New Pill Promises No More Periods for Women

On Tuesday, the FDA is expected to announce approval for Lybrel, a new birth control pill from Wyeth. Women have been looking for ways to avoid their period, as indicated by the success of recently-marketed pills that allow women to experience fewer periods each year. Lybrel, however, is the first birth control pill that would be FDA approved to allow a woman to skip her period indefinitely.

The name "Lybrel" is meant to conjure thoughts of "liberty." Other pills, like Yaz and Loestrin promise periods that are shorter in length, while Seasonique (the new version of Seasonale) is intended to reduce the occurrence of periods to 4 times per year. However, recent surveys indicate that up to half of all women say that they would prefer to skip their period altogether, which is the market segment that Wyeth seems to be targeting with Lybrel.

Some experts have raised concerns about the safety and wisdom of interrupting the menstrual cycle for extended periods of time. Paula S. Derry, a health psychologist from Baltimore, says "menstrual suppression itself is unnatural" and says there's not enough long-term safety date to support the practice. However, most doctor's agree that there is no medical reason that a woman needs to have a period and that periods can in fact cause major problems (like anemia) in some women. These doctors also note that women have been tinkering with their periods since birth control pills were developed with no widespread ill-effects.

The major problem with Lybrel seems to be with "breakthrough bleeding," which is bleeding that occurs outside of a woman's period. In one pre-approval study, 59 percent of women taking Lybrel had no bleeding after six months, however, another 18 percent of women dropped out of the study because of spotting and breakthrough bleeding. Some people see this as trading scheduled bleeding for unscheduled bleeding, a tough sell to say the least.