In most cases, the use of birth control pills provides a reliable way to postpone menstruation. Many packages of birth control pills include a set number of pills that contain hormones used to prevent conception. They also include pills, often seven per pack, that are placebos. This means they have no affect on conception and are not used to prevent pregnancy; you will usually begin to bleed vaginally while you are taking the placebo pills. You may postpone menstruation by skipping the placebo pills and moving on to a new pack of pills right way.
It is important to note that you may use birth control pills to postpone menstruation, but the bleeding that normally occurs while you take the inactive birth control pills isn’t really menstruation. In a normal cycle, your hormones stimulate ovulation, and a nutrient-rich lining forms in your uterus. In the event that an egg is not fertilized and implanted in your uterus, your body begins to shed the uterine lining at the end of your monthly cycle; this is true menstruation. The bleeding you have when you take placebo pills, however, is really the body’s reaction to the absence of the hormones in the pills. As such, it is actually withdrawal bleeding instead of menstruation.
While traditional birth control pill packages include 21 hormone pills and seven that do not contain the hormones used for preventing ovulation, some birth control pills do not work this way. To postpone menstruation, you may also consider a type of birth control that does not involve any inactive pills. In such a case, every one of the pills you receive for a cycle will contain hormones that prevent ovulation and conception. Since you won’t take any inactive pills, you should not have any menstruation-like bleeding.
You may prefer to use a traditional type of birth control pill if you are hoping to postpone menstruation for only a month or two. This way, you can begin taking your inactive pills again once you are ready to return to cycles that include withdrawal bleeding. If you want to postpone menstruation for a significantly longer time, however, a type that does not include inactive pills may be easier.
Generally, using birth control pills to postpone menstruation is thought to be safe. One potential problem with using this method is the fact that birth control pills are not 100-percent effective. It is possible that you could become pregnant while you are taking these pills. In such a case, you may be unaware of the pregnancy because you won’t have the missed period of menstrual bleeding as an obvious symptom.
