Calzaer

The actual "Morning after" pill is called "Plan B", which I find hillarious every time I hear it.

Demosthenes

yep, it's used for emergency if your regular contraceptives failed during the act.

in fact IIRC, RU-486 technically is not a morning after pill because it initiates an abortion.

Ab_Normal

They could have taken a hint from Howard Chaykin's American Flagg (a comic book) and called it "mañanacillin" - in the story, it was a combination birth control and antibiotic.

(did I spell that right? it's a play on the Spanish word for "tomorrow"... don't ask me, I took German in high school...)

Corwin

If I remember right, RU-486 can be USED as a morning after pill, but this isn't its normal use.

IE It'll work, but what we usually call the 'morning after pill' is something different.

Jackalope

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was led to believe that RU-486 required an injection of methotrexate along with it to work. Since MTX by itself can be an abortifacient, this wouldn't be a big suprise. Having taking MTX before (it's a chemo drug that's commonly used at lower doses as an immunosupressant), I'd guess a large enough dose to cause an abortion (the lowest it could be would probably be in the 20-30mg range) would make the barfing from the morning after pill look like a cakewalk. A single 20mg dose (.8cc injected subdermally) would make me ill for two days afterwards.

openeyes

There's a big difference between the so-called "morning after" pills and RU486. As discussed, the morning after pills are similar to birth control pills. The "Preven" brand is a estrogen/progesterone-type combo, the Plan B is progesterone-type only. Plan B is supposed to be just as effective and cause less nausea, since high estrogen is usually the nausea-causing culprit.

Supposedly if you are already "pregnant," that is, past the 5 or so days from intercourse and conception (as scigirl pointed out, conception can take place a few days after intercourse), the morning after pills won't work and aren't supposed to harm the embryo or fetus. That's why they're considering making them OTC. The RU486 regiment will stop a pregnancy and cause an abortion and involves clinic visits etc.

We are seeing more and more morning after pills dispensed at work. As an overnight retail pharmacist, I've been trying to get authorization to prescribe them (in my state it's possible to have a collaborative agreement with a physician) but since I work for a large chain it isn't happening very quickly, if it happens at all.

openeyes

One other bit of info: Some people are afraid if the "morning after" pill(s) are readily available, women may be more irresponsible when it comes to a Plan "A" for birth control. A physician who runs a family planning clinic said that in her experience, since taking this dose of hormone disrupts a woman's menstrual cycle, that it didn't tend to be the usual choice to prevent pregnancy, but was really used as a "Plan B".

Godless Dave

I guess I'm exceptionally educated. I learned about the morning after pill 8 or 10 years ago. A condom came off and my partner was nervous so she went to PP. They told her it was probably OK (she had started the Pill three weeks previous) but gave her morning-after anyway. She suffered nausea and cramps the rest of the day.

RevDahlia

I've taken both multiple regular birth control pills and Plan B for emergency contraception. The former wreaked havoc with my innards; the latter didn't make me sick at all -- I felt so fine, in fact, that I was worried it wasn't working.

This thing should definitely be available OTC. I have heard prolifers claim that it is actually an abortifacient, though, because if it doesn't delay ovulation it can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg -- like regular BC pills can. There's no pleasing some people. Anyone who calls a day-old blastocyst a "baby" is, imo, smoking crank.

scigirl

The correct answer is: No. They are not the same.

Thanks for participating in this poll, everyone! Well 60% of you know the correct answer. That’s probably much higher than the general population – not even this on-line biology book gets it right.

Here are some details about each one.

Morning-after pill
This “pill,” or rather sets of pills, comes in two forms. Plan B is progestin-only, whereas Preven is estrogen and progesterone. Both forms contain hormones similar to ordinary birth control pills. In fact, you can “overdose” on certain types of regular birth control pills to get the same effect. See http://www.plannedparenthood.org/lib...ONTROL/EC.html , fourthway down the page, to get correct dosings for your specific brand.

They are frequently termed Emergency contraception (EC) or the morning after pill. The latter term is somewhat misleading since women can take EC up to 120 hours (5 days) after unprotected sex. However, its effectiveness does decrease each day you wait.

EC acts like regular birth control pills to inhibit ovulation, or to inhibit implantation if fertilization has already occurred. There is some evidence to suggest that it can interfere with fertilization as well. Since medical science defines implantation, not fertilization, as the initiation of pregnancy, these drugs do not induce a medical abortion. However, many churches define fertilization as the start of life, and thus are against them. EC does not work if the woman is already pregnant.

EC is available over the counter in Europe, and (in theory) can be obtained without a prescription in the USA (see below). EC is very safe, with few serious side effects.

Abortion pill
Also known as RU-486, or mifepristone or Mifeprex. This does end an early pregnancy by blocking progesterone receptors in the uterus. It is not available at a pharmacy, and must be administered by a health care provider with adequate follow-up.

Why do I care?
Well I agree with the following:
Despite the fact that the that American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which represents more than 40,000 doctors, support making these pills available over the counter, there are currently lots of barriers to access for these products.
One of the websites mentioned that in certain religious hospitals, the ER won’t even provide EC to women who have been raped. :banghead:

Click here for more info.

I’m currently going to make a point to find out what pharmacies carry Plan B or Preven, and ones who don’t, and boycott the ones who don’t – like Walmart pharmacy.

Any questions, discussion, or ideas how we can get Plan B and Preven more accessible to women who need it? I encourage everyone to get a prescription and fill it and have one or two of them in your medicine cabinet, since many of these “accidents” happen on Friday nights when doctors and pharmacies are closed!

scigirl