I'm 17 years old and I've been taking the birth control pill, Yaz, for about 2 years now. My boyfriend and I have ALWAYS used a condom on top of the pill, up until recently. Even though I'm on the pill, I'm nervous I still can get pregnant. I feel this way because my OBGYN said that even though Yaz is a birth control pill, it's a "lower dosage" one.. and that condoms on top of that would be the best because sometimes women react differently to lower dosage pills. I'm nervous because shouldn't all birth control pills be the same, 99% effective? All I want is to be reasured Yaz can protect me, even though it is a lower dosage.

Birth control in fact isn't 99% effective for pretty much anyone, in my opinion... they give you those stats for a perfect situation... only if the person takes it exactly the same time, every day, down to the minute, and that's just realistically not possible.. then if you have any stress the effectiveness goes down significantly..

So best bet is to use both birth controls, or wait until you're ready to have a kid.. I have heard stories that people were on birth control, used a condom and used spermaside and they still got pregnant. So if you don't want the risk of getting pregnant, think carefully about what you're doing

There is no form of birth control that is 100% effective aside from abstinence. I am one of the statistics. I was on a high dose birth control, used it correctly, never missed a dose, took it at the same time every day. I not only had one child, but was pregnant again 9 months later.

We have another valued member here who used 3 forms of birth control and still got pregnant. While none of this is the norm necessarily, it is always possible to get pregnant if you are having sex.