Go to Content Go to Navigation Go to Navigation Go to Site Search Homepage

What if you have taken the day after pill more than 3 times a year? Is it still effective? What are the side effects to it?

Taking the morning-after pill (also known as emergency contraception) multiple times doesn’t change its effectiveness, and won’t cause any long-term side effects. You can use the morning-after pill whenever you need to.

But it’s not a good idea to use the morning-after pill as your regular, go-to method of birth control. This is because:

  • The morning-after pill doesn’t prevent pregnancy as well as other types of birth control like the IUD, implant, pill, shot, ring, or condoms.

  • Taking the morning-after pill over and over again is usually more expensive and less convenient than being on a regular method of birth control.

  • Morning-after pill side effects — like bleeding between periods or nausea — are temporary and harmless, but they can be annoying.

  • The morning-after pill might make your periods irregular and hard to predict when you’re using it a lot.

So it’s totally safe to take the morning-after pill as many times as you need to — it’s just not the best way to prevent pregnancy long-term. Birth control that you use before or during sex is way more effective, affordable and convenient.

If you have sex (or think you might have it in the future), take our quiz to help you find the best method of birth control for you.

Tags: emergency contraception

Explore more on

We and our third partners use cookies and other tools to collect, store, monitor, and analyze information about your interaction with our site to improve performance, analyze your use of our sites and assist in our marketing efforts. You may opt out of the use of these cookies and other tools at any time by visiting Cookie Settings. By clicking “Allow All Cookies” you consent to our collection and use of such data, and our Terms of Use. For more information, see our Privacy Notice.

Cookie Settings

We, and our third-party partners, use cookies, pixels, and other tracking technologies to collect, store, monitor, and process certain information about you when you access and use our services, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences, or your device. We use that information to make the site work, analyze performance and traffic on our website, to provide a more personalized web experience, and assist in our marketing efforts. We also share information with our social media, advertising, and analytics partners. You can change your default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of required cookies when utilizing our site; this includes necessary cookies that help our site to function (such as remembering your cookie preference settings). For more information, please see our Privacy Notice.

Marketing

On

We use online advertising to promote our mission and help constituents find our services. Marketing pixels help us measure the success of our campaigns.

User Feedback and Session Replay

On

We use qualitative data from LogRocket, UserZoom, Hotjar and AB Tasty to learn about your user experience and improve our products and services. LogRocket allows us to view session replays.