[purpsuit]

I started my first pack of birth control a month ago. Today was wednesday and I started my second birth control pack, but I took the sunday pill instead. What should I do? Will this affect my period and/or contraception if I become sexually active in the next month or so? Thank you

[shoshannah]

More info, please. The main thing is not to start a new pack later than you should, I.e. With a longer break between the last active pill of the old pack and the first active pill of the new pack. With most but not all pills, there's a seven day inactive week whe you take either inactive pills or no pills at all. This is usually when your period comes. Normally you will start all packs on the same day of the week. For most women this will be Sunday since that way the pill pack will be synched up with the pages of a monthly calendar, plus it's supposed to give you your period mid-week so you don't have it on a weekend (works for me but not for everyone). So the default setting on the packs are sunday start.

If you started your first pack on a Wednesday and you also started your second pack on a Wednesday, exactly 28 days after your first pack, you're probably on schedule. On the other hand, if you started your first pack on Sunday and your second pack 31 days later, then for most types of 28 day cycle pills, that's a late start and you might not be protected from pregnancy this cycle (or at least for part of it).

If you did start late, consider coming up with a reminder to keep you on schedule, like an alarm on your phone. If you start packs at the wrong time your periods can get wonky and you run a pregnancy risk.

[purpsuit]

I started my pack on the right day (as in i finished my last inactive pill from the previious pack and then started the new pack with an active pill). My concern was that I started the new pack on a wednesday, but instead of taking the pill labeled "wednesday" i took the one labeled "sunday".
Essentially, I'm wondering whether all of the active pills are the same.

More info, please. The main thing is not to start a new pack later than you should, I.e. With a longer break between the last active pill of the old pack and the first active pill of the new pack. With most but not all pills, there's a seven day inactive week whe you take either inactive pills or no pills at all. This is usually when your period comes. Normally you will start all packs on the same day of the week. For most women this will be Sunday since that way the pill pack will be synched up with the pages of a monthly calendar, plus it's supposed to give you your period mid-week so you don't have it on a weekend (works for me but not for everyone). So the default setting on the packs are sunday start.

If you started your first pack on a Wednesday and you also started your second pack on a Wednesday, exactly 28 days after your first pack, you're probably on schedule. On the other hand, if you started your first pack on Sunday and your second pack 31 days later, then for most types of 28 day cycle pills, that's a late start and you might not be protected from pregnancy this cycle (or at least for part of it).

If you did start late, consider coming up with a reminder to keep you on schedule, like an alarm on your phone. If you start packs at the wrong time your periods can get wonky and you run a pregnancy risk.

[kira]

If you have triphasic where there is a different color pill each week then it matters. If you have monophasic where there are 21 of one color and 7 inactive pills of another color then it doesn't matter what pill you take when. All pills of the same color in any pack are the same things.

[shoshannah]

Since a lot of packs are set up for a Sunday start by default, the first pills in these packs will be labeled "Sunday." It sounds like you started the first pill in your first pack on a Wednesday and thus the first pill in the second pack on a Wednesday. If that's so, the default labeling is probably just confusing you. You're probably safe.