photo credit: Iren Moros // Shutterstock

Soon, ladies won’t be the only ones with the option of hormonal birth control. And for men who don’t like the idea of a vasectomy, this is for you.

This new birth control method comes in the form of a one-a-day pill used to lower the amount of testosterone and other hormones necessary for sperm production, released in the male body, just enough for a female not to get pregnant when taking the pill.

The pill, called dimethandrolone undecanoate, or DMAU, has spent the last month in testing with over 100 different men taking the pills for 28 days. None of the men used in testing suffered any troubling symptoms that could arise when lowering testosterone levels. Symptoms did include depression, acne, and altered sex drive.

“DMAU shows great promise,” says Monica Laronda, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

According to Science News, in men, extra testosterone suppresses the brain’s release of luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone, which stops testicles from making testosterone as well as sperm. Once you stop the pill, the body returns back to normal, producing reproductive hormones and allowing fertility.

Now that they have identified the potentially effective and safe amounts of DMAU to use on men, the next step in testing is a 3-month long test of sperm count in men taking the drug. If that goes well, the pill will be tested by couples as contraception.

Written by Clarke Jones