If you want to become pregnant, stopping contraception is of course the first step. With some contraceptive methods, such as the condom, you can simply stop and become pregnant immediately. Stopping other contraceptives may take a little more time and attention.
What do contraceptives do?
Contraceptives prevent you from becoming pregnant after intercourse. There are roughly two ways in which contraceptives prevent pregnancy: there are contraceptives that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus and there are contraceptives that prevent the egg and sperm from coming together. Contraceptives can be further divided into hormonal and non-hormonal contraceptives.
Hormonal contraceptives
Hormonal contraceptives are methods and techniques that use hormones to block ovulation and/or the implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterus. Examples of hormonal contraceptives are the oral contraceptive pill, injection pill and the hormone-containing IUD (Mirena).
Non-hormonal contraceptives
Non-hormonal contraceptives prevent pregnancy without the help of hormones. Examples of non-hormonal contraceptives and methods are abstinence from sexual intercourse, coitus interruptus (the penis is withdrawn from the vagina before ejaculation), spermicidal paste, the copper IUD and the condom.
Getting pregnant: stopping contraception
If you want to become pregnant, you must of course stop using contraception . Some people become a bit more careless with their contraception (for example, they regularly forget to take the pill under the guise of “when it comes, it will come”), others consciously stop using contraceptives completely . You can simply stop using some contraceptives, such as the condom. In principle, you can then become pregnant immediately. With other contraceptives you need to take a little more time.
Birth control pill
The contraceptive pill often contains a combination of the hormones estrogen and progesterone. The hormone estrogen prevents pregnancy by stopping the maturation of an egg, while the hormone progesterone ensures that the mucus in the cervix becomes impenetrable to sperm cells. In addition, progesterone prevents the uterine lining from being prepared for implantation.
Stopping the contraceptive pill is therefore step one if you want to become pregnant. In principle, you can become pregnant immediately as soon as you stop taking the pill . Most women immediately return to a normal, natural menstrual cycle with associated ovulation a few weeks after stopping the pill . In other women it takes several months for the natural menstrual cycle to recover. Some women therefore choose to wait for a number of natural periods before trying to become pregnant. This has the great advantage that you can better estimate how many weeks late you are, because you can estimate your last ovulation more easily.
IUD and hormone rod (Implanon)
The IUD prevents pregnancy either by preventing the build-up of the uterine lining (the copper-containing IUD) or by making the mucus in the cervix impermeable to sperm cells (the hormone-containing IUD). You can have both types of IUD removed by your doctor if your menstrual cycle immediately recovers and you can become pregnant immediately.
Even after removing the Implanon hormone rod, which is inserted into the upper arm and releases hormones into the bloodstream for three years, your menstrual cycle recovers almost immediately, allowing you to become pregnant immediately .
Injection pill
The injection pill is a contraceptive method in which you receive the hormone progesterone by injection once every three months. The hormone then remains in the body for at least three months. When you stop taking the injection, it can take several months to six months before your menstrual cycle has recovered and you can become pregnant.