FDA Approves a Pill that Stops Menstruation

With the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of the first birth control pill to stop menstruation, women may now breathe easy or else having periods for many women were nightmare. The pill is expected to be available by July.

Earlier also, many pharmaceutical firms had tried to stop menstruation period but met with little success.

Berlex's Yaz and Warner Chilcott's Loestrin managed to reduce the periods to three days or less while Duramed's Seasonique, and the older Seasonale, reducethem to three or four times in a year.

But Wyeth has come out with Lybrel that will stop menstruation cycle once and for all.

Many gynecologists are supporting the move by the FDA to approve Lybrel. These gynecologists have been advising women to neglect the seven placebo pills that allow a period. Avoiding periods this way helps in easing painful periods, or excessive bleeding.

Stating women don't need periods, Paul Blumenthal, a contraception researcher and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University School of Medicine said the fact that birth control pills were prescribed for periods was the point in proof of women desire to stop periods.

She went on add that historically women had less periods because of the time they were either pregnant or were nursing the kids.

Taking contraceptives on a regular basis has its negative impacts too. If someone continuously takes contraceptive then instead of monthly bleeding, women often get spotting randomly.

During the clinical trial that Wyeth conducted on 2,402 only 921 women were found taking contraceptive a year later.

Many women had experienced side effects like nausea and headaches, which are generally found with oral contraceptives, but others came out of the trials because of unpredictable bleeding or spotting.

Of all the women who took Lybrel for a year, around 40 percent still had intermittent spotting while 20 percent women complained of heavy bleeding that made them use sanitary napkin or tampon.