What is Yaz?
Yaz is a low dose combined birth control pill that protects you from getting pregnant. Because it contains lower levels of hormones than most other combined birth control tablets, it can be a good option if you’ve got side effects from other combined pills. And if you have acne, Yaz is an FDA-approved option to help reduce it.
A pack of Yaz contains 28 tablets: 24 active tablets (containing hormones) and 4 inactive tablets (to help you stay in the habit of taking a daily pill).
Who can use Yaz?
Yaz is for women of child-bearing age who want to avoid getting pregnant. Because it’s a low-dose combined pill, it can be a good alternative for women who have tried pills with higher doses of hormones and experienced side effects (like headaches and nausea).
But even with a reduced dose of hormones, Yaz still isn’t a suitable birth control option for everyone. Yaz isn’t suitable for people who have had (or are at a higher risk of) blood clots, a mini-stroke, kidney deficiency or failure, pancreatitis, liver disease, breast cancer, or unexplained vaginal bleeds.
This is because combined pills that contain estrogen can increase your risk of high blood pressure and clots. But it’s worth noting that this risk is higher when pregnant than it is while using combined birth control – and this is especially true with low-dose estrogen pills like Yaz.[1]
What are the benefits of Yaz?
Because Yaz is a low-dose birth control pill, it comes with a lower risk of hormonal side effects than its higher-dose alternatives. If you’ve experienced headaches, nausea, sore breasts, mood swings, or changes in your periods on other birth control pills, Yasmin could be a good alternative.
There’s also evidence that Yaz can help with ache, too. So if you’re living with acne and want to use birth control, Yaz could be a good option.
And it’s really easy to stop taking Yaz if you decide you want to try to get pregnant. While other birth control methods (like the coil or implant) might require meeting with a healthcare professional to remove, you can simply stop taking Yaz before you’re ready to try for a baby.
How do Yaz doses work?
Yaz only comes in one dose: a tablet containing 3 mg of drospirenone and 0.02 mg ethinyl estradiol. You’ll take Yaz in 28-day cycles, with packs of tablets containing 24 light pink active pills and 4 inactive ‘reminder’ pills. The active tablets are taken for the first 24 days of your cycle, and the inactive tablets are taken for the last four (when you should have a bleed similar to a period).
What is Yaz’s active ingredient?
Yaz combines two different hormones to protect you from pregnancy. They’re both synthetic versions of natural hormones: drospirenone is a type of man-made progesterone (sometimes called a progestin), while ethinyl estradiol is a synthetic version of estrogen.
How do Drospirenone and Ethinyl Estradiol work?
The drospirenone and ethinyl estradiol in Yaz work in three ways to help stop you from getting pregnant.
The main method is by preventing ovulation. Stopping your ovaries from releasing an egg means the egg can’t become fertilised, and you can’t get pregnant. The second line of defense is thickening your cervical mucus, which should stop sperm from passing through to reach the egg. Finally, these hormones stop your uterine wall building up, which means that if an egg did become fertilised, it wouldn’t be able to implant and develop in the uterine lining.[2]
How does Yaz help Acne?
Yaz could help with acne because the hormones it contains can lower your levels of androgens. Androgens are hormones involved in sebum (skin oil) production, and having too much sebum can clog your pores and lead to acne. So taking Yaz can lower how much oil your skin makes, which could in turn help reduce acne symptoms.[3]
