Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Safe Pregnancy

Question:
I know someone will be able to reassure me, since I'm a nervous wreck right now. My daughter, 19 and about to be married, has been on BC pills for almost 3 years. She has been taking BC faithfully every morning since she started them. She had a normal period Jan. 13. Her next one was extremely light...only spotting for 1/2 day. This month no period at all, took a pregnancy test last night, and immediately came up positive. What I'd like reassurance on....since she's been taking the BC pill ever since she conceived, will the baby be OK? She's calling her ob/gyn first thing Monday morning, but we'd love to hear some good news before then.

Answer:
*Please* don't worry - this is so, so common a thing to happen. All the BCP contains is tiny, tiny amounts of the female hormones that your daughter would be producing naturally. Your daughter might have freaked if she read the insert in the packet that says that they're not to be taken in pregnancy. But, in fact, its really just saying that on a technicality -ie that they haven't been *tested* to be safe in pregnancy, because nobody would be willing to carry out drug tests on pregnant women except for medically necessary drugs. So all it means is that no experiments have been done. However, *countless* women have conceived while on the pill, and many have ended up taking it for longer than your daughter has done. And there is no evidence whatsoever that it has ever done a fetus any harm. If its any consolation, I took far worse things than that before I realised I was pregnant with my daughter - barbiturates, sleeping pills, steroids, antibiotics, codeine, aspirin, alcohol...and she doesn't seem the worse for any of them, other than being born early, which was unrelated. This will not cause a problem. Modern pills are safe.