Obstetrician Picayune MS

The End of the Period?

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By Lisa Marshall

Some see menstruation as a curse that dashes vacation plans, cramps our bellies (and our styles), and wreaks havoc on our emotions. Others embrace it as a welcome sign of health and an integral part of womanhood. But in an age when a pill exists for everything, a growing number of women look toward one that can render their menstrual cycle something else entirely: optional.

Since the ’60s, the birth-control pill has allowed women to suppress ovulation (the release of an egg). If taken a certain way, it also allows women to suppress menstruation (the shedding of the uterine lining, aka your period). Today, “skipping your period is also an option, and I think a lot more women are going to start doing it,” says gynecologist Leslie Miller, MD, who founded the website noperiod.com in 2000 to promote the idea of using contraception to keep menses at bay.

A number of drug companies have made it easier than ever. In July 2007, Lybrel came onto the market as the first oral contraceptive designed not only to prevent pregnancy, but also to eliminate periods for a year or more. Before that came Seasonale and Seasonique, “extended-cycle” birth-control pills expressly marketed to reduce menses to four times a year—transforming “that time of the month” into “that time of the season.” Two other products, Yaz and Loestrin 24, reduce bleeding time to three days or fewer, while Depo Provera, a quarterly injection, and to a lesser degree the Merina intrauterine device (IUD), can actually halt periods completely.

For the cycle-stopping pills, the hormonal ingredients are virtually identical to those in the conventional birth-control pill introduced nearly 50 years ago. The big difference? They lack the seven placebo pills that prompt withdrawal bleeding (a sort-of “fake” or anovulatory period). “When you take the placebo pills, your estrogen and progesterone levels fall, and you shed your endometrium,” explains Susan Ernst, MD, chief of gynecology services for the University Health Service at the University of Michigan.

Unlike the conventional Pill, these new versions are marketed to all women (not just sexually active ones) by a slew of ads, industry-sponsored blogs, and websites touting “freedom” from that pesky bleeding. “Fewer periods. More possibilities!” cheers one Seasonale ad.

Not everyone brims with enthusiasm, however. Amid the media blitz has come a fury of outrage, from both physicians who fear we may be in store for another “women’s health experiment gone awry,” and feminists who wonder what message we are sending our daughters.

“It’s a horrifying prospect,” says Susan Rako, MD, a Boston psychiatrist and author of The Blessings of the Curse: No More Periods? ( www.Backinprint.com , 2006). “Encouraging healthy young girls and women to do away with their periods for the sake of convenience, without educating them about the health benefits of a normal menstrual cycle—as well as the risks of menstrual suppression—is irresponsible ...

Author: Lisa Marshall

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