A new birth-control pill named Seasonale promises to reduce the frequency of women’s periods, from every month to four times a year. The contraceptive pills, approved by Food and Drug Administration yesterday, aren’t a new chemical. They contain the same combination of low-dose Estrogen and Progestin found in many oral contraceptives.Nor is the idea of menstrual suppression new. For decades, many doctors have told women how to skip a period by continually taking the active birth-control pills in each month’s supply and ignoring the week of dummy pills in each packet.Seasonale promises to make the option a more convenient, with packaging that gives women 12 straight weeks of active pills and then a week of dummy pills for their period. And the FDA’s approval means menstrual suppression could become common as Seasonale’s advertising alerts women to the option. However, Seasonale isn’t perfect, FDA cautioned.While women have fewer periods, studies show Seasonale users have about twice the risk of unexpected ‘‘breakthrough’’ bleeding between periods as woman taking conventional monthly cycle pills, especially in the first few cycles of use.Also, 7.7 per cent of Seasonale users dropped out of studies citing unacceptable bleeding, compared with 1.8 per cent of women taking conventional pills.The manufacturer, Barr Laboratories, plans to have prescription-only Seasonale in pharmacies by November. Barr said its price will be comparable to other oral contraceptives, which sell for roughly $1 a pill.Having fewer periods ‘‘was fabulous,’’said Shannon Zaichenko, 27, of Chesapeake, Virginia, who spent three years in a study of Seasonale. — PTI
