Birth control and infertility: Does using birth control hurt my chances of getting pregnant later?

In the U.S., about three in four sexually active people under 30 who have a uterus are using some type of birth control. Many of them ask me, does using birth control now hurt my chances of getting pregnant in the future? Sigh of relief: it does not.

All reversible birth control methods—the pill (prescription and OTC versions), patch, ring, shot, IUDs, and implant—will help prevent pregnancy while you’re using them, but none have long-lasting effects on your ability to get pregnant when you stop. That’s why people who use the pill but accidentally forget to take it on time can get pregnant that month.

Let’s look, for example, at how long it takes for people to get pregnant when they quit the pill compared to when they quit non-hormonal fertility awareness methods (FAM, sometimes called natural family planning). A big study of over 2,000 people who quit the pill after using it for an average of seven years found that 21% were pregnant in one month and 79% were pregnant in a year. Those who stopped using FAM had very similar rates of pregnancy, with 20-25% pregnant in one month and 80% pregnant in a year. In other words, people who quit the pill get pregnant just as fast as other women, even if they’ve used the pill for years.

People who quit the patch, ring, or IUD get pregnant at similar rates. Contrary to popular myth, modern IUDs do not hurt your future fertility. For some people who stop using the implant or the shot (Depo-Provera), it can take a few extra months to start normal menstrual cycles again. There may be a delay of up to two months after stopping the implant and up to six months after stopping the shot, but this varies from person to person, and most people get pregnant soon after stopping these methods.

Okay, so birth control doesn’t hurt your chances of having a baby in the future. But there is something that does: untreated sexually transmitted infections (STIs). By the age of 25, one in two young people having sex will get an STI.

One of the most common STIs is a bacterial infection called chlamydia. It’s transmitted by sexual contact, and can be prevented by using condoms. It’s easy to treat with antibiotics, but it’s sneaky: more than half of people who have it have no symptoms. The longer an STI like chlamydia or gonorrhea goes untreated in the uterus or fallopian tubes, the higher the chance that it will cause scarring in the tubes that connect the ovaries and uterus. That scarring makes it difficult for an egg to travel the right direction, and hurts your chances of getting pregnant in the future.

If you had sex with a new partner and didn’t use a condom, you can still protect yourself by getting tested. Luckily, getting tested for chlamydia or gonorrhea is easy and painless: you just pee in a cup. Getting treated just means taking some pills for a week. If you test positive, there are a bunch of different ways you can tell a partner they should get tested. And for future reference, here are some tips for making sex safer.