How do morning pills work?

Morning Pills – perhaps best known by the brand name Plan B – are emergency contraceptives that help prevent unprotected post-gender pregnancy. However, there is a lot of myths and misinformation about how these drugs work in the body.

So, how do morning pills actually work?

These drugs work by inhibiting or delaying the process by which the egg releases eggs.

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Two types of morning pills are available in the US. One contains a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone, which regulates the menstrual cycle, including progestins, and the other contains an anti-progestin that blocks the progesterone receptor. Plan B is an example of the former type, while Gill is an example of the latter. Both mechanisms keep the eggs in the ovaries longer than they normally stay there.

“Even though there is sperm in the uterus after vaginal or gender, the eggs are safe in the ovaries so they don’t actually see the eggs,” explained Dr. Colleen Denny, director of Family Planning Services at NYU Langone Hospital in Brooklyn.

Tablets slow ovulation, so if the eggs are already released, they are not effective. Therefore, doctors advise users to take pills as soon as possible after unprotected sex. You try to catch the window before ovulation begins.

“Morning pills are like catchy names for emergency contraception, but if you take them as soon as possible after an unprotected gender, emergency contraception works best, which is actually misleading.”

Related: Male birth control pills pass early safety tests and more tests are ongoing

Is one pill safer or more effective than the other pills?

Most morning tablets are synthetic progestin varieties that can be used in pharmacies without age restrictions and without a prescription. The only anti-propogestin tablet in the United States, Gillah is available at all ages, but requires a prescription.

Common side effects of both tablets include abdominal and menstrual pain, dizziness, headaches and nausea. This manifests itself due to the way tablets temporarily change hormone signaling. Denny told Live Science that “it’s very difficult to hurt yourself” with drugs that affect progesterone signaling. “It doesn’t cause blood clots. It doesn’t cause dangerous side effects.”

Both types of tablets can slow down menstruation, but that’s not the cause of concern, Denny said. Morning pills can even be taken multiple times in the same cycle without causing harm, as the mechanisms used do not have long-term side effects.

Progestin pills like Plan B can reduce the chances of pregnancy by 81% to 90% if taken within three days of an unprotected gender. The effectiveness of the pill means it will fall far from the sex it was taken. This means it’s more effective than within two or three days within a day.

In comparison, anti-propogestin pills like gills can reduce pregnancy changes by about 85% when taken within five days. “It is taken up to five days from unprotected gender without any reduced efficacy and works better than a “progestin pill when photographed as directed.”

Anti-propogestin pills may still be effective five days after gender. This is because ovulation can be prevented before and after the hormones that indicate the onset of ovulation into the body. Antiprofestin pills become effective when the hormone peaks and pills are taken before the eggs are released.

Can BMI change the effectiveness of morning pills?

It is important to know that the effectiveness of morning pills may vary depending on the body mass index (BMI) of the person taking the medication. Many studies have shown that emergency contraceptives are less effective as users’ BMI increases.

Regarding progestin tablets, studies have generally shown that the effectiveness of pills is reduced in people with more than 30 BMIs in the “obesity” range, while elective studies have shown a decrease in BMIS of 25 in the “overweight” range. Some studies have found that people with BMIs over the age of 30 are four times more likely to become pregnant after taking progestin-based emergency contraceptives than people with BMIs under the age of 25.

Anti-progestin tablets have been shown to be more effective than progestin pills for people with high BMI. Recent studies suggest that the effectiveness of gills is beginning to decline in BMISs above 35.

The exact reason why pills behave differently with higher BMI is not yet clear.

The effectiveness of “why we don’t know why” depends on BMI, Denny said. Some experts believe that the amount of fat problems in the body can affect the concentration of medication in the blood, while others suggest that irregular ovulation rates associated with higher BMI can complicate research data. However, neither of these explanations is conclusive.

Furthermore, in 2022, Edelman led clinical trial testing on whether high doses could help counter this phenomenon, but none of them found that high doses would improve efficacy.

Despite the possibility of these differences in efficacy, doctors still suggest that anyone who is worried about pregnancy after taking the morning pill, regardless of their BMI, is not a victim of their unprotected gender.

“If that’s something someone can use and they have unprotected sex, they should take it,” Edelman said. “It doesn’t hurt, but it might help.”

Related: You need to replace the BMI, experts argue – here’s what the alternative is

Is Plan B abortion medication?

Edelman said it was the most common misconception about morning pills. “Emergency contraception is the same as medical abortion,” he said. In short, they are not the same.

“Emergency birth control is to prevent pregnancy. You take it before you get pregnant,” Edelman emphasized.

Denny said she knows that even patients and other doctors confuse emergency contraceptives with other pills related to reproductive health care. “They’re totally different medicines, but they’re all tablets, so people can get a little confused in conversation because they’re all sorts of swirling in news articles,” she said.

Morning pills are taken after gender, but before pregnancy develops. By comparison, contraceptives are regularly employed to regulate menstrual cycles with a continuous base and reduced risk of pregnancy, and abortion medications are taken after pregnancy begins. If you are already pregnant and are taking Plan B, nothing will happen to your pregnancy, Denny said.

Edelman recommends that anyone who can get pregnant needs to maintain emergency contraception like the pill in front of them. They usually last for several years not open at room temperature, and the exact expiration date is listed in the package.

Alternative forms of emergency contraceptives are more invasive, but more effective than the pill. Copper intline devices (IUDs) require the placement of procedures within the uterus, but if placed within five days of unprotected gender, it is more than 99.9% effective in preventing pregnancy.

The effectiveness of the IUD is also not affected by BMI. “They work better than the pill for everyone, but they work better, especially for people with high BMI,” Denny said. “And many people have been using it for years since they used it for emergency birth control,” as a form of continuous birth control.