Contraception: Morning After Pill

The morning after pill has come into use for people who have forgotten to use contraception or for instances where, for example, the condom broke. Dr Joe Kosterich talks about the morning after pill, including what it does, how it works, when to take it, where to get it, what side effects there are, and how effective it is.

 

The morning after pill has come into use for people who have perhaps forgotten to use contraception, or in instances where – and this is not as common as it used to be – for instance, the condom broke.

What is the morning after pill? It is a pill, by definition, that one takes after one’s had sex to try to stop getting pregnant. It is a hormonal form of contraception. It is probably most similar to the mini pill or the injectable implant in that is a progesterone-only pill.

What does it do? By putting progesterone in a reasonably high dose into the female body, it makes it less likely that an egg, if it has been fertilised, will implant into the uterus.

It is important to take it within 72 hours of having had unprotected sex or intercourse. The sooner you take it afterwards, the better – hence ‘morning after’, designated by what people might have done at night-time. If it is the afternoon or evening after, that’s okay, but the sooner you can take it the better.

These days it is really simple. It used to be 2 tablets taken; now there are formulations where it’s only 1 tablet. The other thing with the morning after pill is that you can now buy it over the counter in Australia. A few years ago, it used to be that you needed to go to a doctor to get a prescription, and while that’s not a difficult thing to do, sometimes on a Sunday people found that it wasn’t quite as easy as they hoped. Now you can just go to the chemist and buy it.

As for side effects, some women will find they get a little nauseated, and some occasionally get headaches. There’s not a lot of problems with side effects. At absolute worst, if it is a little bit disagreeable, it is a single dose and it wears off fairly quickly.

The other thing people will wonder about is how effective it is. Nothing is one hundred per cent. If taken within the first 24 hours, the effectiveness of the morning after pill is in excess of 90 per cent; that drops down to roughly 70 per cent if you take it within 72 hours. So, as we said before, the sooner the better.

The morning after pill is not to be regarded as a form of contraception. Some of you will be immediately thinking, “But hang on, if I take it, I’m less likely to get pregnant.” It’s not contraception because it’s taken after the event. While it is reliable, it is not as reliable as other forms of genuine contraception. You can certainly use it (and it is recommended to be used) in an emergency, but it’s not something that you should rely on on a regular basis.

To sum up, the morning after pill is fairly readily available these days; you don’t need a prescription, you can just go along to the chemist. It is best taken as soon as practical after unprotected intercourse. Its reliability is reasonably high, and its agreeability is also reasonably high. By the same token, it’s not something you should rely on on a regular basis – it’s much better to use some contraception in advance.

(Kindly Created by Dr Joe Kosterich MBBS, General Practitioner and member of the Virtual Medical Centre GP Editorial Advisory Board.)

More information

For more information, see Morning After Pill (Emergency Contraception).