Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff. Lauren Vogelbaum here, considering that roughly half
Speaker 1: the people on the planet experience periods during their lives,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of myths out there about periods,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of myths about conception and pregnancy. Today,
Speaker 1: let's best a myth that has to do with all three.
Speaker 1: You may have heard it before. You can't get pregnant
Speaker 1: during your period. This is not true. You can totally
Speaker 1: get pregnant during your period. It's not super likely statistically speaking,
Speaker 1: but just as a baby's arrival isn't as simple as
Speaker 1: a stork dropping off a special bundle, getting pregnant involves
Speaker 1: plenty of biological intricacies and uncertainties. A menstrual cycles vary,
Speaker 1: and a person can technically get pregnant at any point
Speaker 1: during their cycle. The typical menstrual cycle lasts twenty eight days,
Speaker 1: split into the folicular and luteal phases. In a nutshell,
Speaker 1: the folicular phase consists of an egg developing in the
Speaker 1: ovaries and the uterus starting to grow a nurturing lining.
Speaker 1: Then the egg releases. That's ovulation, and the luteal phase begins.
Speaker 1: It's the preparatory time in which a person's body gets
Speaker 1: ready for that egg to meet up with a sperm
Speaker 1: in the fallopian tubes. Hormone secretions prompt the uterine lining
Speaker 1: to continue thickening for embryo implantation should fertilization occur. If
Speaker 1: fertilization does not occur, menstruation commences as the lining of
Speaker 1: the uterus sheds and the unfertilized egg exits the uterus.
Speaker 1: If you have a textbook twenty eight day cycle with
Speaker 1: a textbook five day period, you are probably most likely
Speaker 1: to get pregnant. If you have sex fourteen days after
Speaker 1: your last period. That's when sperm are most likely to
Speaker 1: encounter a mature egg in the fallopian tubes. But not
Speaker 1: all cycles last twenty eight days. Not all periods last
Speaker 1: five days. The normal range for a menstrual cycle is
Speaker 1: anything from twenty one to thirty five days, and the
Speaker 1: average period can last from four to seven days. It's
Speaker 1: normal to reach peak fertility anywhere from eleven to twenty
Speaker 1: one days after your last period, and that's not even
Speaker 1: taking more outlying situations into consideration, irregular periods that only
Speaker 1: come around every few months, as well as cycles that
Speaker 1: are shorter than the average twenty eight days, may hold
Speaker 1: higher probabilities for overlap between ovulation and menstruation, although the
Speaker 1: statistical chances of it happening are low. There are three
Speaker 1: main ways that it's possible to get pregnant from unprotected
Speaker 1: sex despite the presence of vaginal bleeding. First step, if
Speaker 1: a woman has an especially short menstrual cycle, ovulation can
Speaker 1: occur before menstruation stops. This is the least likely scenario
Speaker 1: for a period pregnancy to take place, but a longer
Speaker 1: period lasting up to seven to eight days, combined with
Speaker 1: a compressed menstrual cycle can add up to an embryo.
Speaker 1: More commonly, with shorter menstrual cycles, the ovaries could release
Speaker 1: an egg a few days after menstruation finishes. But even
Speaker 1: though an egg wasn't ready and waiting during the period itself,
Speaker 1: unprotected intercourse on say the last day of bleeding, could
Speaker 1: leave behind sperm with a surprisingly potent shelf life. A
Speaker 1: sperm can survive inside a woman's body for three to
Speaker 1: five days, possibly resulting in pregnancy if the ovaries release
Speaker 1: an egg into the flopian tubes in that time frame.
Speaker 1: Vaginal bleeding can also be misleading, as it doesn't always
Speaker 1: signal menstruation. In fact, some women's spot during ovulation, which
Speaker 1: could be mistaken for a light period. In that case,
Speaker 1: unprotected sex could certainly result in pregnancy. Stress, for example,
Speaker 1: can be the culprit behind a late period, as can travel,
Speaker 1: which can sometimes be synonymous with stress. Change in weight
Speaker 1: can affect a person's peer it, and so can illness.
Speaker 1: Certain conditions and some medications. For example, take endometriosis, which
Speaker 1: is a case of misplaced cells. Ones that should be
Speaker 1: in a person's uterus grow in other places to or instead.
Speaker 1: Like the bowel, fallopian tubes, and ovaries. They respond to
Speaker 1: menstrual hormones by swelling and getting thicker, just like the
Speaker 1: ones that make up the uterine lining, but they don't
Speaker 1: get shed. They're just stuff. This condition can cause shorter cycles,
Speaker 1: longer periods, or breakthrough bleeding and cramping, all making it
Speaker 1: more difficult to know what stage of your cycle you're on.
Speaker 1: Or take polycystic overy syndrome or PCOS. This is caused
Speaker 1: by your hormones being out of whack, and since the
Speaker 1: menstrual cycle is ruled by hormones, it can cause your
Speaker 1: periods to come irregularly, or uterine fibroids, which are non
Speaker 1: cancerous tumors in the uterus. They can change the shape
Speaker 1: of the uterus and cause extra heavy periods or p
Speaker 1: the inflammatory disease, which is an infection often caused by
Speaker 1: bacteria from s t i s like chlamydia. While some
Speaker 1: people have no symptoms at all, it can result in
Speaker 1: irregular periods or damage to the fallopian tubes, which messes
Speaker 1: with eggs and sperms travel through the reproductive system. All
Speaker 1: of that is to say that our bodies are all different,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they're up to some pretty weird stuff. It's
Speaker 1: plausible for an expectant egg and an enterprising sperm to
Speaker 1: meet at any point during the month. Also, while we're
Speaker 1: here dispelling the myth that you can't get pregnant on
Speaker 1: your period, let's talk briefly about another myth. Some people
Speaker 1: mistakenly think that urinating after unprotected intercourse will flush any
Speaker 1: lingering sperm from the vagina. That's anatomically impossible, though, the
Speaker 1: since sperm enter through the vaginal opening, whereas urine exits
Speaker 1: through the ureical opening, which is between the vaginal opening
Speaker 1: and the clitteress m Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: articles Can a Woman Get Pregnant during her Period? By
Speaker 1: Kristen Conger and Abnormal Menstrual Cycles and Fertility by Katie Lambert,
Speaker 1: both on how stuff Works dot Com. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot Com and is produced by Tyler clang Fully. More
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