While the use of emergency contraception has reportedly grown among young women over the past decade, the topic is still surrounded by questions and concerns about how it works and how it should be used.
One is a query we’ve probably all pondered at one point: is there a limit on how many times you can take the emergency contraceptive pill?
According to Kathy McNamee, Medical Director at Family Planning Victoria, the answer is no — but there’s an important caveat.
“We’d say you can take the levonorgestrel pill as often as you like, but it doesn’t work as well as something like a condom that you use beforehand. If you’re relying on it, it’s going to let you down at some stage,” she states.
In other words, it’s called “emergency” contraception for a reason.
There's no limit on the number of times you can take the levonorgestrel pill. Image: iStock
The levonorgestrel pill is what's commonly (and erroneously) referred to as the "morning after" pill, and is sold under various trade names here in Australia. It contains the manufactured hormone levonorgestrel, which has a similar effect to the natural hormone progesterone.
As of last month, Australian women have access to a second emergency contraceptive pill called EllaOne, which has been available overseas for a number of years now. However, for the purposes of this article we're focusing on the former.
Dr McNamee says it's recommended to leave a gap of at least 12 hours from the time you took one levonorgestrel pill before taking another, but it's safe to take it more than once in one cycle.
"We usually don't know which act of unprotected sex you're at risk of an unintended pregnancy from, so we wouldn't limit it to once a cycle," she explains.
"The hormone in it has been around for a long time, so we feel quite confident that if someone did actually end up conceiving, it wouldn't be a risk to the foetus at all if they did conceive and wanted to continue with the pregnancy." (Post continues after gallery.)
Popular forms of birth control
As the World Health Organisation states, the levonorgestrel pill prevents pregnancy by delaying or preventing ovulation. It may also prevent an egg being fertilised by affecting the ability of sperm to bind to an egg.
Like most forms of birth control, there are side-effects associated with the levonorgestrel pill — these include nausea, headaches and breast tenderness, Dr McNamee explains. Although these shouldn't increase with repeated use, it might heighten the disturbance to your menstrual cycle because of the repeated prevention or delaying of ovulation.
"Each time you delay ovulation you might be putting off when your period's going to come. Sometimes if people have a lot of it, it's really hard to work out where they are in their cycle," Dr McNamee says.
Ultimately, however, there are no known health risks associated with repeated use of the levonorgestrel pill. Dr McNamee adds that although there might be "a couple" of precautions, there aren't any cases where it would be unsafe for a woman to use it.
"The only contraindication would be a known pregnancy because it won't do any good, she'd be just wasting her time. But there's no strong reason why you wouldn't take it at all. It's even OK with breastfeeding," she says.
The Plan B pill featured on Master of None. (Image: Netflix)
The important thing to remember is that the emergency contraceptive pill is not designed to be used as your primary form of contraception, so do not rely on it to serve this purpose. It's risky business.
"It will let you down eventually if you use it as your method of contraception," Dr McNamee reiterates.
In situations where emergency contraception is required, a copper intrauterine device (IUD) is actually more effective than either of the currently available pills. It needs to be inserted within five days of unprotected sex.
Finding the birth control method that works best for you is often a case of trial and error, and you won't necessarily pin it down straight away. So book in with your doctor to explore the available options, which include the Pill, IUDs, and contraceptive implants and injections.
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Featured image: iStock