Emergency Contraception
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Experts call it "the best kept secret in medicine."
Emergency contraception is a method of preventing a
pregnancy after unprotected intercourse. If a person
forgot to take birth control pills, the condom broke or
slipped, or if they just got caught up "in the moment,"
emergency contraception could spare them the anguish of an
unwanted pregnancy.
The most common method of emergency contraception was
developed and named by its originator, Canadian Professor
A. Alfred Yutzpe, MD. He published the first studies
demonstrating the method's safety and efficacy in 1974.
This regimen of emergency contraception uses two doses of
oral contraceptive pills that combine estrogen and certain
progestin hormones. The Yutzpe Regimen, or "morning-after
pill" was never an actual product. He combined large doses
of substances found in birth control pills, more or less
depending on the brand. In the past if doctors wanted to
administer this tactic, they would have to mix it up
themselves, ripping open packets of birth control pills and
telling women to take several of them -- the exact dose
depended on the brand of pills...