Worried About the Effectiveness of Emergency Contraception Pills? Here’s An Alternative

Emergency contraception is tremendously important for women seeking to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. Activists and public health advocates have worked for years to make EC pills more readily available, and have been successful in getting pills such as Plan B available without a prescription or age restrictions. Emergency contraception pills containing levonorgestrel (including Plan B) may not be right for every woman and situation, however. Though the pills can be taken up to five days after unprotected intercourse, the pills are most effective (95 percent) when taken within 24 hours and become steadily less effective as more time passes. A different type of EC pill — Ella, containing ulipristal — is thought to keep a pretty high level of effectiveness for the full five days. News this week has raised another issue of emergency contraception effectiveness: EC pills with levonorgestrel seem to be less effective in women weighing more than 165 pounds, and lose their ability to work in women who weigh more 175 than pounds. This loss of effect happens regardless of whether women are considered overweight or obese according to BMI charts, or are simply tall — despite headlines that almost exclusively focus on “obese women.” As Linda Prine of the Reproductive Health Access Project said in an interview with NPR: “This is barely overweight. We’re talking about a BMI over 25. So this is probably more than half of American women. ...
Source: Our Bodies Our Blog - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Tags: Birth Control & Family Planning Research & Studies Source Type: blogs