Go to Content Go to Navigation Go to Navigation Go to Site Search Homepage

Skipping the non-hormonal birth control pills (aka placebo pills, “sugar” pills, or reminder pills) in your pill pack won’t cause any side effects. The non-hormonal pills are just there to help you remember to take your pill every day and start your next pack on time. Sometimes the non-hormonal pills also have supplements in them, like iron, which can be good for your general health but aren’t needed for pregnancy prevention. 

If you skip your non-hormonal pills and jump right to your next pill pack without taking a break, you’ll skip your period. You can do this every once in a while (like for a special occasion), or you can do it every month. It’s totally safe to use birth control pills to skip your period, and it won’t affect how well they work to prevent pregnancy. However, if you do this you may have some spotting, especially if you haven’t done it before or only do it every now and then. This is totally normal and safe.

If you don’t take the hormone-free pills and instead just take a break from taking your pill on those days, you’ll still get your period. Just make sure you remember to start your next pack on time, or you’ll be at risk for pregnancy.

Tags: birth control pills, placebo pills, sugar

Explore more on

We and our third partners use cookies and other tools to collect, store, monitor, and analyze information about your interaction with our site to improve performance, analyze your use of our sites and assist in our marketing efforts. You may opt out of the use of these cookies and other tools at any time by visiting Cookie Settings. By clicking “Allow All Cookies” you consent to our collection and use of such data, and our Terms of Use. For more information, see our Privacy Notice.

Cookie Settings

We, and our third-party partners, use cookies, pixels, and other tracking technologies to collect, store, monitor, and process certain information about you when you access and use our services, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences, or your device. We use that information to make the site work, analyze performance and traffic on our website, to provide a more personalized web experience, and assist in our marketing efforts. We also share information with our social media, advertising, and analytics partners. You can change your default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of required cookies when utilizing our site; this includes necessary cookies that help our site to function (such as remembering your cookie preference settings). For more information, please see our Privacy Notice.

Marketing

On

We use online advertising to promote our mission and help constituents find our services. Marketing pixels help us measure the success of our campaigns.

User Feedback and Session Replay

On

We use qualitative data from LogRocket, UserZoom, Hotjar and AB Tasty to learn about your user experience and improve our products and services. LogRocket allows us to view session replays.