Women should wait 3 months after stopping pill before trying for pregnancy: study

Women should wait at least three months after stopping the pill before they try to get pregnant, according to researchers from Radboudumc in Nijmegen. Their study suggests that pregnancies that occur within three months after stopping the contraceptive pill are slightly more likely to have complications, Trouw reports.

The researchers looked at over 7,000 pregnancies. Of those, 1,050 occurred within three months after the woman involved stopped taking the pill. Those 1,050 pregnancies more often had complications like preeclampsia, said researcher and gynecologist Marc Spaanderman.

In the Netherlands, about 3 percent of women get preeclampsia. The Nijmegen study found that this risk is about 30 to 40 percent higher for those who become pregnant within three months of stopping the contraceptive pill. “In the end, you are talking about a chance of about 4 percent for women who become pregnant within three months,” Spaanderman told Trouw. That is still a limited risk, but preeclampsia can be very dangerous, especially in early pregnancy.

Pre-term birth is also somewhat more common and a lower birth weight - but that applies to all women who previously took the pill. Why this happens is unclear, though scientists suspect it has to do with the pill’s hormones taking time to leave the body completely.

“These are small numbers,” Spaanderman stressed. “But it is enough to think about. If you want to become pregnant, it is better to wait a while, until three months after stopping the contraceptive pill.” Use other contraceptives, like condoms, in the meantime.