Does The Birth Control Pill Work By Magic?
Ideally, the birth control pill (more properly, the oral contraceptive) should act like magic: You just take a little pill everyday and you don’t get pregnant. Simple. It is far from magic, however; and unfortunately it is far from simple for some women. To understand how “The Pill” works, you must first understand a little about how you might become pregnant. The birth phenomenon is a very complicated one, and conception itself is the culmination of many different processes on many different levels. One of the necessary conditions for conception, of course, is ovulation–the release of an egg for fertilization. This is the step that the oral contraceptive pill stops. The ovary is the small reproductive gland that releases an egg a month, ideally, for the purpose of fertilization. But the ovary itself is what we call an “end organ”; that is, it responds from stimuli elsewhere. It’s the pituitary gland in the brain that calls the shots for the ovary. The pituitary sends Follicle Stimula
