Oral contraception for younger woman: the benefits of the low-dose pill.

Oral contraceptives provide the woman under 35 with the most effective and safest reversible method of birth control. As the estrogen content of oral contraceptives has gradually been lowered during the past 20 years, there has been a lessening of the side-effects first reported by the Royal College of General Practice in 1967. The research of two decades has brought about changes in "the pill". The most recent change has been the introduction of biphasic and triphasic pills with lower hormone dosages and fewer side-effects, but the same overall effectiveness and cycle control. Nevertheless, the percentage of women using OCs drops dramatically for those over the age of 25. Today's pills, with their lower hormone content, offer the physician a more flexible means of prescribing effectively for the individual patient.