Sometimes it is useful to swallow the pill. Because your period is not right now, or out of convenience. Is it bad to swallow the pill?
Gynecologist Lucie Ribbert: "The bleeding that occurs during the stop week of the pill is not a real period, but a bleeding that is triggered by the lowering of the hormone progesterone in your blood. The gap week and the withdrawal bleed are not required monthly.
When the pill came on the market in the 1960s, it turned out that the first women who started using the pill wanted to have a monthly bleed for various reasons. This is the main reason why there are still 21 tablets on a pill strip and why the withdrawal period lasts seven days.
Single-phase pill
With a single-phase pill (all tablets in the strip have the same amount of hormones) you can postpone the menstruation by starting a new strip immediately after the 21 tablets of the first strip, without a break week. In general, it is recommended to take a break after three strips.
You can also choose to take the single-phase pill until you have breakthrough bleeding. With breakthrough bleeding, you stop for seven days. Then you start taking the pill again until the next breakthrough bleeding. This way you can limit the number of bleedings per year. This can be pleasant during intensive sports and holidays, but also, for example, if you have a headache during the stop week or if you have a lot of abdominal pain during the withdrawal bleed. It is important for the reliability of the pill that you never stop for longer than seven days.
Two or three phase pill
With the two- or three-phase pill (the tablets in the strip do not have the same amount of hormones), a different rule applies, which you can read in the package leaflet. With these pills you can only delay short-term and withdrawal bleeding. If you want to postpone the withdrawal bleed for more than one week, you can consider replacing the two- or three-phase pill with a single-phase pill.'
