What is the risk of pregnancy if a birth control pill is taken 3 hours late?

The risk is close to zero since she is on combination OCPs, the kind with both estrogen and progesterone. If she was taking the POP progesterone only pill, she would need to use backup birth control is she was more than 3 hours late with a pill.

Very low risk in that situation. If it were me in the same situation I would not be worried at all.

Zilch.

The time of dosage
was not exceeded by that much. She should take the forgotten pill as soon as she remembers it, then the next pill at the regular time. This may mean taking 2 pills in 1 day.

They don’t have to be taken at the same exact time each day BTW. It’s recommended one adheres to a routine time/schedule, but most of that is in order to make it easier for people to get into the habit of taking it, and reducing the risk of a forgotten dose.

So you’re safe… whew!

Thanks all. Good news indeed.

The pills likely will not bother telling you HOW they work. Female birth control, whether chemical or mechanical, is ABORTIFACIENT not contraceptive.

It takes more than hours for the abortifacient effect and fertility change to cease.

@BBQsomeCows WTF are you talking about? The traditional pill 99% of the time is preventing a woman from ovulating, there is NO conception. On the rare chance she did ovulate it does slightly change her “environment” so the fertilized egg is less likely to attach to the uteris.

@BBQsomeCows here is a website so you can educate yourself http://kidshealth.org/teen/sexual_health/contraception/contraception_birth.html look under how it works.

@BBQsomeCows @JLeslie is absolutely correct. The vast majority of birth control options available to women including the combination OCP work by preventing the sperm and egg from meeting. You can’t have an abortion without a fertilized and implanted egg.