Before jumping straight to the topic let’s get some facts straight about emergency contraceptives. Emergency contraceptives or the morning-after pills have been very popular among young women. It is taken to prevent pregnancy and not terminate it in terms of emergency and unlikely events, like breaking of condom or rape, slip off during sex or some accidental slip of birth control pill before. It can and must not be replaced as a common measure or an alternative to the birth control pill or a condom.

There are 3 methods of emergency contraception:

1. Emergency contraception pills (ECPs) – The emergency pill.
2. Combined oral contraceptive pills or the Yuzpe method – The Yuzpe method uses combined oral contraceptive pills. The pills are taken in 2 doses.
3. Copper-bearing intrauterine devices (IUDs) – A copper-bearing IUD is used as an emergency contraceptive method to be inserted within 5 days of unprotected intercourse. This method is particularly appropriate for a woman who would like to start using a highly effective, long-acting and reversible contraceptive method.

There’s a reason why it is called “emergency” contraceptive and you must not gulp it down regularly as your contraceptive method because of the higher possibility of failure compared with oral contraceptive pills. Frequent use of emergency contraception can result in increased side-effects, such as menstrual irregularities, although their repeated use poses no known health risks. Also, they don’t protect from the sexually transmitted diseases. However, some oral contraceptive pills are often advised not to be taken regularly as they alter the hormones and can affect them. Nonetheless there are some short term side effects of the pills taken which are: changes in menstrual cycle, changes in the bleeding, abdominal pain, nausea, headache, fatigue, dizziness, and breast tenderness. Anyhow emergency contraceptives have taken a long journey and they are not really a big danger for the health and are not likely to affect the fertility of the woman. But they are not hundred percent affective nor are they affective on obese women so make a wise choice!