Using Contraception First Improves Pregnancy Health
Can birth control pills prior to trying for pregnancy preserve your eggs so that you ovulate a healthier egg? Maybe yes, and to lower your risk of Down’s Syndrome, or Trisomy 21 you may want to consider being on birth control pills prior to pregnancy. In a provocative but little heralded study published in Contraception researchers Nagy, Gyorffy, Nagy and Rigo from Budapest Hungary have discovered that use of contraceptive pills will result in fewer common fetal chromosome problems known as trisomies once a woman gets pregnant.
They propound that the protection of the ovary from ovulating less frequently is the reason that this is biologically plausible.
The research indicates healthy cells of the ovary, with normal chromosomes, die off faster than the unhealthy ones, and that women who get pregnant after 35 have more Down’s babies as they now have a greater % of these abnormal eggs that may ovulate. By protecting the ovulation of the healthy eggs, women can be protected against having a chromosomal abnormality like Down’s Syndrome. They compared information from 119 affected pregnancies and 92 controls. The researchers haven’t really studied the length of pill use that it takes to get this effect, but it is a provocative concept. This has to be considered a preliminary study, and bears more studies. But it has always been thought by experts that having a chromosomal abnormal baby or a baby with other birth defects is due to many factors, some of which are genetic, some of which are environmental, and some of which may be acquired (such as infection or vitamin deficiencies); thus all would agree, the way to best have a healthy baby is to gab with your gyno before conception.
