Can Birth Control Pills Cause Blood Clots?
Birth control pills or oral contraception are the most widely used tool to control unwanted pregnancy. But like the other drugs, oral contraceptive pills also are not free from side effects. Pills containing estrogen sometimes increases the risk of blood clots in the leg by making blood which has a tendency to clot.
This phenomenon is known as deep vein thrombosis or DVT. In the most complicated cases of DVT blood clot can travel to the lung which causes pulmonary embolism which can result in death. Usually women who are obese, suffering from a leg injury, addicted to smoking, have family history of blood clots, stroke, or heart diseases, suffer from severe migraines, have undergone a recent surgery and have high blood pressure are at higher risk of developing DVT; so they should consult a doctor before taking any kinds of birth control pills. Nowadays the pills contain only progestin, a synthetic form of hormone progesterone which does not cause blood clots.
But most of the pills consist of both progestin and estrogen which affects a woman’s ovulation cycle and the inner uterus lining when it is consumed for the prevention of pregnancy. Thus Estrogen is an important cause for hypercoagulability.
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