Can you get pregnant during your period

I've heard this question frequently and the answer is yes - you can get pregnant during your period. In actuality there's really no safe time of the month to have unprotected sex. Getting pregnant in a nutshell: Before we look at why you can get pregnant during your period, it's useful to understand how pregnancy occurs. Your female body experiences something called ovulation. Ovulation is when a mature egg (you need an egg to make a baby) is released from your ovary, pushed down the fallopian tube, and then is available to be fertilized by sperm. Once sperm and egg meet up the result can be a pregnancy (conception). Your uterus lining thickens each month to prepare for conception but if you don't become pregnant, the uterine lining as well as blood will be shed and that shedding is your period. Learn more about how women get pregnant. The chances of becoming pregnant during your period are slimmer than getting pregnant at another time, but it's still possible. Read on to find out why... Your period is not always the same: Women experience very different period cycles and many have bleeding (that's not an actual period) between their cycles. Stress, illness and many other things can cause you to bleed when you're not actually having a period and it's easy to mistake this bleeding for your period. If you're going strictly by sex during your period, and then have sex when it's not actually your time of the month, you could get pregnant. Ovulation is sketchy: Women release an egg about 12-16 days before their period, which means it is possible to get pregnant without ever having had your period. Women who are not menstruating because they have low body weight, they're breastfeeding, they're perimenopause or because of illness or medications may experience ovulation at any point and if you're ovulating you can become pregnant. Additionally ovulation, like your period is not always timely or easy to figure out - i.e. it doesn't always occur like clockwork. Sperm is long living: Studies have shown that sperm can live for up to 7 days in your body, although on average it survives about 3-4 days. The American Pregnancy Association notes:

Pregnancy can occur from intercourse that takes place during a period. This is because sperm can live in the body for up to five days, and if a woman ovulates soon after her period, then conception could take place from intercourse that occurred during her period.

So if you want to be safe from a surprise pregnancy it's smart to use birth control each time you have sex - period or not. If you have questions about the best birth control for your situation or questions about pregnancy you should always discuss them with a professional health care provider.