Ran out of the minipill

[stairway]

Last week I realised that I had finnished my supply without realising it. I'd had relations up until the last pill but nothing since the supply ended.
I have a new supply now but I've missed a week of pills. GP wasn't helpful, just said wait 7 days until you have sex again.
I haven't had a withdrawal bleed in this time but I'm still bfing my 7 month old and have not yet had a period since his birth.
Could I be pregnant? I really hope not.

You are normally covered after 2 days of pill taking so use condoms or abstain until that time is up. The only issue is whether you were covered just after your pill finished as sperm can live for a few days.

Fingers crossed the breastfeeding has helped prevent ovulation and you aren't pregnant. Did you have sex within the few days before your last pill?

I had sex the day before the last pill. The GP didn't think it was a problem but I'm not sure if he really understands the mini pill. Can you ovulate straight away or does it take a few days for natural hormones to build up?

All the mini pill info I have says if you are late by 3 hours/12 hours (depending on the mini pill type) then you are not protected against pregnancy. It is different to the combined pill as you can actually miss one of those and still be protected. You should really have taken the morning after pill when the pills were missed.

Hmm the gp didn't mention the map. Its always taken me 6 months plus to fall pregnant before so I'm hoping I'll be OK.

Hi Stairway

The official guidance from the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare on missed POPs (mini-pills) is that emergency contraception (ie. MAP or emergency IUD) is only necessary if unprotected sex took place AFTER the missed pills, or within 48 hours of restarting them. It wouldn't be indicated by having had sex the day before the missed pill. This is because one of the mechanisms of action of POP is to thicken cervical mucus, so even if some sperm were in the vagina they would be very unlikely to access the upper genital tract. Demented is quite right that sperm can live for up to 7 days if they manage to get past the cervix, but in the acidic conditions in the vagina, they don't last long.

At the risk of boring you to tears, and in case it helps anyone, your question about when you might ovulate depends partly on which POP you're on. Old style POPs (eg. Noriday, Micronor) only inhibit ovulation about 50% of the time so rely much more on the cervical mucus thickening. However, most women who take POP these days are on a desogestrel pill (eg. Cerazette, Cerelle, Zelleta) which inhibits ovulation in about 97% of cycles. So if you are on a desogestrel pill, it would be likely to take a minimum of about 8-10 days for ovulation to reoccur after you stopped the pill. In your case the breastfeeding is also likely to inhibit ovulation to some extent. So your chance of pregnancy in this situation is vanishingly small as long as no unprotected sex occurs until >48 hours after restarting POP.

Sorry that was a lot longer than I anticipated....!

Thanks for taking the time to answer minijellybeans that makes a lot of sense. Not boring me to tears at all I like this kind of thing
Its very hard to find this kind of information online.