Misconception About Plan B Pills
The emergency contraception drug Plan B One-Step will be available for women as young as 15 without a prescription, the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday (April 30).
The drug, also known as the morning-after pill, was previously available without a prescription only to women ages 17 and over. Consumers who buy the product will need to provide proof of age, the FDA said.
The drug mainly prevents pregnancy by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary, and by preventing the fertilization of an egg, Dr. Christopher Estes, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, told MyHealthNewsDaily in a 2011 interview.
IT’S BASICALLY THE SAME AS MEDICAL ABORTION PILLS
Emergency contraception pills are completely different from medical abortion pills,” says Sara Gottfried, M.D., author of The Hormone Cure. The difference boils down to the mechanism used to prevent or lose an unwanted pregnancy. Plan B will not affect an existing pregnancy or harm a developing fetus — it only has the ability to inhibit ovulation, Gottfried explains. As for medical abortion pills, those actually cause the fetus to stop developing and trigger the uterus to expel the pregnancy.
YOU’LL BECOME INFERTILE IF YOU TAKE IT TOO MUCH
Repeated use of Plan B will not permanently mess up your fertility, but it’s not something you want to get in the habit of doing, says Landa. First off, there are cheaper — and more effective! — methods of BC out there. What’s more, if you use Plan B too often, your cycle could become very irregular making it difficult to know when you’re fertile and whether or not you’ve become pregnant.
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