Throughout their lives, all women have wondered if it is possible to get pregnant while menstruating. The answers always seem confused: it’s time to clarify.
On a strictly biological level it is absolutely impossible to get pregnant while menstruation is in progress, for the simple reason that menstruation serves to eliminate an unfertilized egg from the uterus. It follows that during menstruation there are no eggs in the uterus to fertilize. Very simple, isn’t it? Absolutely not!
It is not uncommon for women to become pregnant by having full sexual intercourse during menstruation. How can such a thing happen?
The reason is really trivial: from a certain point on, even during the menstrual cycle, the woman becomes fertile again.
For this reason having full and unprotected intercourse during your period is a very bad idea, because fertilization can always happen.
What are the days you can get pregnant with your period?
In healthy women the menstrual cycle lasts about five days. As we age, menstruation lasts less and sometimes begins “in fits and starts” with small blood spots referred to as “spotting” which do not constitute a real beginning of the cycle and which can often be misleading.
According to 5 day rule, in fact, for a woman it is impossible to get pregnant in the first five days of your period, provided, however, that the first day has been calculated correctly.
This means that “spotting” must be absolutely excluded from this account. The first day of the cycle is the one in which the loss of blood is more abundant than a few drops on the tampon.
In the winter things get even more complicated, because for many women the cycle becomes slightly “slower” starting and the spotting days may increase in number.
What happens if the menstrual cycle lasts more than five days? As already mentioned, in some women, especially in young ones, the menstrual cycle can last up to a week.
This means that in the last days of your cycle you become fertile again. Therefore, having full intercourse (i.e. with internal ejaculation) in the very last days of a long cycle is one bad idea!
Unfortunately males usually insist on having unprotected intercourse during this time because things are “less bloody”. Furthermore, being still certain that their partner is menstruating, they feel free and safe to be able to ejaculate without thoughts.
It is very important that women are aware of how risky this behavior is and how likely it is to encounter unwanted pregnancies even “with menstruation”.
The absolute best thing to do, especially if you have a steady partner, is clearly explain how things stand. By understanding the risk, the partner should agree to avoid dangerous behavior. What if he doesn’t agree? We are sorry to tell you but it is time to change partners!
If, on the other hand, you find yourself having relationships with occasional or non-permanent partners it’s important absolutely not give in to any form of insistence.
Always have intercourse protected by condoms when you have casual partners it is crucial to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and, of course, for avoid unwanted pregnancy even if we are still menstruating.
It is also worth mentioning that take off the condom at the last moment without the woman noticing it (to ejaculate inside her body) is a act of violence called stealthing. In addition to being morally very serious, this act is considered in all respects a crime in many countries and is punishable by law.
In Italy there is no crime of stealthing, but many judges protect women by assimilating stealthing to a real one sexual violence. Some judges, however, believe that stealthing is more a “fraud”, that is, a scam, than a real sexual violence.
While Italian law unambiguously decides how to behave in this sense, paying the utmost attention is the only resource we have at our disposal to protect ourselves.
For more information on stealthing, we recommend reading this article by the Castagna Law Firm.