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Emergency contraception is safe and effective birth control you can use to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. It contains hormones found in birth control pills. The morning after pill must be started up to 120 hours — five days — after unprotected intercourse. The sooner it is started, the more effective it will be.
Plan B is the most common kind of emergency contraception. But many kinds of birth control pills can also be used as emergency contraception.
When you take birth control pills with estrogen and progestin as emergency contraception, you must take the pills in two doses, 12 hours apart. The number of pills in each dose depends on the brand of the pill. You must use the same brand of pill for each dose.
If you become nauseous and throw up after taking the first dose of the pills, be sure to use anti-nausea medication an hour before taking the second dose. Or, instead of taking it by mouth, you can insert the second dose as high into your vagina as you can reach. The medicine will be absorbed through the walls of your vagina, and will not make you feel sick to your stomach.
If you throw up after the second dose, you should not take any extra pills. The pills will most likely make you sicker, and probably won’t reduce your chance of getting pregnant.
See below for the correct doses by brand.
| Brand | First Dose (within 120 hours) |
Second Dose (12 hours later) |
| Plan B | 1 white pill | 1 white pill* |
| Alesse | 5 pink pills | 5 pink pills |
| Aviane | 5 orange pills | 5 orange pills |
| Cryselle | 4 white pills | 4 white pills |
| Enpresse | 4 orange pills | 4 orange pills |
| Jolessa | 4 pink pills | 4 pink pills |
| Lessina | 5 pink pills | 5 pink pills |
| Levlen | 4 light-orange pills | 4 light-orange pills |
| Levlite | 5 pink pills | 5 pink pills |
| Levora | 4 white pills | 4 white pills |
| Lo/Ovral | 4 white pills | 4 white pills |
| Low-Ogestrel | 4 white pills | 4 white pills |
| Lutera | 5 white pills | 5 white pills |
| Lybrel | 6 yellow pills | 6 yellow pills |
| Nordette | 4 light-orange pills | 4 light-orange pills |
| Ogestrel | 2 white pills | 2 white pills |
| Ovral | 2 white pills | 2 white pills |
| Portia | 4 pink pills | 4 pink pills |
| Quasense | 4 white pills | 4 white pills |
| Seasonale | 4 pink pills | 4 pink pills |
| Seasonique | 4 light-blue-green pills | 4 light-blue-green pills |
| Tri-Levlen | 4 yellow pills | 4 yellow pills |
| Triphasil | 4 yellow pills | 4 yellow pills |
| Trivora | 4 pink pills | 4 pink pills |
*Both doses of Plan B can be taken at the same time.
