Starting birth control before your period starts?

Your best course of action is to start taking it on the first day of your period so you are covered immediately. Then when your period has ended you can have sex without the worry of pregnancy or the inconvenience of a condom.

Starting to take it now MAY delay your period, but it also might mean that you bleed throughout the fortnight... which probably means no sex.

You can start taking the pill at any time. If you start taking within 5 days of the start of your period then you are protected immediately. If not then you are supposed to wait at least a week before having unprotected sex. The whole business about Sunday is that some pills are labelled with days of the week in such a way that it is easier to remember to take them correctly if you start then. Other pills are arranged in a different way so that it is easy to start on any day. If your last period finished on 28th you must be getting fairly close to the next one starting. If you start taking the pill now you might suppress your period but it is not guaranteed and you might get bleeding when you don't expect it or no bleeding when you do expect it especially when you first start using birth control. Stick strictly to the schedule whether you get bleeding or not. If you take the pill carefully there is less than a 1% chance of getting pregnant per year of regular sex without pulling out or other protection - some studies say 1:1000 - so you are not taking a very big risk if you do not use a condom as a back up. Talk to your boyfriend about this. Condoms are a bit fiddley to use but if you both get on with them OK then it's not a bad idea to have a second line of defence. You could also consider putting in some spermicide before starting to have sex but don't use spermicide on its own because it is only moderately effective. The link below might be helpful. Information on where to get the pill is specific to the UK.