How to calculate menstrual cycle to avoid pregnancy

This information is very relevant for women who do not want to limit their sexual experience with their partners by using contraceptives, but at the same time do not want to become pregnant. Almost every woman must have heard that there is safe period after menstruation during which the chances of becoming pregnant are practically nonexistent, but not many people understand how to calculate this.

Unsafe period

In order to understand the issues of pregnancy better, let us first learn a few things about women’s physiology. Every healthy woman’s ovulation occurs almost monthly. On these days, the egg is maximally ready for new fertilization, so the risk of becoming pregnant on these days is very high. Ovulation, as a rule, happens in the middle of a cycle and lasts several days.

It would seem that everything is simple, and that after calculating the most dangerous days, you can simply avoid such days and have intimate relationship on the other days without thinking about the consequences. But, as you know, exceptions are present in most rules. So in this case, the percentage of unwanted pregnancies would not be so high, but it would still exist.

How to calculate ovulation period?

To those who plan to not use other methods of protection, preferring only the calendar method, it is important to note that a woman can get pregnant on almost any day. However, there are some days when the probability of getting pregnant is very small, but it is impossible to consider such days completely safe.

The safest days are the 2 days before the onset of menstrual bleeding and 2 days after it ends. To calculate the time of ovulation and calculate the days during which you cannot become pregnant, first of all, you need to know the length of your menstrual cycle.

When using the calculating method, your cycle must be stable or you run the risk of getting pregnant. In other words, if you have an unstable cycle, then you cannot calculate the days when you cannot become pregnant.

You should also remember that the cycle can easily shift and change since the regularity of periods can be influenced by a variety of factors like stress, treatment, diseases of the ladies' reproductive system and a lot of others.

How to calculate safe days using the period calculator?

To calculate your safe days, you should analyze the cycle throughout the whole year, provided you did not use any hormonal contraceptives during this period. If the cycle has not been regular, then one should not rely entirely on the calendar method of protection against unwanted pregnancy, as there are no guarantees!

If the menstruation comes constantly, without taking into account small deviations, then you can start calculating the days when you cannot get pregnant.

First determine the duration of the shortest and longest menstrual cycles in the analyzed period. Next, subtract 18 from the number of days the shortest cycle lasted; the result will give you the starting day from which the probability of getting pregnant is very high.

Then subtract 11 from the number of days the longest cycle lasted; the result will represent the last day when you need to protect yourself in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies. The interval of the ‘dangerous’ period is usually about 12 days.

How to calculate the menstrual cycle to avoid pregnancy before menstruation?

It may seem that pregnancy cannot happen before menstruation because at that time all the needed conditions for implantation of the egg are more complicated. But if the girl does not have a single partner and her intimate relationship is irregular, the probability of getting pregnant increases during each sexual intercourse because her body may react to the unexpected possibility of becoming pregnant, creating an unplanned ovulation.

This also happens when the couple uses interrupted sexual intercourse methods as a form of protection. In this case, substances that are in the partner's sperm can provoke ovulation. Elimination of the chances of pregnancy is easier if the intimate relationship is regular and is conducted with a single partner.

Is conception during menstruation possible?

The probability that you will get pregnant during menstruation is very small. Blood allocation is not a favorable environment for the development of pregnancy - this is due to heavy bleeding.

You can get pregnant if the period of your menstruation is quite long or there is a change in the cycle due to some diseases.

Is there any chance that you will become pregnant immediately after your menstrual period?

There is an opinion that getting pregnant during this period is impossible, but doctors argue that it is indeed possible.

It is worth mentioning that the spermatozoon stays alive in the female reproductive tract for up to three days after intimate relationship, and sometimes it could stay even longer. With the use of the same calendar method, you can easily calculate that by having intimate relationship right after menstruation, you risk getting pregnant, as the sperm can wait until the egg is ready for fertilization.

In summary, every woman should remember that the calendar method can guarantee safety only in some cases, so you should not rely fully on such a method of contraception; it does not give any guarantees that an unwanted pregnancy will not occur.