The Accessibility And Free Price For Birth Control

Availability of the birth control pill has a great impact on various aspects of people’s life, including woman's health, interpersonal relationships, fertility trends and sexual practices among both adults and adolescents. Birth control pill, also referred to as combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP). The COCP is a kind of pill designed for women. It can help to alter menstrual cycle, and avoid getting pregnant when taking properly (Wikipedia contributors 2019). In 1957, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed the use of this pill, not as a contraceptive, but a kind of treatment for irregular menstruation. The pill was not approved as a sort of contraceptive until 1960 (Nikolchev 2010). It is one of the greatest creations in 20th century, as it brings benefits to people and has a lot of advantages. The COCP can make periods better, and it is easy to get as well as effective.

The COCP can not only help preventing pregnancy, but also making periods more regular and lighter. There are more than 1.5 million women in the USA use it for non-contraceptive purposes, like regulate menstrual cycle and ease menstrual pain (“Many American Women Use Birth Control Pills for Noncontraceptive Reasons” 2011). The most of the combination pills are either 21-day packs or 28-day packs, and should be taken each day at the same time. For the 28-day packs, women take pills that contain hormones in the first 21 days, and the rest 7 pills are inactive, which means there is no hormones in these pills. The reason why people take inactive pills is that it can help users to stay in habit of taking a pill everyday. For the 21-day pack, people stop taking pills for 7 days after taking it 21 days in a row. And a woman has her period when stopping taking the pills contain hormone (“Planned Parenthood” 2019a). Therefore, the pills can make user’s periods more predictable and more consistent in timing. Also, the hormones in the COCP can reduce menstrual cramps, and result in less bleeding, which can relief the pain during periods.

The COCP is readily accessible, which means it can be bought easily. In some countries, women can directly get their prescriptions online or from a pharmacist. Women can even get birth control pills without a prescribe from doctors in more than 10 states in America now. This change means easier access to the birth control pills (Mui 2019). Moreover, the price of the COCP is low, and is affordable for most people.Since many insurance plans cover all methods of birth control, including birth control pills. So people have health insurance can get it at a low price or even free.