Nothing is perfect, not even contraception. And sometimes, there’s no contraception to speak of. Preventing pregnancy, however, doesn’t need to be complicated. Copper IUDs and oral agents like ulipristal are effective and relatively easy methods of preventing unintended pregnancy. To help make sense of it all, Jan Schoenberger and Stuart Swadron review the 2015 NEJM article Emergency Contraception.
Bruce M. - August 30, 2015 7:14 AM
What happened to the previous protocol of two BCPs (Ovral) now and two in 12 hours? Is that gone?
Bruce
AKamata - October 24, 2015 6:39 AM
The regimen you note above is not as effective as levonorgesteral or ulipristal acetate and much less effective than the copper IUD when used as emergency contraception. The combined OCP (Yuzpe method) also is more likely to cause more side effects of nausea and vomiting. See citation below:
http://ec.princeton.edu/questions/ec-review.pdf#page=3
Ellertson C, Webb A, Blanchard K, Bigrigg A, Haskell S, Shochet T, Trussell J. Modifying the Yuzpe regimen of emergency contraception: a multicenter randomized, controlled trial. Obstet Gynecol. 2003;101:1160-7.