A new generation of oral contraceptive progestins: Guest Introduction

Abstract

When they were first introduced in the 1960s, oral contraceptives produced striking lifestyle changes for women of reproductive age. This convenient, non-coital contraceptive medium immediately became the most popular form of birth control in the industrialized world. In the several decades which have followed, pharmaceutical science has attempted to improve on those first, somewhat crude, orally active contraceptive steroids. In particular, contraceptive progestins have undergone a variety of generational changes which have led to more potent, less estrogenic and more specific contraceptive effects.