Expert: Norman Solberg - 11/14/2011

Question
I was anticipating my period to start today, and thought I had a slight amount of spotting.  I went ahead and started my pill pack this morning (since I want to be a morning pill taker), and now it's the afternoon, with what seems to be no period.  Did I screw up? When will my birth control be effective?

Answer
When starting the pill on the first day of a period, the pill is effective immediately.  Since this isn't apparently a real period, the pill won't be effective for 7 days.  The other reasons for starting during a period is that you know you're not pregnant, and you're less likely to have breakthrough bleeding the first month.  Since your period didn't really come when expected, I'd do a pregnancy test, if pregnancy is possible.  As long as you know you're not pregnant, you can just keep taking the pill.  If you get much breakthrough bleeding this first month, you might need to stop the pill, let the period come, and re start.