Emergency contraception

Emergency contraception (EC) (sometimes called the “morning after pill”) can stop a pregnancy before it starts by delaying ovulation. There are three different kinds of EC: an over-the-counter pill, a prescription-only pill (called ella), and certain IUDs.

Both the over-the-counter pill and the prescription-only pill work if you take them within five days (or 120 hours) after having unprotected penis-in-vagina sex. The sooner you take EC pills, the more effective they are, but prescription-only EC is more likely to be effective on the fifth day after unprotected sex than over-the-counter EC is. So it’s a good idea to get EC in advance, so that if you need it in the future, you’ll have it on hand and can start it as soon as possible.

Some people think that the emergency contraception pill is the same as the abortion pill, but they’re actually completely different. Both types of emergency contraception pills work by preventing ovulation (the release of an egg from one of your ovaries) during your current menstrual cycle. If you don’t ovulate, then there’s no egg for your partner’s sperm to fertilize. The abortion pill, on the other hand, stops a pregnancy that has already started (which means you’ve ovulated, the egg has been fertilized, and the fertilized egg has implanted in your uterus). Then it brings on your period, which flushes everything out of your uterus.

While EC pills are the most well-known kind of emergency contraception, the most effective kind of EC is actually having an IUD inserted within five days of having unprotected sex.

There are three IUDs that we know work as EC: Paragard, LILETTA, and Mirena. Not only can they prevent a pregnancy from starting after you’ve had unprotected sex, but they can also act as an extremely effective birth control method moving forward.