It’s a skin patch that you place on the skin on the buttocks, the abdomen, the outside of the upper arm or the upper back. It releases hormones into the body steadily over a week, which helps to prevent you from becoming pregnant.
A lot of women find the patch easier to use than the pill, because you only have to remember to do it every week (and not every day).[2] Like the combined pill, for the fourth week out of every four, you’ll have a week off where you’ll usually have a withdrawal bleed.