Should I Adjust My Birth Control Pill Schedule While Traveling?
If you have been using birth control pills for any length of time, you may have been advised to take them at the same time each day to ensure effectiveness. Maintaining a consistent pill schedule at home is as easy as setting an alarm on your phone, but what happens when you travel across multiple time zones?
The good news is that if you take a combination pill – one containing both a progestin and an estrogen, usually ethinyl estradiol – you are protected from pregnancy if you take the pill at some point each day. Taking two tablets on the same day is okay if you need to make up for a missed dose; only if you skip more than 48 hours without a single dose are you at risk of pregnancy. This means that most travel schedules will not affect the effectiveness of the combination pills, so take them once a day and you should be fine.
However, anyone taking a progestin-only “mini-pill” should be much more careful because skipping a mini-pill for more than three hours seriously increases the risk of pregnancy . Unlike combination pills containing estrogen, mini pills do not prevent ovulation – they work by thickening cervical mucus and thinning the lining of the uterus, preventing sperm from entering the egg. In other words, mini pills are dependent on natural estrogen fluctuations in your body, which is why it is so important to take them on time.
Regardless of which pill you are taking, your phone is the best tool for managing your schedule, especially if the day on the road lasts more than 24 hours or if you regularly travel multiple time zones. Android users can download the free World Clock application from timeanddate.com, which has a City Alarm feature that allows you to set alarms in specific time zones. This feature is not available in the iOS app, but iPhone users can use its time zone conversion tool to set an alarm at the right time, or download a world clock widget so their home time zone is always visible. It’s important to get the time zone right if you’re taking a mini pill, so before your big trip, sit down and plan your pill schedule for every leg of your journey, including any time you spend on airplanes.
The alarm goes so far: almost everyone who takes birth control pills sometimes misses a day or two, and knowing what to do if you miss a pill is just as important as not skipping them altogether. Before you travel, bookmark this Planned Parenthood missed pills quiz in your phone browser, and always take any backup method with you , just in case.