missed a pill five days after sex.

[clara122]

Hi, today I realised that I had completely forgotten to take my pill yesterday and today! I take the combined pill so I immediatly took both, the one of yesterday and the one of today (which I took 8 hours late) This has never happened before and I have never missed a pill or taken it late, but Im on holiday and completely forgot. I have been on the pill since April last year, and I haven't had intercourse since tuesday (so five days) and when we did, we used a condom that did not break. However, I like to be 100% safe, so it says on the pack that if you miss a pill from the last week of the pack you should immediately skip to the next pack without a period. I don't want to do this unless I need to. How likely is it for me to be pregnant? Also, I do not plan on having sex this week at all, so that's not what im scared about.

[Heather]

So, here's the scoop with this:

The pill, even taken perfectly, every day of the year, can't provide 100% protection against pregnancy: no method can. However, two methods, like you used, is what gets people as close to that 100% as possible, even when a mistake was made with one of those methods.

Typical use rates for the pill -- that's a 91% protection from pregnancy rate in one year of use, and is the level of effectiveness most pill users who use their pill well will have -- include a late or missed pill every now and then. So, you've got that 91%, at a minimum, and then, if your condom was used properly, 98% from that, which makes pregnancy very, very unlikely, but about as likely or unlikely as it probably is for you in a year with these two methods used properly every day. Make sense?

You don't have to do that with skipping right to the next pack if you're not going to have intercourse between now and your next pack. Without any new risks in the meantime, there's just no need if you don't want to, and it won't have any impact on the intercourse you engaged in last week.

[clara122]

thank you so much heather that really helped!

[Heather]

You're welcome!