Can you get pregnant on your period?

In this episode, Molly and Cristen dispel the common myth that women can't get pregnant while on their periods and discuss other misconceptions that women have about getting pregnant.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House to works dot Com. Hey, welcome to podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristin Christine. If there's one

(00:20):
thing that gets under my skin and just makes me mad,
it's rumors about sex that aren't true, Okay, involving you
or just general rumors. I'm just gonna stick with in general.
I mean, there's a lot of misinformation about sex out there.
That's what I was trying to get at. Not so
much rumors about who's having sex or who's not, but
just there's so much misinformation thanks to this crazy thing

(00:44):
called the Internet, that it can be hard to keep
straight what's true and what's not. Yeah, and we are
going to highlight one today that I think has confused
a lot of women out there. And even when I
was doing research trying to get at the get at
the answer, there was still on page one Google so
much misinformation out there. And this myth that we were

(01:05):
tackling today, can you get pregnant on your period? Emily?
I got to say, you know, I have gotten in
a pretty heated argument with another like woman about this
about this issue, because the thing is you can, you can,
you're saying that you can't. So I'm glad that I
will now be able to give her a very specific

(01:27):
reasons why you can indeed get pregnant on your period.
I'm glad you came down on the right side of UM.
But yeah, I think it's pretty big misconception. I mean,
if you want to just take a simplistic point of view,
if a period is evidence that you are not pregnant,
it seems like, you know, you shouldn't be able to
get pregnant while it's going on. But I think that's
the thinking a lot of people have, and now we

(01:48):
will completely dismantle that theory. Lets go, Kristen go yes, Okay.
Niemer's Foundation where this information is coming from, which is
by the way, Kids Health Thought or sounds very elementary
but a pretty good resource. Great site. Yeah, very basic
layman's language, UM, credible information for all of your medical questions.

(02:10):
I digress. So you might be ovulating while you are bleeding, okay,
because sometimes when we ovulate there will be a little
vaginal bleeding that will come along with that. Hence, if
you are ovulating and bleeding at the same time. You
might think that you're on your period. Oh I'm in
the clear. No you're not. You have a egg waiting

(02:33):
in your fallopian tubes force firm to unite to it.
So that's one reason why you could get pregnant on
your period. The other thing is that ovulation a notoriously
tricky thing to point yeah, and so you know you
it's let's say you're reading um, the most standard sex
manual there is. It's going to tell you like exactly

(02:55):
fourteen days fourteen days a period. I mean, that's just
like standard textbook woman who rarely exists, because windy women
ever meet the standard rarely rarely. And sometimes ovulation can
occur before the bleeding from the period has stopped, if
you're having just depending on the length of your cycle,
or even a few days after your period is over right,

(03:16):
And since sperm can fertilize egg for five days, boom
egg meat sperm. Yes, yeah, remember that people, Sperm sticks
around inside of you. It doesn't just leave like an
unwanted visitor who won't take a hint. And I think
this is also the perfect time to point out that ladies,
we cannot pee out sperm post intercourse. I think a

(03:39):
lot of girls also think that if they p after urinate,
however you choose to refer to it after you have sex,
then you kind of flush out whatever might have gotten
up in there. But we don't pee out of our
vaginal opening, so it's not gonna do any good. Now,
it is important to pe to prevent urinary tractun actually yes,

(04:02):
but it's not to prevent pregnancy, right, I think that
too sometimes get combined in the benefits for peeing after sex.
But what about douching welling, because no, Christen, they can
talk about douching. No Christen, you cannot douche out sperm.
And for for listeners who out there who might not
know well, who might only know of douches as lame,

(04:24):
lame dudes who may or may not wear ed hardy
T shirts and trucker hats. Um, douching is it's basically
a solution that we use. Women sometimes used to wash
sanitize their vagina, And the fact of the matter is
that douching will not rinse out sperm. It might actually

(04:48):
help them swim upstream towards that magical egg. So you're
gonna do you're gonna do yourself even more harm, possibly
by douching and um, speaking of unprotected sex during your period, Molly,
not only are you um just having unprotected sex in
general are you at risk for STD contraction, but having

(05:10):
sexual intercourse unprotected during your period also is a risk
of your time for HIV transmission. So that it just
keeps getting better and better. It sounds like or worse
than worse. That's what I meant, Yes sarcasm. Yeah, no,
it's not. Ladies, the period is not you're you know,
they'll save time to get rampant unprotected sex. Okay, we're

(05:31):
getting out of your head, which we never advocate on
our podcast, so especially not then, because it's just it's
a bad time. Yeah, but I think that it really
is important to drive drive this point home because I
would say when you say that, this is probably the
number one like can't get pregnant? My yes. So why
don't we go ahead and just talk a little bit
more about ovulation when it's happening, how it's happening, Not

(05:54):
because we think you should have unprotected sex at certain
points in your menstrual cycle, but just so we all
know what's going on. Because It's easy to know when
you're on your period, the evidence is there. However, not
so easy to know when you are ovulating. Um. Like
you said earlier in the podcast, the kind of textbook
answer to to that is, Uh, you ovulate fourteen days

(06:18):
after your last period begin. But that is if you
have a constant twenty eight day cycle. And Molly, I
don't know about you, but having a constant twenty eight
days cycle not necessarily reality. I'm not ready to share
that information. Christens. Well, I'm just saying in general, but
you can. Yeah, so some people keep if they do
have a fairly regular cycle, can track it with a calendar. Yeah,

(06:39):
you can also track it by watching your cervical mucus,
which is my favorite two word combination ever. Yeah, when
you are ovulating that, um, you might have more an
increase in quote from the Mayo Clinic, clear slippery vaginal secretions.
And after you're done ovulating, um, those secretions are going
to kind of dry up a little bit and become

(07:01):
a little more clouded and sticky. Yes, Um, that's just
before ovulation. So sometimes implemen are trying to get pregnant,
they'll track their mucus. It's sometimes used as a punchline
in crazy baby making comedies. Okay, um. And then we
also have our basil body temperature, which is your body's

(07:22):
temperature when you are at rest and when you opulate. Um,
it might cause a slight increase in this basil body temperature,
usually very slight, Yeah, usually less than one degree. You're
not gonna have some opulating fever. You can't get out
of school because you're oulating? Yeah, I got the got
the fever, and the Mayo Clinic recommends if you want

(07:44):
to try this, it will take some time before you
get out of bed. Every morning, take your temperature, see
how it might change throughout the month, and if any
kind of pattern emerges, and you might be able to
better tell when in your cycle you ovulate. There are
also ovulation predictor kits um. You can buy some of

(08:06):
them over the counter, where you basically test your urine
see where see whereabouts in the cycle you are. But
you know, if you're just you know, a young woman
trying to avoid getting pregnant because you're not ready to
get married and have a maybe yet. Just the message
again from the podcast is you can get pregnant when
you're on your period. Yeah. And also remember gals that

(08:26):
just because you have some bleeding after unprotected sex does
not mean that you are necessarily in the clear because
a little something called implantation bleeding, and this is one
of the earliest signs of pregnancy. Uh. Sometimes when the
fertilized egg will attach to your uterine lining, it causes

(08:48):
bleeding that you might confuse with your next period. So
you're not in the clear. No, And it happens about
ten to fourteen days after fertilization, and that might also
be accompanied by abdominal cramping, which would also make you
think that you are just having your period. So again, ladies,
I'm protected sex not good. Yeah, if you're trying to

(09:09):
avoid small bundles of joy, don't jump without the parachute. So,
speaking of big sex smiths, I think another one that
UM is associated with, sort of associated with this is
one for new mothers. There is the sort of myth
out there that you can't get pregnant when you're breastfeeding,
and to some extent it's kind of true because the

(09:30):
hormone that is releasing milk prolactin, yes, it is also
suppressing the hormone that releases the egg. Every month r h. Yes,
So it's possible that because you don't have periods while
you're breastfeeding, you may think, hey, I can't get pregnant.
But especially if you're not exclusively breastfeeding, if you're supplementing
with formula or snacks or what have you, you can

(09:53):
still get pregnant. So don't don't assume unless you want
to have children who are very close in age, don't
assume the breastfeeding is a form of birth control. So
the lesson, the big lesson to take away from all this, Molly,
is that if you are still a menstruating woman, you
can basically bring it whenever. Yeah, but that's why we
have birth control, yeah, or abstinence or abstinence, there are

(10:16):
a lot of choices you can make to prevent the
things that um cause children. Yeah, because I don't know
if anyone's noticed listening to this podcast, but I don't
want them any time soon. But I think I you know,
I'm glad that we have dispelled this this myth about
it's okay to have unprotected sex while you're on your
period because you're in the clear. Not so gals and guys. Yeah,

(10:36):
So there you go. Yep, Moving on to a little
bit of a listener mail. Let's do it. Yeah, a
quick one here about nail polish from Melissa. She said,
I want to put in a quick plug for natural
nail polish. There are many companies that make water based
or less non toxic nail polish that come in just

(10:58):
as many colors as regular nail polish, and they claim
to be long lasting as well. Um One company I
found claim their nail policies even safer to drink than
the water in some cities, a dubious claim in my opinion.
Other natural products are out there as well, such as
nail polish, remover, nail condition are probably any cosmetic you
can imagine. Some of these are overpriced, of course, and

(11:18):
some are actually pretty reasonable, and it didn't take much
ever to find them, just a quick Google search light wet.
Thanks for the tip, Melissa. I'm gonna read one from Kimberly,
who wrote, after listening to your podcast about the opposites
attract I really got to wondering. The fact that struck
me particularly was the study on the effect of hormonal
birth control on sniffing out the right man. I had

(11:38):
taken birth control since before I was into dating, and
let's just say my love life was a flop. However,
about two years ago, I went on a health kick
and decided that introducing hormones into my body just wasn't
from me anymore. Now, my best friend for the past
dozen years has been a male with whom I was
unbearably compatible but unfortunately not attracted to Intimately. Shortly after
said health kick, I began to find myself forming deep feelings.

(12:00):
My best friend was my nose blind to his good
looking DNA structure. This whole time, long story short. We
were married six months ago. I never would have correlated
the health kick and the realization that the love of
my life was in front of my face all along.
But now I can't help up be curious if I
owe my marital bliss to letting my nose breathe the
hormonal birth control free air. It's kind of a sweet story.
That's a sweet story. Let me do just one more

(12:21):
real quick is a correction um. In our Birth Order podcast,
we said that Fidel Castro was the youngest child in
his family, and Cheryl wrote in to say, he's not
the youngest, but he's not the oldest. So I had
misread that article a little bit and and said that
you know, all youngest children were revolutionaries. Basically was all
the first born start revolutionaries. So thanks Cheryl for um

(12:42):
for correcting me about old Fidil. And if you have
any corrections or comments or hopes and dreams or sex
Smiths or sex Smiths, we'd like to share with us
our emails mom stuff at how stuff works dot com.
And we have a blog it's called how to stuff
and you can find it and other articles about pregnancy,

(13:02):
how to and how to not get it at how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics because at how staff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the house stuff works dot com home page. Brought to

(13:27):
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you