Late or Missed Birth Control Pill (CDC 2024)
What CDC's 2024 recommendations say about a late or missed birth control pill.
Open the tool → Runs in your browser. Data leaves only if you deliberately send a problem report from the interactive tool.
Example
- Kind of pill
- Combined pill (estrogen and progestin)
- When the first late or missed hormonal pill was due
- 2026-10-05T09:00
- Date and time now
- 2026-10-07T09:00
- Week of hormonal pills the missed pills fall in
- The first week of hormonal pills
- Unprotected intercourse in the previous 5 days
- Yes
Result: Two or more consecutive pills missed: 48 hours or more since a pill was due.
The tool opens with these values already filled in. Replace them with your own.
What you enter
- Kind of pill
- When the first late or missed hormonal pill was due (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM)
- Date and time now (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM)
- Consecutive hormonal pills missed (optional cross-check)
- Week of hormonal pills the missed pills fall in (needed at 48 hours or more)
- Unprotected intercourse in the previous 5 days (progestin-only: at any time)
How this is calculated
Citation
CDC. U.S. Selected Practice Recommendations for Contraceptive Use, 2024. MMWR Recomm Rep 2024;73(RR-3):1-77: Late or Missed Doses from CHC Use (Figure 1) and Missed POPs (Figure 5), read on the figures. CDC, not the product label. Read the source ↗
A reference and educational tool. Not medical, legal, or financial advice, and not a substitute for clinician judgment.