Can Emergency Contraceptive Pills (ECPs) Such As Plan B Or Preven cause birth defects?
There have been no reliable studies of births to women who were already pregnant when they took ECPs (“morning after pills” or “day after pills”) or following failure of ECPs to prevent pregnancy. However, there are two reasons for concluding that there should be no concern about birth defects. First, ECPs are taken long before organogenesis (development of organs) starts, so that there would not be a teratogenic (harm to the fetus) effect. Second, studies that have examined births to women who have inadvertently continued to take oral contraceptives after they unknowingly were pregnant have found no increased risk of birth defects. The FDA removed warnings about adverse effects of oral contraceptives on the fetus from the package insert several years ago.
