How to Use Emergency Contraception

What if I take the second dose of emergency contraceptive pills late?

Two-dose levonorgestrel EC pills are no longer sold in the United States, although they are still available in many other countries. The instructions for  2-pill progestin-only
emergency contraceptive products may say that you should take two doses
12 hours apart (that’s one pill
followed 12 hours later by another pill.) However, research shows
that progestin-only
emergency contraceptive pills (also called "morning
after pills" or "day after pills") are equally
effective if you take the two doses at the same time, take them 12
hours apart as recommended, or wait as long as 24 hours to take the
second dose.

Plan B One-Step, Take Action, Next Choice One Dose and My Way are single-pill products that contain 1.5 mg levonorgestrel. Take the pill as soon as possible after sex. Similarly, ella (ulipristal acetate) is just one pill that you take as soon as possible after sex (in clinical studies, the effectiveness of ella doesn’t decline over a 5-day period, but for each individual woman, what’s important is where she is in her own cycle; emergency contraceptive pills don’t appear to work after ovulation has occurred).

Research about “combined” emergency
contraceptive pills (those are pills containing both estrogen and progestin, such as regular birth control pills used in different doses as EC), in contrast, has focused on taking the two
doses 12 hours apart. Even so, taking the second dose a little early
or a little late (like a difference of two hours) will probably not
make a difference in how effective the pills are.

Click here for more detailed
instructions for using ella, Plan B One-Step, Next Choice One Dose, My Way, or
daily birth control pills for emergency contraception.

A thorough and up-to-date academic review of research about how and
when to take emergency contraceptive pills, as well as other medical
and social science literature about emergency contraception is available in
English and Spanish.