Is it possible to get pregnant while menstruating, without having sex or when you are already pregnant?

by

Is it possible to get pregnant during menstruation? Can you get pregnant without having penetrative sex? Can a pregnant woman get pregnant again at the same time? These questions are common in doctors’ offices, forums on the internet and in expert profiles on social networks. The answer is yes for all, but these three types of pregnancies are rare. That is, they are possible, but very unlikely.

Doubts about getting pregnant during menstruation or without penetration, for example, often arise because many women do not have access to clear and reliable information. Therefore, several stories that circulate among women can confuse and misinform.

One of the most common questions about pregnancy is: “I heard that you can get pregnant by wiping yourself with a towel dirty with sperm”. The answer to that question is no. But it is possible to get pregnant without more traditional sex (ie, without penetration of the penis into the vagina), although it is difficult.

BBC News Brasil clarifies these doubts in more detail below.

But it’s important to make one thing clear: girls or women who menstruate can get pregnant before, during, and after their period. That is, there is no completely safe time of the month when a woman can have sex – without using a contraceptive method (such as a condom or the pill) – and not run the risk of becoming pregnant in an unwanted way.

Is it possible to get pregnant while menstruating? Because?

It’s possible? Yup. Is it likely? Not.

These doubts are linked to how the menstrual cycle works, the name given to a series of changes that occur in the uterus (female organ where the fetus is generated) and follow more or less a calendar.

With each menstrual cycle, a woman’s body prepares for conception (generating a living being). And for that, a kind of “ceremony” takes place, with changes in hormones and preparation of the endometrium (uterus tissue where the embryo will attach), among others.

Most of the time, the menstrual cycle lasts 28 days, but there are cycles with 21 or 30 days, for example. Despite the differences in duration, the cycle is divided into three phases:

  • Follicular: starts on the first day of menstruation and goes until the ninth day of the cycle. During this period, the egg is prepared in the ovary to be fertilized.
  • Ovulatory: goes from day 10 to day 14 of the cycle
  • Luteal: from the 15th day of the cycle until the start of the next period

But why are these dates important to understand why women can get pregnant if they have sex during menstruation?

Because of two big reasons. The first is that these dates may vary. That is, a woman can start ovulating before or after the date she expects, for example.

The second reason is that sperm can survive up to a week inside a woman’s body. That is, sex can occur during menstruation, but the sperm may be able to enter the egg days later.

“That is, sexual intercourse a little before ovulation, 1 or 2 days, eventually up to 3 days before ovulation, the sperm can still be alive in her body and conception can occur, as well as intercourse 1 or 2 days later. ovulation can also occur at conception”, explains physician Luciano de Melo Pompei, president of the Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the State of São Paulo (Sogesp).

Experts consider that the fertile period (when there are more chances of getting pregnant) can start a few days after the ovulatory phase and can follow a few days after this phase. But these days can vary greatly from one woman to another.

“In general, the egg development period lasts about 12 to 14 days. Once ovulation occurs, the egg is available to be fertilized for about 24 hours. The ‘fertile window’ encompasses the interval of days that ends on the day of ovulation, which is manifested by the presence of filament cervical mucus (known as ‘egg white’)”, explains Márcia Mendonça Carneiro, professor at the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).

It is important to repeat that getting pregnant during menstruation is very difficult. But why?

If fertilization does not take place, that is, if a sperm does not enter an egg, there is a process of expulsion of the unfertilized egg. The endometrium sheds and there is bleeding, known as menstruation.

“Behind the bleeding, there are events linked to the maturation of the egg, ovulation and preparation for implantation of the embryo. Thus, when there is menstrual bleeding, there are no favorable conditions for the occurrence of pregnancy”, explains Carneiro.

Doctor Ricardo Tedesco, from the National Commission Specialized in Assistance to Abortion, Childbirth and Puerperium, from the Brazilian Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Associations (Febrasgo), reinforces why menstruation is so unfavorable for fertilization.

“When a woman is menstruating, she is shedding the endometrium. This shedding, which results in menstrual bleeding, creates a hostile environment for the sperm. hostile. But a conception is unlikely to happen”, says Tedesco.

There are other factors linked to the possibility of getting pregnant during menstruation. One of them is that some women confuse common bleeding in the ovulatory phase with the beginning of menstruation. This can happen because of a blood vessel that has burst or because of an irregular menstrual cycle.

Irregular menstruation (that is, the duration of the menstrual cycle phases may vary from month to month) is another factor linked to pregnancy outside the period considered fertile.

“If a woman has an irregular cycle and suddenly her ovulation is very close to her menstruation, theoretically there is a risk that the sperm will remain viable for a long time and when she ovulates – she had menstruated intercourse, but is no longer menstruating -, that sperm goes there and fertilizes the egg. And the woman becomes pregnant with a relationship she had during her period”, explains Tedesco.

He says that women with regular menstruation have a greater potential for becoming pregnant because they have more ovulatory cycles (that is, the egg is released to be fertilized). Women, on the other hand, with irregular periods are less likely to become pregnant because they have more anovulatory cycles (ie, the egg is not released to be fertilized).

But Tedesco recalls that “the lack of ovulation does not mean that she never ovulates. In other words, she cannot have that control. And that is why women who have an irregular cycle are more prone to an unscheduled pregnancy.”

Therefore, the experts interviewed for this report recommend that women who do not wish to become pregnant should practice sex with contraceptive methods, such as condoms (which also protect against disease transmission), birth control pills, intrauterine devices (IUDs) and even tubal ligation. All are available on the public health network (SUS), but the offer varies from one state to another.

For every 100 pregnant women, 85 of them were not using contraception.

Is it possible to get pregnant without having sex or foreplay?

This is a question that mainly concerns people who are starting their sex life: “And if I have sex without penetration, can I get pregnant virgin?”, they usually ask in medical offices, according to specialists.

“Theoretically it is possible,” answers Pompei, from Sogesp.

It depends on each situation, but in all of them it will be necessary for the sperm to be inside the vagina in suitable conditions for pregnancy.

“Under common environmental conditions, sperm don’t last very long. It depends a lot on the environment where it will be, on the temperature, on the conditions of preservation to know what the durability of this sperm is. But a sperm that has just been ejaculated, for example, if is placed in the vagina in some way, with some device or even with the hand, if you can introduce it inside the vagina, theoretically it is possible to get pregnant”, says Pompei.

What if ejaculation takes place outside the vagina and there is no hand or equipment such as a dildo or a vibrator?

The technical name for this is interfemoral intercourse, that is, with ejaculation in the external genital region, on the vulva or between the legs. And yes, it can lead to a pregnancy, but it is quite unlikely. “If this seminal fluid [esperma] flow into the vaginal canal, the sperm have ciliary movement, they swim”, explains Tedesco, from Febrasgo.

But for that the spermatozoon needs to overcome several barriers. Surviving outside the vagina, passing through the vaginal canal, the cervix, the fallopian tubes and only then trying to fertilize the egg at the right time in the menstrual cycle.

Is it possible to get pregnant from another pregnancy when you are already pregnant?

Have you ever imagined being pregnant and in consultation for routine exams, when having an ultrasound, for example, discovering that you are pregnant again, with another baby, even though you are already pregnant. Where did this new baby come from? Is it possible to get pregnant once and after a few days, get pregnant again?

“Yes, it is possible. But this is also a very, very rare situation. I personally have never seen any case in my professional life, but we hear about it sporadically, sometimes in the media. says Pompei, from Sogesp.

But what is the chance of that happening? Carneiro, from UFMG, says the chance is 1 in 1 million pregnancies.

The name of this phenomenon is superfetation. It happens when a new fetus is conceived days or weeks after a baby has already been generated and is developing there. That is, a new ovulation and conception occurred during an ongoing pregnancy.

“A woman can have two serial ovulations and two serial intercourses. She then becomes pregnant both times. She did not get pregnant in the same relationship, they were in two different ones, but it is possible,” says Tedesco, from Febrasgo.

And is it possible that these two pregnancies at the same time are from two different fathers? Yup.

“The woman would have to have two ovulations at the same time, which alone would have the chance of generating a twin pregnancy (pregnancy with more than one fetus) because she would have two eggs. one of the men would have to fertilize one of the eggs and the sperm of the other would have to fertilize the other egg. And even then the two fertilized eggs would have to implant inside the uterus. So, it’s very rare, but it’s possible. Rare possibility.” , says Tedesco.

The text was originally published here

You May Also Like

Recommended for you