Helen Ferry – Emergency Contraceptive Pills

What are emergency contraceptive pills? Emergency contraceptive pills are commonly known as the “Morning After Pill” . They are birth control pills in a very high dose. These pills will contain the hormones estrogen and progestin, or progestin only. You can prevent pregnancy after intercourse by taking Emergency Contraceptive pill (also known as the Morning After Pill or EC). The most common is brand name “Plan B One Step.”

Plan B, the one-step Emergency Contraception (EC) Pill, works by giving the body a short, high, burst of synthetic hormones. This disrupts hormone patterns needed for pregnancy. Plan B affects the ovaries and the development of the uterine lining, making pregnancy less likely. Depending upon where the woman is in her menstrual cycle, the hormones prevent pregnancy in different ways. It prevents ovulation (the egg leaving the ovary and moving into the fallopian tube). It blocks the hormones needed for the egg to be able to be fertilized. It may affect the lining of the uterus and alters sperm transport which prevents sperm from meeting the egg and fertilizing it.

This small brochure was made to help you get important and necessary medical information about contraception, condoms, sexually transmitted diseases, viruses, protection against pregnancy, etc. (NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, US Department of Health and Human Services)

About Author:

Helen Ferry has been a full-time freelance editor since 2008, using her B.S. in Biochemistry and PhD in Experimental Pathology to specialize in proofreading academic submissions by nonnative English speakers. She has edited more than 600 scientific manuscripts, textbook chapters, grants, and dissertations/theses. Helen Ferry’s dissertation work was on the role of SNPs in the human AT1R gene in hypertension. She also taught graduate level Pathology, including infectious disease and HIV/AIDS/Birth Control, and sometimes acts as a writing consultant for biotech projects.

Helen Ferry is currently the Helium Medical Sciences Channel Manager and team leader of the Helium Fact-check Team. If you have any concerns or questions regarding interactions with a fact-check team member or the process, or about writing in Medical Science titles, please feel free to use the Contact link on the right.

Since 2007, in addition to writing on Helium, Helen Ferry has been a contributing writer and given editor’s choice at Suite101, and as of July 2011 is the Suite101 Topic Editor for AIDS/HIV/Birth Control. She also blogs at and been Editor’s Pick at Open Salon and has her own health liaison website and blog, Maeflowers. An article she authored on the history of HIV exclusively appeared in the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of PostivelyAware. In addition, several of Helen Ferry’s articles have been used as stock content and she has been a health contributor at a number of websites.

Helen Ferry grew up in Indiana and attended graduate school in New York, but she now calls northern New Hampshire home. She enjoys crafts and photography, frequenting many online venues and galleries, having been a part of the online world for more than 12 years, when she setup her first website by hand coding HTML.

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