Contraceptive pill doesn't kill sex drive: Study

London: That contraceptive pill has a secret to share. According to research, women's sexual satisfaction is not affected if she meets her partner while she is already taking the pill.

However, women do see their sex drive fall if they stop taking the pill during a relationship.

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"Women who met their partner while taking the pill - as well as those who had never used the pill at any point - reported greater sexual satisfaction than those women who had begun or stopped using the pill during the course of the relationship," explained lead researcher Craig Roberts from University of Stirling in Scotland.

To get to the core of this, the team looked at a sample of 365 couples and investigated how satisfaction levels - in both sexual and non-sexual aspects of long-term relationships - were influenced by women's current and historical use of hormonal contraception.

The pill use throughout the relationship had a greater influence on sexual satisfaction levels than either simply being on the pill or not being on the pill, they found.

The team found there was no difference in the non-sexual aspects of relationship satisfaction between the groups of women.

Additionally, women's history of pill use was also found to make no difference to their male partners' relationship satisfaction in both sexual and non-sexual contexts.

According to Roberts: "The pill has been a tremendously positive social force, empowering women and giving them greater control over their lives."

The results will help women understand why they might feel the way they do about their partner when they change use, Roberts said in the study published in the journal Psychological Science.

The study, published was carried out by researchers from universities of Stirling, Glasgow, Newcastle, Northumbria and Charles University in Prague.