Should You Adjust Your Birth Control Pill Schedule When Traveling?

If youve usedbirth control pillsfor any length of time, you may have been told to take it at the exact same time every day to ensure effectiveness.

Maintaining a consistent pill schedule at home is as easy as setting an alarm on your phonebut what happens when you travel across several time zones?

The good news is that if you take a combination pillone containing both a progestin and an estrogen, usuallyethinylestradiolyoure protected from pregnancy as long as you take a pill at some point every day.

Taking two pills in one day is fine if you better make up for a missed dose; its only when you go more than 48 hours without a single dose that you put yourself at risk of pregnancy.

This means that most travel schedules wont interfere with the efficacy of a combination pill, so take yours once a day and youll be fine.

Anyone who takes progestin-only minipills, however, needs to be much more careful, becausemissing a minipill by more than three hours seriously ups your pregnancy risk.

Unlike estrogen-containing combination pills, minipills dont prevent ovulationthey work by thickening cervical mucus and thinning the lining of the uterus to prevent the sperm from reaching the egg.

In other words, minipills depend on your bodys natural estrogen fluctuations to do their jobwhich is why its so important to take them on time.

No matter what pill you take, your phone is the best schedule management tool you have, especially if a travel day lasts longer than 24 hours, or if you regularly travel across several time zones.

Android users can download the freeWorld Clock appby timeanddate.com, which has a City Alarm feature that lets you set alarms in specific time zones.

This feature doesnt exist on the iOS app, but iPhone users can use its time zone conversion tool to set alarms at the right timeor downloada world clock widgetso their home time zone is always visible.

Getting the time zone math right is extra-important if you take a minipill, so before a big trip, sit down and plan out your pill schedule for each phase of the journey, including any time spent on airplanes.

Alarms only go so far: Nearly everyone who takes birth control pills will occasionally miss a day or two, and knowing what to do when you miss a pill is just as important as not missing them in the first place.

Before traveling, bookmark thisPlanned Parenthood missed pill quizon your phones online window, and always pack yourbackup methodof choicejust in case.