Forgetting to take an oral contraceptive pill is a common mistake. So researchers decided to use text reminders to see if they would help women remember to take their daily birth control pill more easily.
Forgetting to Take the Pill Results in Millions of Pregnancies
Consumers may not think that forgetting to take the pill has consequences. However, experts have found that nearly 1 out of every 5 of the 3.5 million unplanned pregnancies result from missing the daily dose of birth control. Even forgetting to take the pill for one day can result in a pregnancy despite the type of oral contraceptive one is taking.
Given that missing that daily dose of birth control pills seems to be so common, researchers from the Boston Medical Center decided to explore whether a daily reminder message - in the form of a text message - sent to the woman's phone, would be an effective way to remind more women to take their pill.
Did Text Messages Help Women Remember to Take Their Pill?
Scientists split contraceptive users into two groups - one that received a pre-programmed text message reminder to take their birth control pill and another group who did not receive a text message reminder but were encouraged to use their own tips to help them remember. Over three months, the results of the study surprisingly showed that in both groups, the average number of missed days was five in a one month period. The group that received the text message reminders did not remember to take their pill more often than the non-text message group.
The fact that so many days were missed was a surprise to the researchers. In fact it was double the number of missed days that they had expected. They speculated that perhaps more women in other studies under-report the number of days they miss taking their pill.
Why Text Messages May Ultimately Help Women Remember to Take Their Pill
Since technology is so much a part of today's culture, the results of study did not add up. Why did text messages not help more women remember to take their pill? Researchers are not sure, but speculate that the group that used their own tips to remember to take their pill may have made a difference.
Another interesting finding is that researchers discovered over time, the text message group ultimately did perform better by remembering to take their pill over the non-text message group. More women in the non-text group forgot to take their pill as time went on, demonstrating that perhaps there may be a benefit to having a text message reminder after all.
Women Who Forget to Take Their Pill Can Program a Text Message Reminder
With all of the benefits of hand-held technology today, forgetting to take one's oral contraceptive pill does not need to happen as often as it does. For women who seem to have trouble remembering to take their pill, why not program your own reminder and have the text message sent to your phone every day?
Women can also program instructions into their cell phones for what to do if they forget to take their pill for one or more days just in case. According to web.md, here is a sample of instructions that could be programmed into a cell phone for emergency usage when a woman forgets to take her birth control pill:
If you forget to take a birth control pill, take it as soon as you remember. If you don't remember until the next day, go ahead and take 2 pills that day. If you forget to take your pills for 2 days, take 2 pills the day you remember and 2 pills the next day. You will then be back on schedule. If you miss more than 2 birth control pills, call your health care provider for instructions. Those instructions may be to take one pill daily until Sunday and then start a new pack or to discard the rest of the pill pack and start over with a new pack that same day. Any time you forget to take a pill, you must use another form of birth control until you finish the pill pack.
References:
Obstetrics and Gynecology, September 2010
Reuters' Health, Thursday 9/2/2010
webmd.com
Brenda Lane - Brenda Lane is a published author, Lamaze certified childbirth educator, DONA certified birth doula and approved birth doula trainer.
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