Our health correspondent Dr. Emily Senay explains. Women have been taking the birth control pill for more than 40 years to prevent unwanted pregnancy, and when used correctly it is an extremely effective method of birth control. Now there is more news about an advance that provides another option for women. It's the contraceptive patch, which is applied directly to the skin to deliver hormones into the bloodstream. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association compared the pill and the patch and found that the patch works just as well as the pill at preventing pregnancy, which is good news for women like Dawn Manroe, who used the patch as a study participant.
Doctors also say that the women in the study found the patch a welcome change from taking the pill.
The study also found that because women were much better at using the patch than the pill, the patch was much more effective. Any woman who has taken the pill knows that the biggest problem is remembering to take that little pill every day without fail. Every day you forget to take your pill, your chances of getting pregnant increase. The patch is easier because you only have to remember to change it once a week. It stays on for 1 week, and then a new patch is needed.