Tips for getting pregnant after birth control
If you are planning to get pregnant soon, here are some things you need to know about stopping birth control.
1) Barrier methods
Barrier methods such as condoms, diaphragm and cervical cap do not affect your fertility. If you use one of these methods and want to get pregnant, stop using it. Do not worry: Spermicides used with barrier methods can not harm a pregnancy. Even if you accidentally get pregnant using a spermicide, it will not hurt your baby.
2) Natural birth control
To get pregnant after using a natural contraceptive method, such as weaning, just stop. If you used fertility awareness methods, you could be particularly fit to try to conceive. If you have regular menstrual cycles, the information you have gathered from your cycle schedule can help you estimate when you are most likely to conceive. And if you’ve been familiar with the changes in your cervical mucus during your fertile period, you’ll have a valuable tool to identify when you’re about to ovulate.
3) The pill, the patch and the vaginal ring
All you have to do to reverse the effects of the pill, patch or ring is to stop using them. You do not even have to wait until the end of a monthly cycle. In any case, you will probably have your periods in a few days once you stop.
For many women, fertility returns as soon as they stop using these methods. Some may take a month to start ovulating again. You will know that ovulation returns to normal when you have your period regularly.
4) The mini-pill
Progestin-only mini-pills contain a very low dose of synthetic progesterone, which is quickly eliminated from your body. Contraceptive effects last no more than 24 hours after your last pill. (This is why users of mini-pills should be careful to take them almost every day at the same time). So you should consider yourself fertile the day after you stop taking the pills.
5) Injections
Birth control injections (Depo-Provera) are injections of synthetic progesterone administered every 12 weeks. You can be fertile only 13 weeks after your last injections. It can also take a year or more for you to start ovulating again. Half of women who stop taking injections to become pregnant succeed after six to seven months and more than 90% are pregnant within two years.
If you still not had your periods one year after your last injection, consult your doctor. Doctors do not know why it takes longer for some women to return to fertility, but this does not take into account the duration of the injections. The use of Depo-Provera does not affect your long-term fertility.
6) The implant
The progestin implant is a soft plastic shank the size of a match that is placed under the skin of the arm. Its contraceptive effect ends when it is removed.
7) The intrauterine device (IUD)
An IUD can be removed at any time during your cycle. You can try to get pregnant immediately. In general, your fertility will be the same as before the installation of the device.
8) What if my partner or I were spayed?
Contraceptive sterilization techniques such as tubal ligation and vasectomy are considered permanent methods of birth control. They are for those who are sure they will not want to become pregnant or have a child in the future. But people sometimes change their minds about such things.
Here’s what you need to know if you or your partner are hoping to reverse a sterilization procedure. In both cases, the inversion is expensive and complicated, without guarantee of success.
Your chances of getting pregnant after a tubal ligature reversal vary from 31 to 88 percent, depending on how that is done. You will be at higher risk of having an ectopic pregnancy if you conceive. If sterilization has damaged most of the fallopian tubes, an inversion may not be possible at all.
Male sterilization or vasectomy is also difficult to reverse. Between 30 and 75 percent of men who reverse a vasectomy succeed in pregnant women. Many factors are involved, but the longer it lasts since surgery, the less likely it is that the reversal will succeed.
