How quickly will my fertility return to normal after stopping the Pill?
Taking the Pill has no effect on long-term fertility, although in a minority of women it can take a few months for normal cycles and ovulation to resume. I generally advise stopping the Pill and using condoms for a month before trying to conceive so that a woman has at least one normal period before she falls pregnant, but there is little scientific basis for this. Is the Pill still the most effective contraceptive? It has never been the most effective contraceptive — sterilisation and long-acting reversible methods (LARCs) such as implants have that honour — but it is one of the most convenient. Clinical trials suggest a failure rate of less than 0.1 per cent, but in the real world, where women forget to take their pills, it can be a hundred times higher at closer to 5 per cent. Or to put it another way, if 20 women take the Pill for a year, one of them could fall pregnant. That is still a lot better than condoms, which have a real world failure rate of 1 in 7. What are the latest alt
