founded by Traverso and others, recently received a $13 one thousand thousand grant from the Gates Foundation to farther the development of the arroyo and move it into human studies.

The current findings were published online Dec. 4 in Science Translational Medicine.

Right at present, women in wealthier countries accept a number of contraception options besides the pill -- including reversible, long-acting ones. Those methods -- intrauterine devices (IUDs) and contraceptive implants -- are highly effective at preventing pregnancy. But they take to exist inserted by a wellness care professional, which can be a barrier.

A once-monthly pill could be especially useful in developing countries, where health care resources are scarce, according to Traverso.

Information technology would be "easily used, cocky-controlled and low-profile," he said.

Merely even in countries similar the Usa, Traverso said, a long-acting pill could appeal to many women who desire an oral course of birth command that is more convenient.

An expert not involved in the study emphasized the importance of choice.

"What we know for sure is that birth control isn't one-size-fits-all," said Dr. Gillian Dean, senior medical director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

"It's important that we go on to behave research on new methods that will aggrandize the range of options bachelor, so that people can selection what works best for their lifestyle and body," Dean said.

The current study builds on previous work by the MIT researchers, looking at ways to evangelize daily medications -- including those for HIV and malaria -- on a monthly ground.

The centerpiece is a tiny star-shaped device that is placed in a gelatin-coated capsule so it can be swallowed. Once in the tum, the sheathing dissolves to reveal the device, whose "arms" expand and so that it'south too big to pass into the modest intestine.

It stays in the tum -- "floating freely," Traverso said -- and gradually releases levonorgestrel over time. In tests with pigs, the device released adequately constant levels of the hormone for up to four weeks. In contrast, levonorgestrel given past standard tablets only lasted a mean solar day.

The researchers volition continue to study the safety of the arroyo in animals, Traverso said. In order to translate it to humans, the device volition be designed to break down after three to four weeks, then be expelled through the digestive tract. The researchers are working on ways to trigger the device arms to snap off -- via changes in pH or temperature, for case.

Scientists are working on other ways to expand women's contraception options.

A written report published last calendar month in Science Advances reported on early on piece of work into a patch that could provide nativity control for a month or more than. The patch is pressed against the pare for a minute, leaving behind an array of "micro-needles" under the skin that contain levonorgestrel. The needles biodegrade over time, slowly releasing the contraceptive into the blood.

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References

SOURCES: Giovanni Traverso, M.D., Ph.D., gastroenterologist, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, and assistant professor, mechanical engineering, Massachusetts Constitute of Engineering science, Cambridge, Mass.; Gillian Dean, M.D., senior medical director, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, New York City; Dec. 4, 2019, Scientific discipline Translational Medicine, online