camden

It should actually state in your birth control insert (instructions) how long you should use an alternate method of birth control.

If you start the pill on the first day of your period you should not need a back up method. If you do the Sunday start and this was not the first day of your period you will need to use another method of birth control for one week (AFTER you have taken the following Sunday's pill). That being said I waited at least two weeks ! Although a week should be sufficient because you will also notice from your insert that if you miss a pill you only use a back up method for seven days.

If you have not started taking them yet there are a couple things to keep in mind when choosing a start day. If you start on the first day of your period you are suppose to be protected from pregnacy immediatey, but you may want to figure out when your period will come. What I mean by that is that most women begin their period within the first 2nd to 3rd day of taking the inactive pills, this means if you start the pill on a Wednesday and take the last active one on a Tuesday your period will most likely start on the Thursday or Friday which means a period on the weekend.

It you start the pill on a Sunday (use back up!) and take the last active one on a Saturday, you will likely start your period on the Monday or Tuesday and it will be gone by the weekend. I have read that you will never have a weekend period with the Sunday start but...I do the Sunday start and my period does not start until the Wednesday or Thursday of my week off the pill (I have the 21 day pack and instead of taking inactive pills I just take a week off) so I usually end up with a weekend period (this could be due to the depo shot I was on up until 6 months ago). There are ways to change the day you have your period if you should find that you are experiencing weekend periods, but I won't go into that right now.

Good luck to you!