Return to fertility after cessation of a continuous oral contraceptive.

Objective To evaluate the return to fertility among women planning to become pregnant after the use of a continuous regimen of levonorgestrel 90 μg and ethinyl E 2 20 μg. Design Descriptive analysis of pregnancy outcomes after participation in a contraceptive trial. Setting Multicenter trial. Subject(s) Participants in a phase 3 contraceptive trial who discontinued to become pregnant. Intervention(s) Eligible subjects were contacted at 3 and 12 months after treatment discontinuation to determine if and when they had conceived. Main Outcome Measure(s) Kaplan-Meier analysis displaying the time until conception after oral contraceptive discontinuation. Result(s) In the phase 3 trial, 34 of 2,134 subjects cited a desire for pregnancy as a reason for discontinuation. Of these, 4 were already pregnant before stopping treatment, 4 initiated other contraception, and 5 were lost to follow-up. Of the remaining 21 subjects at risk of pregnancy, the pregnancy rate was 57% at 3 months, 81% at 12 months, and 86% (18 of 21) (95% confidence interval 64% to 97%) at 13 months after discontinuation of treatment. Conclusion(s) These findings suggest that a continuous oral contraceptive with levonorgestrel 90 μg and ethinyl E 2 20 μg does not delay the return to fertility.