What are the side-effects of the morning-after pill?
The most common side-effects of the morning-after pill are headache, nausea, painful breasts and irregular vaginal bleeding. One very important side-effect of the morning-after pill, or ‘post-coital contraception’, is pregnancy. This is more likely if you waited more than 24 hours after unprotected sex before seeking medical advice, or if sex took place more than once. Until fairly recently, the standard advice was that the morning-after pill could be taken up to 72 hours after sex, but recent research has shown a significant chance of the pill failing to prevent a pregnancy occurring if taken at this time. This is why doctors now advise that the morning-after pill should be given as soon as possible, preferably within 24 hours. If the morning-after pill doesn’t work and a woman becomes pregnant unexpectedly, there appears to be no problems to the unborn baby – although it is not possible to give an absolute guarantee of this. Most GP surgeries now have a practice nurse experienced in
