Morning-after pill

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 8

Morning-after pill

Sir,—ln response to Susan Bagshaw’s letter on the morningafter pill, I believe this form of contraception is to be a one-off thing — to be taken only once. I know of persons who have been given five. I fear that the Family Planning Clinic is only too willing to hand out this huge dose of hormones to women and is not interested in telling them of complications in later pregnancies; that their next child may be deformed because of all these induced hormones or that they may find it very difficult to conceive when they really want a child. I would like to advise such people to use natural family planning. It has the same success rate as contraceptives and is less harmful to a woman's body. Yours, etc., (Ms) K. MORA. May 24, 1989.

[Professor D. R. Aickin, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Christchurch Clinical School of Medicine, comments: “I know of no documented evidence in the scientific literature which would support a claim that short-term ingestion of oestrogen or progestagen would be likely to cause complications in a later pregnancy or cause difficulty in conception. With regard to your correspondent’s claim that a subsequent child may be deformed through taking hormones, this would only be a theoretical risk if pregnancy was already present at the time of hormone ingestion. The risk, which is statistically slight, would be to the development of the reproductive system in a female fetus if hormones were taken at about three months of pregnancy. It is unlikely that women receiving the morning-after pill would be three months pregnant without knowing this to be the case.”] [Dr Susan Bagshaw, medical director of the Family Planning Centre, replies: “I would like to make several points about the morning-after pill. Firstly, it is a relatively small dose of hormones; 2 x 50mg pills are taken, with a repeat in 12 hours. Secondly, there is no known risk of teratogenic effect as the hormones are taken too soon after conception for there to be any effect on the baby should one be conceived. Thirdly, the morningafter pill does not affect a woman’s chance to conceive in the future. The main reason for advising women not to use the morning-after pill as a regular form of contraception is that of a very small risk of oestrogen levels affecting the cardiovascular system if taken too often. It also disturbs a regular menstrual cycle. When the effectiveness of natural family planning methods are considered statistically, they may be as good as a diaphragm when used by well-motivated and well-instructed couples. Unfortunately, not everyone needing contraceptives falls ;into this group.”] ;

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