It is always important to have control over your fertility, and whether an unexpected sexual encounter takes place or a contraceptive fails, it is always important to know you have options.
One of the last resorts of contraception is the emergency pill, a highly effective tablet that your local pharmacy can provide, which can stop a pregnancy before it happens.
This makes pregnancy no longer an accidental consequence of sex but something a couple can try for when they are ready. This is better for the mother, the father and the child throughout all of their lives.
It is almost impossible to count how many lives the emergency pill has saved, improved and helped since modern morning-after contraceptives were first developed in the 1970s.
To understand why, it is important to know how they work, what they do, how to get them, what the alternatives are and why emergency contraception is far older than you might expect.
How Does The Emergency Contraceptive Pill Work?
The emergency contraceptive pill, also known as the morning-after pill, is a single pill taken as soon after unprotected sex as possible, stopping a pregnancy from starting even if a sperm fertilises an egg.
The two most common types, levonorgestrel and ulipristal acetate, work by delaying ovulation or the production of an egg cell. Sperm cells can only survive for five days, meaning that a delay typically means that the sperm die before they can cause a pregnancy.
It does not work in quite the same way as the combined contraceptive pill, which stops ovulation entirely using oestrogen and progestogen. This means that women who cannot take the pill or the mini pill can typically take the emergency pill.
Depending on which pill you get, it works for either three days or five days following unprotected sex, but the earlier you take it, the more effective it will be.
How Can You Get The Emergency Contraceptive Pill?
Because it is so important to have access to emergency contraception quickly, many pharmacies, walk-in centres, sexual health clinics and GPs’ offices will provide emergency contraception if it is needed.
As well as this, they are particularly useful places to go to discuss birth control options, particularly if the reason why you need the morning-after pill is due to a contraception that is not working for you.
If the combined pill is not working, has side effects, or you commonly forget to take it, there are alternative contraceptive methods that are more long-lasting and typically more effective.
What Alternatives Are Available To The Emergency Contraceptive Pill?
The most commonly prescribed alternative to the morning-after pill is the copper coil, also known as an intrauterine device (IUD).
Copper coils tend to be thought of as a long-term contraceptive option, given that they are highly effective, last for years and can be used when hormonal contraceptives are not an option.
However, if it is fitted within five days of having unprotected sex, it can work as a type of emergency contraception, given that the coil helps to stop pregnancy immediately.
Did Contraception Exist Before The Emergency Pill?
The development of the combined pill revolutionised sexual health, but contraceptive methods have been practised for thousands of years beforehand.
Contraception In Ancient Egypt
The earliest recorded use of contraception was in the Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus as early as 1850 BC, although the Ebers Papyrus from 1550 BC also had recipes for pessaries and treatments that were intended for use as birth control.
Some of these were theoretically effective; one pessary used acacia gum, a natural material that has spermicidal qualities of the type used in contraceptive jellies today. Other concoctions using honey, sodium carbonate or crocodile droppings were far less effective.
Contraception In Ancient Greece
The Ancient Greeks allegedly used silphium as an oral contraceptive, but given that the plant is now extinct, this can never truly be confirmed.
However, some of the other plants used for contraception, such as Queen Anne’s lace, have theoretical contraceptive properties, although given that some of them are either poisonous or look similar to plants that are poisonous, they are far less commonly used today.
Similarly, the philosopher Aristotle suggested using cedar oil, and whilst he had no idea about female anatomy or reproductive science, it could have occasionally, accidentally worked.
Contraception In The Middle Ages
Whilst contraception and abortion were outlawed in many countries during the Medieval period, there were traditions of herbs and natural concoctions that could either prevent pregnancy or induce abortion, although the extent to which they were used is a matter of fierce historical debate.
Contraception In The Victorian Age
Contraception became a major point of debate during the 19th century, and by the 1870s, there were concerted campaigns to legalise birth control methods that had been used for centuries beforehand.
The biggest flashpoint for this was the Knowlton Trial, in which two people were prosecuted for publishing the book Fruits of Philosophy.
Whilst Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh were criticised and punished for producing the text, the resulting publicity led to significant sales of the book and a wave of interest in contraception, ultimately causing birth rates to decline starting in the 1880s.
The combined pill would ultimately be the culmination of this work, and its effects on women’s health and society at large are still being felt today.
Who Invented The Emergency Hormonal Pill?
Whilst some early contraceptive methods were used as emergency contraceptives as well, the development of effective, safe and consistent emergency pills would not begin in earnest until the 1960s.
John McLean Morris and Gertrude Van Wagenen had found promise in the use of high-dose oestrogen pills as an emergency contraceptive, with the hope that it could be used as part of a long-term contraceptive routine.
Following this, the Yuzpe regimen was developed in 1974, the copper coil in 1975 and a major trial showed how effective levonorgestrel alone was compared to the former in 1998.
The Yuzpe regimen combined levonorgestrel with ethinyl estradiol, but it was later found that a larger dose of the former worked more effectively.