When someone gets pregnant while on birth control and then continues taking it daily until realizing they are pregnant, how does this not harm the fetus? Are there notable side effects from this?
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The active ingredients in birth control pills are estrogen and progesterone…two hormones that would be present in the female body anyway. The pill works by elevating your hormone levels to mimic pregnancy levels. (this is what prevents you from ovulating.) In a healthy pregnancy, your levels of estrogen and progesterone steadily increase throughout the pregnancy anyway. These hormones do a lot of the heavy lifting during fetal development, so they are not in and of themselves harmful to the fetus. There can be side effects from taking the pill during pregnancy, however. While it is not known to increase the risk of congenital defects, it may increase the risk of premature birth or miscarriage (or at least there appears to be a correlation in certain studies.)
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