Maybe the condom broke, you got caught up in the heat of the moment, or you were the victim of rape.

All hope is not lost.

Now, the federal government has opened the door for women to find relief from the morning-after worry of unprotected sex.

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration said six brands of birth control are safe and effective “morning-after pills,” which is the first federal acknowledgment of emergency contraception.

The FDA announced that high doses of these birth control pills, when taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, are 75 percent effective at preventing pregnancy.

Becca Loftus-Granberg, a registered nurse and regional director of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa, said that that number is a little misleading.

She said that out of 100 women who have unprotected sex, eight will get pregnant. Of those eight, emergency contraception will prevent six (75 percent). So, two out of 100 women will get pregnant, giving morning-after pills a 98 percent protection rate.

The brands of pills that the FDA gave the nod include Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories’ Orval, Lo/Ovral, Nordette and Triphasil, and Berlex Laboratories’ Levlen and Tri-Levlen.

A woman takes the first dose of pills (between two and four, depending on the dosage and the brand) within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse, and she takes the second dose 12 hours later.

The pills can work in several ways, “depending on where you are in your cycle” when you take them, Loftus-Granberg said. The pills work by preventing ovulation, fertilization or implantation of a fertilized egg.

They are not effective more than 72 hours after unprotected sex, she said. By that time a fertilized egg will have already implanted itself in the uterus.

Loftus-Granberg pointed out that emergency contraception and RU-486, the so-called abortion pill, are not the same thing. RU-486 gets rid of an embryo once it is already implanted, while morning-after pills will not affect an implanted pregnancy.

“The best option is abstinence,” said Dr. Rebecca Fritzsche, a staff member and general internist at the student health center, “but if one can psychologically rationalize using a birth control pill to prevent the start of a new life, the same logic could be used in employing a morning-after pill to prevent the implantation and the start of a new life.”

The pills can, however, cause a few side effects, the worst of which is nausea. Loftus-Granberg said that taking the pills with food helps, and she strongly recommends taking them under the supervision of a health care specialist.

At the very least, she said, “get medical advice.”

Even women who should not be on the birth control pill, she said, can take emergency conception, because it is just a one- or two-time dosage. She did warn that women with a history of migraines or blood clots should stay away from morning-after pills.

Fritzsche had another warning that women should keep in mind: Emergency contraception does not equal birth control.

“Women shouldn’t think that this one set of pills will protect them for the rest of the month,” she said. “It doesn’t mean they’re protected tomorrow night or next week.”

In the past it has been hard for the vast majority of American women to get their hands on emergency contraception for several reasons.

Though it has been legal for doctors to prescribe the emergency contraception since the invention of the birth control pill, few physicians knew the proper doses and even fewer women knew they had that option.

“Women could’ve asked for it, but women didn’t know to ask for it,” Loftus-Granberg said. “Some physicians have been using it for about 20 years.”

But, up to now, morning-after pills have been prescribed on an “off-label” basis, which means that their use as such has not been approved by the FDA.

She said that many drugs are used off-label, citing an asthma medication that is also used to stop premature labor.

Companies who manufacture birth-control pills have not, up to this point, been able to advertise their products for the purpose of emergency contraception. Loftus-Granberg said that the FDA’s decision will change all that.

The government will now allow companies to specially package birth control pills for women to have on hand in the medicine cabinet in case of an emergency, just as the pills have been sold in Europe for years.

Until that happens, though, Loftus-Granberg said that women who have been prescribed emergency contraception will have to continue to buy a whole cycle of pills, which can range in cost from $15-$25, plus the expense of an office visit.

At the student health center, a dose of emergency contraception costs $14, and another $5 buys some anti-nausea pills. They also prescribe six pills instead of four; that way, if there is any vomiting, which could prevent the pills from being absorbed into the system, a woman has a couple of extras.

While this is a breakthrough for women’s health, Loftus-Granberg wanted to stress that emergency contraception is not an excuse to throw away the condoms or go off the pill. “It’s more expensive than normal [birth] control,” she said.

“It doesn’t make you feel good, and it’s not quite as effective” as regular birth control pills, which have an accuracy rate of over 99 percent when used properly and consistently, she said.

“We don’t like to see women coming in every month for this,” Fritzsche said. “We like to discourage that because that means they’re not using contraception responsibly.”

Loftus-Granberg also said that the FDA’s approval of the pills will cut down on the number of unplanned pregnancies and abortions each year.

Research by Dr. James Trussell of Princeton University showed that emergency contraception could prevent up to 2.3 million unplanned pregnancies a year, one million of which now end in abortions. His findings convinced the FDA to give the pills the go-ahead.

For more information, an emergency contraceptive hotline offers callers free, anonymous recorded information. The number is (800) 584-9911.