The combined oral contraceptive pill referred to as the birth control pill or colloquially as "the pill", is a type of birth control, designed to be taken orally by women. It includes a combination of a progestogen; when taken it alters the menstrual cycle to eliminate ovulation and prevent pregnancy. They were first approved for contraceptive use in the United States in 1960, are a popular form of birth control, they are used by more than 100 million women worldwide and by 12 million women in the United States. From 2015–2017, 12.6% of women aged 15–49 in the US reported using oral contraception making it the second most common method of contraception in this age range with female sterilization being the most common method. Use varies by country, age and marital status. One third of women aged 16–49 in the United Kingdom use either the combined pill or progestogen-only pill, compared with less than 3% of women in Japan. Two forms of combined oral contraceptives are on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most important medications needed in a basic health system.

The pill was a catalyst for the sexual revolution. Combined oral contraceptive pills are a type of oral medication, designed to be taken every day, at the same time of day, in order to prevent pregnancy. There are many different formulations or brands, but the average pack is designed to be taken over a 28-day period, or cycle. For the first 21 days of the cycle, users take a daily pill; the last 7 days of the cycle are hormone free days. Some packets only contain 21 pills and users are advised to take no pills for the following week. Other packets contain biologically inactive pills; some newer formulations have 24 days of active hormone pills, followed by 4 days of placebo or 84 days of active hormone pills, followed by 7 days of placebo pills. A woman on the pill will have a withdrawal bleed sometime during her placebo pill or no pill days, is still protected from pregnancy during this time. After 28 days, or 91 days depending on which type a person is using, users start a new pack and a new cycle.

If used as instructed, the estimated risk of getting pregnant is 0.3%, or about 3 in 1000 women on COCPs will become pregnant within one year. However, typical use is not exact due to timing errors, forgotten pills, or unwanted side effects. With typical use, the estimated risk of getting pregnant is about 9%, or about 9 in 100 women on COCP will become pregnant in one year; the perfect use failure rate is based on a review of pregnancy rates in clinical trials, the typical use failure rate is based on a weighted average of estimates from the 1995 and 2002 U. S. National Surveys of Family Growth, corrected for underreporting of abortions. Several factors account for typical use effectiveness being lower than perfect use effectiveness: mistakes on the part of those providing instructions on how to use the method mistakes on the part of the user conscious user non-compliance with instructions. For instance, someone using oral forms of hormonal birth control might be given incorrect information by a health care provider as to the frequency of intake, forget to take the pill one day, or not go to the pharmacy on time to renew the prescription.

COCPs provide effective contraception from the first pill if started within five days of the beginning of the menstrual cycle. If started at any other time in the menstrual cycle, COCPs provide effective contraception only after 7 consecutive days use of active pills, so a backup method of contraception must be used until active pills have been taken for 7 consecutive days. COCPs should be taken at the same time every day; the effectiveness of the combined oral contraceptive pill appears to be similar whether the active pills are taken continuously for prolonged periods of time or if they are taken for 21 active days and 7 days as placebo. Contraceptive efficacy may be impaired by: missing more than one active pill in a packet, delay in starting the next packet of active pills, intestinal malabsorption of active pills due to vomiting or diarrhea, drug interactions with active pills that decrease contraceptive estrogen or progestogen levels. In any of these instances, a back up method should be used until consistent use of active pills has resumed, the interacting drug has been discontinued or illness has been resolved.

According to CDC guidelines, a pill is only considered'missed' if 24 hours or more have passed since the last pill taken. If less than 24 hours have passed, the pill is considered "late." The role of the placebo pills is two-fold: to allow the user to continue the routine of taking a pill every day and to simulate the average menstrual cycle. By continuing to take a pill everyday, users remain in the daily habit during the week without hormones. Failure to take pills during the placebo week does not impact the effectiveness of the pill, provided that daily ingestion of active pills is resumed at the end of the week; the placebo, or hormone-free, week in the 28-day pill package simulates an average menstrual cycle, though the hormonal events during a pill cycle are different from those of a normal ovulatory menstrual cycle. Because the pill suppresses ovulation, birth control users do not have true menstrual periods. Instead, it i

Jane Bradley Pettit was an American philanthropist. Her father was Harry Lynde Bradley, co-founder of Allen-Bradley and the Bradley Foundation with her uncle, Lynde Bradley, she attended the Lake School for Milwaukee-Downer Seminary and Milwaukee University School. She graduated from The Principia in St. Louis and studied drama at Finch Junior College, she was a member of the Service Club of Milwaukee. She entered society as a debutante on January 1938 at the Milwaukee Country Club. Over the course of her life, she donated more than $250 million to the community and through her Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation, she donated $90 million to the BMO Harris Bradley Center. Her US$20 million donation to build the Lynde & Harry Bradley School of Technology & Trade, which replaced 100-year-old Milwaukee Technical & Trade High School, was the largest single private gift to a public school in the United States, she donated $9 million to the Pettit National Ice Center, an indoor skating facility with two Olympic-sized hockey rinks and a 400-meter skating oval.

In 1999, she bought 14 percent of the Milwaukee Brewers. She was inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame because of it, she donated more than US$100,000 to the United Way of Great Milwaukee. The Jane Bradley Pettit Building, home to the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, is named for her, she founded the Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation. In 1994, Pettit and her husband Lloyd were honored with the "Lombardi Award of Excellence" from the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation; the award was created to honor Coach Lombardi's legacy, is awarded annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of the Coach. In 1945, she married Sr. heir to the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. Their daughter, Lynde Bradley Uihlein, is President of the non-profit organization Brico Fund, their son, David Vogel Uihlein, Jr. is Vice-Chairman of the Bradley Foundation, President of Uihlein-Wilson Architects, chairs the David & Julia Uihlein Charitable Foundation. She was married to Lloyd Pettit from 1969 to 1998, she died of lung cancer on September 9, 2001.

In 2002, her estate in River Hills, Wisconsin was sold to David Kohl, the son of Allen Kohl of Kohl's and the nephew of U. S. Sen. Herb Kohl, she owned homes in Land O' Lakes and Naples, where she wintered

Margarete Mitscherlich-Nielsen or the "Grande Dame of German Psychoanalysis" as she was referred to as, was a German psychoanalyst who focused on the themes of feminism, female sexuality, the national psychology of post-war Germany. Margarete Nielsen was born the youngest daughter to Doctor Nis Peter Nielsen and his school headmaster wife Margarete. Nielsen grew up in Denmark and Germany, where she studied literature and received the highest possible certificate or "abitur" in 1937 from a private school located in Flensburg. After studying literature she decided to follow in her father's footsteps and study medicine at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg, she passed the first state exam in 1944 and received a doctorate from the University of Tübingen in 1950. Her professional work with psychoanalysis began at an anthroposophical clinic in the Swiss canton of Ticino, where she met her future husband Alexander Mitscherlich. Who introduced her to the works of Sigmund Freud, they married in 1955.

In the 1950s, she completed her psychoanalytic training at the London institute led by Anna Freud, Melanie Klein and Michael Balint. Along with Alexander Mitscherlich, she returned to Germany, taking up work at a psychosomatic clinic her husband directed at Heidelberg, before moving to Frankfurt. In 1960, the couple became co-founders of the Sigmund-Freud-Institut dedicated to psychoanalytic research. From the 1960s, alongside the protagonists of the Frankfurt School, the Mitscherlichs played an important part in post-war Germany's intellectual debates, employing psychoanalytic thought for explaining the causes behind Nazi Germany and its aftermath in German society to the present day; the first major book they wrote together was Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern. Grundlagen kollektiven Verhaltens, first published in 1967, discussing why the Holocaust, the war crimes, the sentiment of guilt on the offender's part were not dealt with adequately in post-war German society. Subsequently, Margarete Mitscherlich's interest in feminist positions grew, as she became friends with German feminist journalist Alice Schwarzer, contributing to her magazine EMMA.

In the first issue of the journal in November 1977, she confessed: "Ich bin Feministin". At the time, she took an active part in legal actions against anti-women depictions in popular German media, her book Die friedfertige Frau. Eine psychoanalytische Untersuchung zur Aggression der Geschlechter, first published in 1987, is Mitscherlich's most successful book to date, dealing with the roles women play in politics, she discussed specific psychological cases pertaining to the potential for human aggression, the socialization of women, loneliness and anti-Semitism within her writing. In the follow-up Die Zukunft ist weiblich Mitscherlich pleaded for values to become more feminine men's values, she is notable for the politicized nature of her work when many of her peers considered neutrality an essential element of psychoanalysis. Until well into her nineties, Mitscherlich worked as a psychoanalyst, advising younger colleagues and commenting political developments in the press. In her latest book, published in 2010, aged 93, Die Radikalität des Alters.

Einsichten einer Psychoanalytikerin. She famously claimed. Mitscherlich was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2001, she received the Ehrenplakette der Stadt Frankfurt am Main in 1990 and the Tony-Sender-Preis der Stadt Frankfurt am Main in 2005. Mitscherlich has a son, born in 1949, a lawyer and executive manager, she lived in the Frankfurt Westend until her death. She died, aged 94, in Frankfurt. With Alexander Mitscherlich: Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern. Grundlagen kollektiven Verhaltens. 1967 With Alexander Mitscherlich: Die Idee des Friedens und die menschliche Aggressivität. 1969 With Alexander Mitscherlich: Eine deutsche Art zu lieben. 1970 Müssen wir hassen? 1972 Das Ende der Vorbilder. 1978 Die friedfertige Frau. 1985 Die Zukunft ist weiblich. 1987 Erinnerungsarbeit. 1987 Über die Mühsal der Emanzipation. 1990 With Brigitte Burmeister: Wir haben ein Berührungstabu. 1991. Hamburg. KleinVerlag. Erinnerungsarbeit – Zur Psychoanalyse der Unfähigkeit zu trauern. 1993 Autobiografie und Lebenswerk einer Psychoanalytikerin.

2006 Eine unbeugsame Frau. Im Gespräch mit Kathrin Tsainis und Monika Held. 2007 Die Radikalität des Alters. Einsichten einer Psychoanalytikerin. 5th ed. 2010 Karola Brede: Befreiung zum Widerstand. Margarete Mitscherlich zum 70. Geburtstag. In celebration of her 70th birthday. 1987 Felizitas von Schönborn: Margarete Mitscherlich. Zwischen Psychoanalyse und Frauenbewegung. Ein Porträt. 1995 Ilse Lenz: Die Neue Frauenbewegung in Deutschland. Abschied vom kleinen Unterschied. 2008 Literature by and about Margarete Mitscherlich-Nielsen in the German National Library catalogue