Background; - In Ethiopia where maternal mortality is one of the highest and inducedrnabortion secondary to unwanted pregnancies contributing the highest proportion ofrnmaternal deaths using emergency contraception as a back up method can contribute tornreduce unwanted pregnancy secondary to method failure, contraception non use andrnalso rape.rnObjectives; -the study is designed to assess the knowledge and practice to emergencyrncontraception & also barriers to its use among the antenatal care attendees of AddisrnAbaba health centers.rnMethodology;-cross sectional institution based descriptive study was conducted in tenrnhealth centers of Addis Ababa from September to October 2006. One health centerrnfrom each ten sub cities of Addis Ababa were included in the study after selecting byrnsimple random sampling technique from each sub city .By using systematic randomrnsampling technique 636 Ante natal care attendees were interviewed with a response raternof 97.8%. Pretested and structured questionnaire was used to collect the data & the datarnentered to EPI6 and SPSS version 11 used for analysis.rnResultrnOf the 636 women included in the study 148(23.3%) of the women reported that therncurrent pregnancy is mistimed, 90(14.2%) is unwanted and 60(9.4%) reported that theyrnhad induced abortion in the last two years. Of the study participants 65(10.2%) had everrnheard of emergency contraception. Where as, only 12(1.9%) of the women had actuallyrnused emergency contraception. The preferred places for the provision of emergencyrncontraception were public hospitals 331(52%), health centers 214(33.6%), privaternclinics 34(5.3%), &pharmacies 33(5.2%).rnConclusionrnThis study showed that the major barrier to the use of emergency contraception is lackrnof awareness of this contraceptive method & also there is demand for education andrnprovision of emergency contraception methods.