What happens if a pregnant woman takes birth control pills?
Probably nothing at all.
I guess the pill could make you suffocate? They are, however, pretty small. You could also get a bad batch of pills that are tainted with something like listeria. But the pills are very unlikely to do any harm to your baby from a medical point of view.
You can stop taking birth control if you know you are pregnant. It doesn’t help, and it’s always a good idea to stop taking medicines you don’t need. But I wouldn’t worry too much if you didn’t know you were pregnant and kept taking your pills for a while.
Birth control pills work because they contain hormones that are similar to hormones that are made by the body during pregnancy. Some pills also have a small amount of synthetic estrogen. All pills have a small amount of synthetic progesterone. But when you’re pregnant, what happens? Your body makes a huge amount of estrogen and progesterone.
“A woman will make more estrogen during one pregnancy than she will in her whole life when she is not pregnant,” says Healthline.
Your body makes so much estrogen on its own that the small amount from your birth control pill doesn’t make a difference. For example, it’s not uncommon for your estradiol blood levels to go from about 30–100 pg/mL before pregnancy (during your period) to well over 10,000 pg/ML in the third trimester[2].
And progesterone is so safe that it is often given to women in early pregnancy who are at a higher risk of miscarriage to keep them from having one[3]. Most of the time, it’s given as a shot or vaginal gel instead of a pill, which helps the body absorb it better.
Large-scale studies haven’t found that babies whose moms used birth control while pregnant are more likely to be born with birth defects. The worst thing I could find was that one study found a slight increase in wheezing[5], but that seems more likely to be a random error in the data than a result that can be repeated.
What will happen to me and the baby if I take birth control pills while I’m pregnant?
They won’t work as a way to stop babies from being born. Since you’re not ovulating every month if you’re pregnant, there’s nothing they can do.
They won’t be able to change the time, flow, or signs of your period because your hormone levels will be much higher than what’s in the pills. In fact, these high amounts of natural hormones put you at a much higher risk of blood clots, especially after giving birth, than any pill ever made to prevent them.
So far, there hasn’t been a case of a fetus or baby being hurt by a mother taking oral contraceptives while she was pregnant, and since current pills have much less hormones than those from a generation ago, there’s no reason to think this will change.
What happens if you get pregnant while taking birth control?
From what we know, there is no chance of birth problems. This study, which looked at more than 880,000 pregnant women, makes a strong case.
Oral contraceptives used by mothers and the risk of birth defects in Denmark: a national, prospective cohort study
Those who take birth control pills after getting pregnant may be more likely to have an ectopic pregnancy. So, if you or someone you care about gets pregnant while on the pill, it’s important to see an OB/GYN.
There may also be risks in late pregnancy, which are likely caused by the effect of hormones from outside the body on the endometrium and lead to poor implantation. So there may be a rare effect on the growth of the fetus that causes the baby to be small at birth. But I don’t know of any large studies that show that.
What would happen if a woman kept taking both birth control pills even though she didn’t know she was pregnant? Would this cause her to lose the baby?
I had this happen. I had to wait a few days to take my pills again because I didn’t get paid until then. I took the whole cycle, but nothing happened.
After a few days, I called the office of my doctor. They told me to come in and gave me a test to see if I was pregnant. It was a good thing.
I was worried about side effects, but the doctor said I should be fine.
After eight months, I gave birth to a healthy boy who weighed 9 lbs. 5 oz. He is now 6’5″ tall, pretty smart, and will turn 44 in August.
