i don't know how i feel about this

at first i was appalled, now i'm not quite sure. i am not a doctor and the doctors in this report don't seem to have issues with this. i somehow am not really buying that. it cannot be healthy for a woman's body to surpress her period for years and years. what happens at a later date if she decides to bear a child? how easy is that going to be? long term effects have NOT been studied.

Menstruation Is Fast Becoming Optional

By LINDA A. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Sun May 21, 6:45 PM ET



TRENTON, N.J. - For young women with a world of choices, even that monthly curse, the menstrual period, is optional.
Thanks to birth control pills and other hormonal contraceptives, a growing number of women are taking the path chosen by 22-year-old Stephanie Sardinha.

She hasn't had a period since she was 17.

"It's really one of the best things I've ever done," she says.

A college student and retail worker in Lisbon Falls, Maine, Sardinha uses Nuvaring, a vaginal contraceptive ring. After the hormones run out in three weeks, she replaces the ring right away instead of following instructions to leave the ring out for a week to allow bleeding. She says it has been great for her marriage, preventing monthly crankiness and improving her sex life.

"I would never go back," said Sardinha, who got the idea from her aunt, a nurse practitioner.

Using the pill or other contraceptives to block periods is becoming more popular, particularly among young women and those entering menopause, doctors say.

"I have a ton of young girls in college who are doing this," says Dr. Mindy Wiser-Estin, a gynecologist in Little Silver, N.J., who did it herself for years. "There's no reason you need a period."

Such medical jury-rigging soon will be unnecessary. Already, the Seasonale birth control pill limits periods to four a year. The first continuous-use birth control pill, Lybrel, likely will soon be on the U.S. market and drug companies are lining up other ways to limit or eliminate the period.............

............The period is "way over-romanticized," says Linda Gordon, a New York University professor specializing in women's history and the history of sexuality. (OVER ROMANTICEZED? by whom? certainly NOT by ME or any OTHER woman i know. shite, i don't know who ms gordon has been hanging with. every woman i know has always COMPLAINED about cramps and discomfort and on and on and on.)
"It doesn't take long for women to go from being excited about having a period to feeling it's a pain in the neck," said Gordon, author of "The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America."

She says caution is needed because there's not enough data on long-term consequences of using hormones continuously. Gordon notes menopausal women for years were told that hormone drugs would keep them young — until research uncovered unexpected risks.

"People should proceed very cautiously," she says.

Today's birth control pills contain far less estrogen and progestin than those two generations ago, but still increase the risk of heart attack, stroke and blood clots. The pill should not be used by women who have had those conditions, unexplained vaginal bleeding or certain cancers, or if they are smokers over 35..........