Can You Still Get Pregnant If You Got Your Period – Can you get pregnant at any time of the month is a very common question that women ask in my clinical practice. This was something I wasn’t even sure about until I entered naturopathic medical school. And that’s a question many women don’t know the answer to until they’re about to get pregnant.
I had the chance to interview Sam Gladish about her birth control journey, and she explained that understanding when she’s fertile and how ovulation works is something she wishes her doctor had explained to her as a teenager. girl
Can You Still Get Pregnant If You Got Your Period
You can watch the interview at the bottom of this post, and I’ll share the highlights here, as well as what you need to know about getting pregnant or not.
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Did you know that only 17 states in the United States legally require health education classes to be medically accurate? Or that 29 states demand to abstain, emphasize.
To emphasize abstinence, some instructors will resort to scaremongering misinformation, thus giving birth to the myth that you can get pregnant any day. If we are taught false information in our formative years by people we perceive to be in a position of authority and trust, it can be much more difficult to accept the facts when they are presented to us later in life.
Listen, if you believe in abstinence, want to practice it, or think it should be part of education, then let me make it clear that I’m not telling you otherwise. But I am saying that lying about physiology to make someone fit the ideal is wrong.
But for people, it may not even be that he was misinformed. It can be as simple as just never teaching about your body.
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When we ovulate, we usually only release one egg a month, and that’s when we can get pregnant. Most experts agree that if an egg is not fertilized within 24 hours, it will dissolve. You cannot get pregnant after the egg is removed. You will not be fertile again until your next period.
Sam was a teenager when he started the pill. She was frustrated that she, like many of us, had not been taught about her body, her hormones, or her menstrual cycle.
“I was upset that I was so young and that no one taught me about ovulation, how to technically get pregnant only once a month. “When you’re a teenager, you’re taught that you can get pregnant any day,” she said. She felt angry and betrayed, especially when she began to learn what the pill had done to her body over the course of 8 years.
I can relate to Sam’s feelings of frustration. It wasn’t until I entered medical school that I realized I couldn’t get pregnant on any day of the month. I was upset that I was on the pill every day when I was only ovulating for one day.
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But most of us have been taught that we can get pregnant any day of the month. Or are we not taught about ovulation at all and what are the signs that we are fertile?
In fact, most of us are not taught when we can get pregnant until we actually want to get pregnant. Decades into our reproductive lives, we are finally given the information we should have been given the day we started our period.
Luteinizing hormone (LH) is a brain hormone that promotes ovulation. Ovulation usually occurs 24-36 hours after the LH surge. If you use LH test strips that track basal body temperature, ovulation follows the surge. However, once an egg is released, it will only be viable for 24 hours unless it is fertilized.
In general, women are only fertile for about 24 hours, maybe 36 hours, in a month. That’s right, one day a month.
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Sperm can live up to 5-6 days in a woman’s reproductive system. That means you can have unprotected sex 6 days before ovulation and still get pregnant. Yes, it sounds a little scary, but it really isn’t.
Your fertile window is about 5 days before ovulation and then on the day of ovulation. As explained above, you can ovulate 1-2 days after the LH surge, which is why the fertile window is said to last 6-7 days.
If you’re a woman using the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), you can dial this in so you know when to avoid sex or use a barrier method like a condom. And these days, Femtech devices make it much easier to know your cycle and avoid pregnancy naturally. Daysy is one fertility monitor that can help you do just that. You can read more about it here.
Natural cycles are another way to avoid pregnancy. It’s the first FDA-approved birth control device that uses technology to help you avoid unwanted pregnancy.
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But even if you use a device, you still want to pay attention to your physical symptoms. Keep reading and I’ll explain.
Was your Sex Ed an epic fail? Yes, mine too. And so was Sam. In her interview, she makes such powerful statements about how we are not taught about our cycle, ovulation, and are being disserviced when it comes to our health.
It is unlikely that you can get pregnant during your period, but if you have a longer or shorter cycle, you may be fertile while still bleeding. Remember that the seed can live for several days.
Let me give an example. Let’s say your period is 6-7 days, but you ovulate on days 10-12 of your cycle. Note that day 1 is the first day of your period. If you have sex on day 5-7 of your period and then ovulate on day 10-12, you can get pregnant due to sperm surviving in your reproductive system.
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Using a basal body temperature tracker can help you dial it in so you don’t have “wows” in the bedroom.
“What’s in my underwear?” I have had patients who never had thick cervical mucus until they were 40 years old. The reason is that they were put on hormonal birth control at a young age and left for 20-30 years.
Usually your temperature will drop right before ovulation and then rise after ovulation. This jump can be as subtle as, say, a 0.4 temperature increase or as much as a whole degree. To track BBT, take your temperature first thing in the morning before you get out of bed. You can do this with a thermometer and then a paper chart or plug the data into an app or you can use a femtech device.
The texture will be sticky and elastic, similar to the consistency of raw egg whites. You can also feel and increase secretions with a wet and slippery quality.
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Not all women experience this, but if you do mid-cycle, it could be a sign that you’re in your fertile window.
It may take time to master, but you may feel that your cervix is softer, higher, and your ovulation (cervical opening) will become more open during your ovulation window.
This is known as Mittelschmerz, when some women can feel ovulation. I explain in Beyond the Pill how to manage this if it’s too inconvenient.
It is possible to have some light spotting with ovulation. Of course, if you’re ever concerned about mid-cycle bleeding, you definitely want to see your doctor to get it checked out.
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Sam started the pill because that’s what all her friends at her age were doing, and she saw the freedom and ease they had with their periods. Can you blame a girl for wanting to be a part of it?
Before she started hormonal birth control, she had cramping, acne and migraines. Once she started, her pain improved, but her mood swings increased and her migraines persisted. Her skin cleared up, but she felt anxiety and irritability increasing before her period. Basically, her PMS mood symptoms were worse.
But like many women, Sam had side effects that made it difficult to live a full and happy life. As we discuss, the pill can make some women feel emotional and even more depressed.
As I explain in my book Beyond the Pill, mood symptoms are common in women who start hormonal birth control.
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A large epidemiological study published in JAMA found that women were more likely to be diagnosed with depression and prescribed antidepressants after starting hormonal birth control. This study followed women for 13 years and found that women who were prescribed birth control pills, ie estrogen and progestin, were 23% more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant.
As Sam explains, her doctor gave her zero education about starting hormonal birth control. He didn’t know what the side effects might be or what to look out for. And worse, she felt like she was never taught about her body, ovulation, or getting pregnant
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