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Home > Help in a Crisis > Missed Birth Control Pills When taking birth controls it is important to be sure to take them regularly, but sometimes people make mistakes. Birth control pills keep the body on a very specific hormonal cycle, and irregularities in the important questions become how many pills have you missed and by how long? It is recommended that pills be taken at the same time every day, but you don't need to worry if you have missed your pill by as little as 15 minutes. If the pill was only missed by a small amount of time, just take it as close as possible to your regular time, and continue the remainder of your pills as normal. If you miss a single pill by a longer time on the day for which it was intended, just take it as soon as you remember. After that keep yourself on track by taking your next pill when you were originally supposed to take it. If you miss two pills, the best way to get yourself
back on track is to take the two missed pills when you were supposed
to take your next one, then the next two pills the next day. So, if
you usually take your pills at noon, and you missed your pills for Sunday
and Monday: take both the Sunday and Monday pills at noon on Tuesday.
Then at noon on Wednesday, take both the Tuesday and Wednesday pills.
Stay on track for the rest of your cycle by taking each of your other
pills as scheduled. If you miss 3 or more pills in a cycle, stop entirely for the rest of the month. Use an alternative method of birth control and start taking your pills again as usual for the next cycle. Remember that it can take up to a month for birth control pills to be effective in contraception, so continue to use an additional form of birth control for at least the remainder of the next cycle. If you have difficulties remembering to take your pill on schedule,
you may want to consider a method of birth control other than the pill
that will not require you to be so precise about your schedule.
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