Scientists made a new research about safety of birth control patch. It appeared that the women using the patch have a greater risk of blood clots than pill users. This made FDA (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) add warning information to the drug label for the contraceptive skin patch.

For the review, the researchers compared women who were taking pills, using patch and using ring. During the experiment, 11 randomized controlled trials were held. Three of them were to compare the patch to the pill, and eight comparing the ring to the pill. More than 6,000 women took part in these trials.

As a result, scientists concluded that women using the patch were more likely to use the medication as prescribed than those who used pills. Anyway, women who used patch experienced more side effects. Also it appeared that latest were more likely to abandon their method eventually than pill users were.

As for ring users, they mainly had much less serious side effects than pill users, but had more vaginal irritation and discharge. However, those who used vaginal ring, stuck to this method much more.

Lopez, the head of the research, said that women have to think about many things before choosing one kind of contraception. Here everything is important: whether the contraceptive mean is easy to use, if it has side effects and how severe they are; besides, the concrete life situation play important role. For a contraceptive to be effective, the woman must be willing and able to follow the suggested dosing schedule.