New Birth Control Pill Gives Women Five Days After Sex to Choose

Using birth control is the act of using either devices, pills, or sexual practices, such as not having intercourse druing certain times o fthe month.

There are a variety of types of contraceptives, some with risk factors and some perfectly innocuous. Condoms not only are a way to avoid pregnancy, they are the only form of birth control that also offers protection for sexually transmitted diseases (STD). The pill perhaps is the most reliable but can have side effects. In general, a rule of thumb is that the most risk-free contraceptive in terms of pregnancy offers the highest risk of getting pregnant due to failure of the contraceptive.

In Europe there is a new birth control pill called EllaOne. It is by presciption only and gives women up to five days after unprotected sex or sex with protection that may not have worked correctly. The five days gives the women time to decide if she wants to wait and see or not. Obviously women who are against abortion will not like this new birth control pill and some religions and cultures don't believe in any kind of interference with fertility/nature.

There is a morning after pill available in the United States. After unprotected sex a woman has three days to take the pill.

The main ingredient of the morning after pill is levonorgestrel. The new pill's main ingredient is something called ulipristel acetate. The pills work by releasing hormones into the body. These hormones stop the release of an egg and if it is released it will stop it from implanting in the womb. There is no egg for the sperm to mate with.

The new pill was tested on close to 1,700 women in the UK, Republic of Ireland, and the United States who used medical clinics in these countries. The women were randomly assigned to get either the morning after pill or the 5-day new pill. Given the size of the study and the random groups it seems scientifically valid although using women who only went to clinics may skew the results a bit.

Researchers found that more women who received the morning after pill became pregnant more often than those women who received the 5-day pill.

You can find out more information including the controversy around EllaOne at UKTelegraph.

The study can be found in the British medical journal, Lancet.

Sources

UK Telegraph
DBTechno
wikipedia