What To Do On Missing Birth Control Pills?
Birth control pill contains hormones that help to work the body in a way that can prevent pregnancy by controlling ovaries and uterus. It is mandatory to take the birth control pills daily in order to avoid any threat of pregnancy. Even if one pill is missed, the reliability of the pill is substantially reduced.
So what should be done when some one misses a birth control pill? This common question is often asked by many women. Here is some information regarding missed oral contraceptive pills based on the report of World Health Organization (WHO) entitled “Selected Practice Recommendations for Contraceptive Use”.
According to this information, if a woman forgets to take birth control pills, she should take it as soon as she remembers. If until next day she doesn’t remember, she should take two pills that day. And for next two days if she misses out, she should take 2 pills for two next days, after she remembers.
This way she will be able to get back to her schedule. Missing more than 2 birth control pills needs instruction from health care provider. One should not take more than two pills a day, unless directed by her health care provider.
Being late in taking birth control pills increases the chance of pregnancy. So if one misses out any of the first 21 pills from her birth control pills pack, she should use alternative use birth control methods like condom for the next seven days. If one misses any of the last seven pills out of 28 pills, then there is nothing to worry. One has no chance of getting pregnant as these pills are non-hormonal pills and do not contain any active ingredients.
If a woman misses her period, and is not sure about missing pills, she must get a pregnancy test done.
When to Use Emergency Contraception
When a woman misses one or more birth control pills, whether she should emergency contraception or not depends on the type of pill she is using and how many pills she has missed and also the week of pills she is on.
There are greater chances of getting pregnant when a woman misses pills that contain hormones (active pills). There are other kinds of birth controls available for the women who miss out pills quite often. They should talk to their health care provider to suggest other methods of birth control that suit their lifestyle.
