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Navigate: FAQ Home Page > Female -- Periods > Yaz and # of pills
Posted on: 04/29/2011
Question
Yaz has 24 days of active pills. Can you take just 21 active pills like other birth control pills so that you ultimately receive less endogenous hormone and then take a one-week break in order to allow for a period?
Answer
Yes--You could stay with the standard three weeks. BUT....
The reason they have added those three extra pills is that the minute you stop the pill your body starts to make an egg.
The "period" you experience is NOT a hormonal period which then is followed 14 days later by egg release. It is just bleeding and AS YOU are bleeding your body has started to make an egg that is ready for release on day eight or nine...(or seven?) By shortening the number of days you are off the pill it makes it less likely you will get pregnant.