Close contact between a penis and a vagina can lead to pregnancy. Period. Even if you use the withdrawal method, it still may be too late.
Before a man actually ejaculates or climaxes, there are usually drops of semen at the end of the penis. These drops of semen help to lubricate the head of the penis and may be present before a man feels close to ejaculating. Even one drop of semen can contain a million sperm. And it only takes one sperm. There is a smaller chance a sperm would fertilize the egg when you start with “just” one million sperm, compared to the chances when you have hundreds of millions of sperm starting out as you would in full ejaculation. But it’s still possible for one of the sperm out of that drop of semen to make it to the egg. Furthermore, the seconds before climax are not the best time to expect someone to use good judgment and pull out. Studies show that when one hundred women use this method to prevent pregnancy, twenty-three will end up getting pregnant within a year. Even if you pull out perfectly every time, sixteen in one hundred women get pregnant. These odds suck.
Other studies confirm that lots of people get pregnant using the withdrawal method. In a study of 1,910 women in Turkey (where 35 percent of the group was using coitus interruptus or pulling out to try to prevent pregnancy), 38 percent of the women experienced at least one unwanted pregnancy. In a study from a family-planning association, where about 30 percent of the population was reported to use coitus interruptus as their method of choice, 34 percent of people indicated that they or their partner had become pregnant when relying on withdrawal.
Along these same lines, a woman can also get pregnant even if the man doesn’t put his penis all the way in her vagina. If he puts it partway in and then ejaculates, a woman would have lots and lots of sperm inside of her that can still try their luck at swimming up to an egg. Even if he doesn’t ejaculate, the woman may have some small drops of semen with their millions of sperm, also swimming along and trying their luck at finding the egg. Even if the drops of semen are right outside the vagina, there is a chance that a sperm will sneak inside and make its way to the egg. It only takes one!
MYTH, HALF-TRUTH, OR OUTRIGHT LIE?
You can’t get pregnant during your period
For most women, the chance of getting pregnant during their period is slim—but it’s not impossible. A normal period lasts three to five days, but can be as short as two days or as long as seven days. Most women have periods twenty-one to forty-five days apart, and this cycle tends to shorten and be more regular with age. If your periods are on the shorter end of normal, or if your periods do not occur on a regular cycle of a certain number of days, there is a greater chance that you will ovulate (and thus you could still get pregnant) when your period is going on.
Usually, a woman ovulates about two weeks before her period, so that is the most likely time that she would get pregnant. But the egg can live for several days in the fallopian tubes or uterus, and not all women ovulate exactly two weeks before their period. Some women ovulate much closer to the start of their period, and it’s possible that a fertilized egg could survive the shedding of the uterus’s lining that takes place during a period. Plus, sperm can live for up to a week inside a woman’s body. Sperm that entered during a period might still be around when that period is done. With both an egg and sperm present, whether before, during, or after a period, pregnancy is a possibility, so this is a myth.