How Fast Can You Get Pregnant After Stopping Birth Control?
- Aldrin V. Gomes
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
If you’re thinking about stopping birth control because you want to become pregnant, it’s fair to say you are not alone in wondering how long it will take for reproductive function to return to baseline. One of the many common misconceptions is that birth control can cause infertility, especially after prolonged use of the contraceptive. Current research results disprove this, providing evidence that this is not the case for most individuals. With that being said, the research also shows that the time it takes for someone to become pregnant varies from person to person, depending on age, overall reproductive health, and baseline ovulation patterns. It is first important to understand how birth control works to help set expectations after discontinuation of its use.
How Does Birth Control Work?
Hormonal birth control is used for many different reasons and can be of different types, but here we are going to focus on how it prevents pregnancy by stopping ovulation, meaning your body doesn’t release an egg in the first place. One way to think about it is like your brain and ovaries are constantly texting each other to coordinate when to release an egg. Many birth control pills contain progesterone, a hormone that “silences” these messages by letting your brain know that it needs to slow down the release of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). Once GnRH begins to slow down, levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) begin to decrease. Without these signals, the ovaries don’t get the message to release an egg, preventing ovulation from happening, which decreases your chances of getting pregnant (Cooper & Patel, 2024).
Progesterone also thickens the cervical mucus, making it more difficult for sperm to pass through and reach the egg, almost like swimming through syrup instead of water. Some birth
control pills also contain estrogen, which is another hormone important to the reproductive system, that adds an extra layer of protection to keep other important hormone levels low. However, progesterone is still the one to do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to preventing ovulation (Cooper & Patel, 2024).
So, How Quickly Does Fertility Return Then?
Hormonal birth control doesn’t completely “turn off” your fertility, it just pauses it for the time being. Once you stop using birth control, your body will resume its normal function, but the timeline varies depending on the type of birth control you are on: birth control pills, intrauterine device (IUD), implants, or injections.
Ovulation can resume within a few weeks in individuals who discontinue birth control pills, but it may take months for the menstrual cycle to return to baseline. A large systematic review and meta-analysis, which combines results from many different studies, found that about 87% of individuals who stopped taking oral contraceptives became pregnant within 12 months of stopping (Girum & Wasie, 2018). They also found data to support that fertility returns after IUD removal since IUDs don’t permanently alter hormone production or reproductive functions, so individuals can try to conceive right away. From the same publication, approximately 84.8% of individuals who had their IUD removed became pregnant within 12 months (Girum & Wasie, 2018). Similarly, with implants, they continuously release hormones while in place, but once they are removed, fertility returns within a few months. In numerical value, about 83.5% of implant users became pregnant within 12 months of getting the device removed (Girum & Wasie, 2018).
More recent research also shows that pregnancy can occur much sooner than many people expect. One study found that among hormonal IUD users, about 8-19% became pregnant within just 1 month, and roughly 35-43% conceived within 3 months of removal (Zhang et al., 2023). Implants show a similar pattern, with some individuals becoming pregnant as early as two weeks after removal and up to about 13-29% conceiving within 3 months (Zhang et al., 2023).
While oral contraceptives and injectable methods may have a slightly longer average time to conception, around 5-7 months, this does not mean pregnancy cannot occur earlier (Zhang et al., 2023). Instead, it highlights that fertility can return quickly for many individuals and a significant portion are able to conceive within the first few months after stopping birth control.
What Factors Affect How Quickly Pregnancy Occurs?
There are many determining factors associated with how quickly pregnancy will occur, and everyone’s timeline is different. One of the biggest factors is age, since fertility begins to decline over time regardless of the use of hormonal birth control. This decline is gradual and is seen as a lower chance of conception with each menstrual cycle as age continues to increase (Dunson et al., 2002). The decline in fertility becomes apparent in the early 30s and continues to decline with age, causing conception to take longer than it normally would in younger years. Other factors also play a role, including irregular ovulation, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and endometriosis, among other reproductive disorders (American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 2021).
Conclusion
Stopping birth control doesn’t mean you’ll be waiting a long time to get pregnant or that your fertility has been affected. In most cases, reversible contraceptives like pills, IUDs, implants, and injections don’t have any long-term impact on fertility. For many people, fertility starts to return within a few months after stopping. Your body may take a little time to get back into its normal rhythm, especially as menstrual cycles regulate again, but most people are able to conceive within the first year. The timing really varies from person to person and has much more to do with individual health factors than past birth control use. At the end of the day, things like age, ovulation, and overall reproductive health matter far more than whether or not you’ve used birth control in the past. Knowing that can make the transition a lot less stressful if you’re starting to think about pregnancy.
Written by Caitlin Kidder, BS, and edited by Aldrin V. Gomes, PhD
References
Cooper, D. B., & Patel, P. (2024). Oral contraceptive pills. StatPearls Publishing.
Dunson, D. B., Colombo, B., & Baird, D. D. (2002). Changes with age in the level and duration of fertility in the menstrual cycle. Human Reproduction, 17(5), 1399–1403.
Girum, T., & Wasie, A. (2018). Return of fertility after discontinuation of contraception: A
systematic review and meta-analysis. Contraception and Reproductive Medicine, 3, 9.
Practice Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. (2021). Fertility
evaluation of infertile women: A committee opinion. Fertility and Sterility, 116(5), 1255–1265.
Zhang, Y., Li, X., & Wang, J. (2023). Return to fertility following the discontinuation of progestin-only contraceptives. Gynecology and Obstetrics Clinical Medicine, 6(2), e000192.
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