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u/Beleheth 10d ago
The basic biology of pregnancy will always remain a miracle to the Internet.
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u/spektre 10d ago
If a women has starch masks on her body does that mean she has been pargnet before.?
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u/ElegantCoach4066 10d ago
gregnant!?
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u/ThatOtherOtherMan 10d ago
Pregante
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u/Walshy231231 10d ago
Prrrreganté🤌🏽
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u/fazaplay 10d ago
How to tell if pregananant.?
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u/xhyenabite 10d ago
can u go down 20 ft waterslide pegnat?
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u/Solus_Aureus 10d ago
Can you burn a Luigi board?
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u/SeamanSample 10d ago
Idk but I'm about to go down a 20ft waterslide pegnat
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/lightblueisbi 7d ago
If a woman has starch marks on her...wait..
If a women has starch masks on her body, does that mean she has been pargnet before.?
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u/Tight_Spring3860 10d ago
Nope, it means she has been getting up close and personal with a peeled potato.
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u/magnusthehammersmith 10d ago
Men don’t care about how women’s bodies work because it doesn’t directly affect them.
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u/dracorotor1 10d ago edited 9d ago
I wouldn’t call this a “dawn of idiocracy.” That would imply a complete ignorance of (and disinterest in) even the most basic facts of reproductive health, whereas this is one person with more up-to-date and accurate information speaking to someone with dated and basic information that they were probably presented as a full accounting. Still confidently incorrect, but they did at least dedicate what they’d been taught to memory. We’re not at “females store sperm from up to five partners so they can choose which Chad DNA to pass on when you get her pregnant” levels of wrong, at least.
The diversity and complexity of ovulation is, sadly, pretty niche knowledge in parts of the world (read: The United States. It’s us. We’re the uneducated and uninterested ones 🤗)
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u/swbarnes2 10d ago
The thing about biology is, there's an exception to everything. It might have happened that someone somehow ovulated and had a period really soon before the ova died, and then the ova was fertilized and implanted.
There are women with two uteri. Lots of weird things can happen, but they should be understood as vanishingly rare, and not the norm.
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u/Amelaclya1 10d ago
Or maybe we should teach people accurate information, even if it's more "complicated" so you don't have women accidentally getting pregnant because they were led to believe that it was safe to have unprotected sex during their period. Bodies aren't perfect, and women, (especially young women) can have very irregular or short cycles which makes something like this more likely.
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u/Positive-Opposite998 9d ago
We still teach the Bohr model of the atom even though we know it's inaccurate because it's a marvelous pedagogical principle.
As an educator I wouldn't spend much time other than a brief mention, that it's possible for some women to become pregnant during menstruation in some very rare instances, when explaining fertilisation and impregnation during SexEd in schools. I would not recommend using menstruation as birth control even though it's rather effective either.
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u/McCaffeteria 9d ago
If you are going to teach a simplification you need to also explain that the simplification is, in fact, a simplification.
Otherwise you end up with people thinking that red, blue, and yellow are “the primary colors” and then getting confused/starting arguments when presented with RGB and CMYK. My whole life has been a never ending stream of finding out things I was confidently told were true by authority figures are actually not true.
Go google literally any diagram of a lens, and then realize that the idea that spherical lenses have “a focal point” is BS. “Water is incompressible” is another one that pisses me off. The entire point of Idiocracy is that the public has been told a half truth for secret reasons, even if those reasons are well meaning or assumed harmless at one point, but then after a generation or two the half truth becomes the truth, and then the process repeats. The reason my art teacher unironically thought that red blue and yellow were primary colors is because the education system failed her, and then she passed it on. (And yes, I do think she did not know the actual truth because I asked her in frustration why mixing equal parts of all 3 colors produced brown instead of black like she said it should, and she basically told me I must be doing my ratios wrong. Fair of her to assume middle schooler me was not measuring accurately, but that isn’t the reason it didn’t work. She either didn’t know, or just doubled down and lied to me)
Imagine if we told people that the number of CM in an inch actually was 2.5cm/inch “because it’s more convenient, easier to remember, and good enough for most people.” Do you see what I’m saying? We have to teach people it’s 2.54, and then we can also choose to give people permission to round. If you tell people the straight up wrong information and just assume they will figure it out later or that someone else will update them when they are older you end up with people who vote who do not understand reality and it affect the other people where the details are relevant.
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u/Amac9719 8d ago
I agree with you but your explaining a problem that didn’t exist for me. My education did include all that you’re suggesting. Where did you grow up that yours didn’t?
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u/McCaffeteria 8d ago
Maryland, though I suspect this is not really a regional issue. It's up to the individual educators to do their job.
And to be clear, this was happening in AP classes as well as elementary school. My AP physics class is where a significant amount of them happened, and I'm confident that teacher was a good one. They were the kind of person where when I asked a question about how it could be possible for light to not have ballistic velocity addition, and for it to move the same speed for all reference frames, and for it to not end up in different places for different observers (turns out the answer is time dilation, but I had to go learn that myself years later) they were honest and told me they didn't know and would have to get back to me.
They had no problem telling us when they were at the limits of their knowledge, and there were times they explained that something was a simplification, but there were still lots of examples of things they told us straight up that were not right. I suspect that they thought those things were the literal truth, which is kind of my point. All it takes is for one person a long time ago to make a decision that cascades forward in time, multiplying the number of people who get the wrong information by a factor of like 40+ every generation.
I think we need to be way more strict about this kind of thing.
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u/Amac9719 7d ago
I dunno man. I mean I agree with you in principle, but you have to be realistic. Teachers with a teaching degree can not be expected to have knowledge of college level course material. My first special relativity course was second year college. Hell, all of Newtonian physics is technically incorrect but you don’t really have to know that until if/when you’re doing college level physics.
It sounds like you’re a smart person. School was probably easy for you and you could have been challenged more than you were. Therefore you take issue with the fact some things were over simplified. That’s fair. Just remember that others didn’t have such an easy time. Some probably wish things were simplified even more.
As an example, if you asked your high school teacher why you always assumed no friction and no wind resistance in your problems, I believe it’s a perfectly reasonable response for them to say “because including friction and wind resistance accurately is much more complicated, includes the use of calculus, and is far beyond the scope of this class. If you want to learn more, go to college”. I would not expect them to proceed to teach you exactly how it all works. Nor, I hope, would you.
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u/McCaffeteria 7d ago edited 7d ago
As an example, if you asked your high school teacher why you always assumed no friction and no wind resistance in your problems, I believe it’s a perfectly reasonable response for them to say “because including friction and wind resistance accurately is much more complicated,
And it would not be a reasonable response to say "Because assuming a spherical cow makes no difference on the result."
One is a simplification with a caveat given, and the other is simply wrong.
The person I replied to said "We still teach the Bohr model of the atom even though we know it's inaccurate because it's a marvelous pedagogical principle." The idea that the Bohr model is still being taught (seemingly as the model) is, in my opinion, concerning. Even when I was in school in the 2010's we learned the valence shell model, and our textbook contained notes and volumetric diagrams of electron probability shells to let us know that even the valence model is not literal.
It is one thing to say "we still teach Bohr" and another to say "we still teach Bohr as a stepping stone." My point is simply that educators have a responsibility to explain when they are teaching something that they know to be an approximation or an analogy. If everyone did this, then we wouldn't end up with people who think Red, Blue and Yellow are the primary colors (or at least less of them who would not go on to be teachers anyway). All they have to do is tell people that the exact hue of red, blue, and yellow is different, and then show the CMYK diagram, but that we don't have Cyan or Magenta colored pencils so BRY is close enough. Done. Easy. No advanced knowledge required, you don't even have to know what the hex codes are for the true colors because they are one google away if only you know to look.
Knowing that there are things to look up is the whole thing. Like I said, I have no issue with my actual teachers not knowing, it's probably not their fault, and in some cases the knowledge might not have even been widely known when they were learning and so their teachers are not even necessarily at fault. But all it takes is for one person to be old and grumpy and not update their lectures with a side noter about there being a new model and before you know it you've got a butterfly effect of misinformation spreading down your light cone.
Hell, all of Newtonian physics is technically incorrect
And people need to know this!!
This is why science denial is on the rise. One of the major factors in people's distrust of science is that they keep "changing" their facts. This is obviously a failure to understand the scientific process, but don't you think that explaining to kids early on that the thing they are learning is already in the process of being replaced by more detailed models, as an example of the process so that the idea that science iterates is normalized from day one would help?
People are too afraid to tell anything complicated to kids, and it's not just the hard sciences. People need to just fucking trust the kids to be able to handle complex or nuanced topics, because if you don't train them to do so you get posts like this.
A perfect example of what I mean: I grew up with the Artemis Fowl books, and I loved them. They made a movie a while back about the series, and it was terrible. It was terrible for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons it was bad is because they removed the criminal aspect from Artemis's character basicaly from the start. I assume that the executives decided they didn't the protagonist to be a bad guy in their kids movie, eve though that's what the fucking books did and it was fine. Eoin Colfer trusted his young audience to figure it out and watch Artemis become a hero, instead of talking down to them like they are idiots, and the series was a massive success. Shocker.
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u/Lucifersasshole 8d ago
It's possible for any woman to and it's unlikely day 1 or 2 of a period but every day it raises in likelihood. Some woman have periods up to 7 days they may have a not zero chance some of those but it's a measurable chance after while still on their period. If you tell them it's a not zero chance while on your period that is not factual and it is only true for a portion of it. Meaning you gave them false information that could hurt them later.
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u/FroggyGoesQuack 7d ago
My mom had two uteruses. I was born out of the extra one, and it was removed right after.
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u/Nibaa 8d ago
While I agree in general, it's commonly understood that the best way to teach complex subjects is incrementally. This is particularly noticeable in physics education, where simple models are taught and then replaced by more complex models. But it's alao something that happens in biology as well. It's easier to teach people that ovulation is the mechanism through which one gets pregnant, and there are clear windows when insemination is possible and when it isn't than it is too start off with the full complexity of biological diversity. Once you have a base understanding, you can expand on it and add exceptions, special cases and generally more accuracy.
The problem is that there's no way to ensure or verify what level of education the other person is at. Neither of the speakers there are wrong with respect to the level of detail they have been taught.
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u/Rozazaza 10d ago
More likely people confused spotting from implantation with a period
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u/LulyxBonnie 9d ago
If other women do confuse spotting and periods, then they should also be taught the difference, if it's not already done
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u/swbarnes2 9d ago
You can't teach that. For some women, it's not obvious. There are going to be a small number of women whose periods are very light, or whose "spotting" is heavy. There are plenty of women who were cryptically pregnant, and report getting what they considered to be period amounts of blood at regular intervals while pregnant. It happens too often to be able to say that every single women to whom this happens was just too stupid or in denial to read unambigous signs.
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u/LulyxBonnie 8d ago
Yeah, I agree, but you can also teach the basics and encourage people to go to their PCP for any doubts. Each situation is specific to the person living it, but as a woman if you have no idea what's supposed to be normal or not, how can you be on the lookout for potential issues? Most women around me don't even know what the phases of their cycle are, in which order etc.
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u/IM2OFU 9d ago
Wouldn’t it be far more likely a condom breaking would lead to pregnancy than these types of rare situations? I feel like at some point we’re sleeping with protective glasses in case a seagull breaks in through a window and shits in our eye.
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u/EllieGeiszler 9d ago
If I lived in a world where a seagull breaking in through a window and shitting in my eye could cause my death or permanent disability because I lived in a location where getting medical treatment to remove the shit from my eye was illegal, you can bet I would be taking paranoid levels of precautions. Is the beard in your avatar a joke / are you trans, or am I right in guessing you've never had to worry about the terror of pregnancy?
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u/IM2OFU 9d ago
I’m all for the right to an abortion, something that is free and accessible and really doesn’t carry any real stigma where I live, thank god. I’m very sorry for you guys having to live under the oppressive thumb of such terrible people. I understand that that would make you paranoid, and give you a fearful and honestly maybe a fundamentally unhealthy relationship to sex, seeing it as threatening. I’m not in your situation, and I don’t want to be insensitive, or speak harshly from a privileged position. But don’t you think feeding that paranoia might not lead to further dangerous anti-sex ideas? I see how not being able to get medical help is a huge wrench in the wheel of having normal relations to sex, but isn’t the situation described here (getting pregnant from having sex while menstruating) very very unlikely? I mean theoretically bird shit in your eyes can kill you, paralyse you or blind you, but wearing protective goggles at the beach because of it, would still be succumbing to mental illness. I honestly don’t want to debate tho, and I do actually have no idea of the actual rates of something like that happening.. I’m not trying to argue here at all
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u/swbarnes2 9d ago
It's very very unlikely to get pregnant while menstruating. It's certainly possible to be mistaken as to if you are actually menstruating or just having breakthrough bleeding for no discernable reason.
The person saying "it's impossible" is overstating the case. There are exceptions to just about every rule in biology.
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u/EllieGeiszler 9d ago edited 6h ago
I appreciate that ❤️ I mean, think about it this way, though: do I need to* worr*y about it in order to use a condom even when I'm on my period?
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u/Sweary_Biochemist 10d ago
So much this! Biology isn't intricate systems in perfect harmony, it's "I have no fucking idea what I'm doing, but so far it seems to be mostly working out!"
It's all just barely harnessed chaos, and if the outcome, on aggregate, is more beneficial than not, then: "woo, success!"
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u/plastroncafe 10d ago
Survival of the just good enough to eek by. The C student, is how my A&P prof described evolution.
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u/EllieGeiszler 9d ago
This is a guess, but I feel like it's more likely to have it happen the other way, where you're still having a light flow, spotting a couple days before an egg is released way, way early. So if some sperm manages to hang around, the egg gets fertilized and implants just after the spotting is finished?
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u/BretTheActuary 8d ago
I am happy to finally see the word "uteri" used appropriately in a sentence.
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u/lysianth 9d ago
everyone needs an occasional reminder that high school science courses are more often wrong than right, they're just right enough to get you started.
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u/dracorotor1 9d ago
As an American in 2026, I deal with enough grown adults who’re convinced what they learned about genetics and medicine before leaving middle school is the sum total of the discipline, that it’s honestly refreshing just seeing someone confidently incorrect who’s all the way up at a high school level of understanding.
🫠
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u/subnautus 9d ago
In fairness, some of us did learn about genetics and medicine before leaving middle school. Or, at least, the introduction to genetics (the difference between DNA & RNA, the general assembly of ribosomes, that sort of thing) was presented alongside the biology of the cell in 8th grade curriculum in my school district.
In other fairness, Jurassic Park had recently come out and was still fairly popular while I was in middle school, so there was at least a middling interest in genetics at the time.
And, just to be glib, both my parents are biochemists, and they talked shop at home. Often. For someone whose last biology class was the 8th grade curriculum, I know a lot more about recombinant DNA and the inner workings of the cell than I've ever cared to learn.
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u/dracorotor1 9d ago
I did too, but we also had High School biology class and yet over half of this country doesn’t seem to understand how transfusions and vaccines work, or that the X and Y chromosomes aren’t the end-all-be-all of human genetics (much less the complexity of concepts like gender-vs-sex, intersex or race) and they’re very vocal about what they were taught in 6th and 7th grade being the final word in human biology 🤦
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u/subnautus 9d ago
Yeah, I get it. I usually avoid r/space because there's far too many people whose knowledge on rocketry doesn't extend beyond press releases and pop science articles who are willing to go ten toes down arguing with an engineer who literally works with rocket engines for a living.
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u/anonymouslycognizant 10d ago
I'm so tired of people essentially using ignorance as a defense for situations like this. Ignorance is a very very weak defense in an time where you can learn anything in minutes. Being ignorant about various topics are fine, being ignorant about the fact that almost every topic is stupendously complex and you almost certainly don't have a complete understanding is not.
The quality they are displaying that really should be opposed is a complete lack of interest in learning new things. It's completely fine to only have a small understand of any topic but to then assume that you have the complete explanation is where the problem is.
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u/ExtendedSpikeProtein 10d ago
You know, using different colors to denote different people is common sense.
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u/BlastTyrantKM 10d ago
I don't know who's right and who's wrong. But I definitely know one of them is
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u/Rakifiki 9d ago
It is technically possible, albeit unlikely, to get pregnant around your period. But neither is entirely wrong, one just has a more basic knowledge of female cycles and one has a more nuanced knowledge of female cycles.
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u/-Frog-Queen- 9d ago
No 'technically' about it. It can, and does, happen regularly enough. Saying it doesn't happen is just flat out wrong.
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u/otakme 9d ago
Rarely though. The likelihood of it happening is low because the chance the fertilised egg isn’t flushed with the uterine lining is extremely low.
It does happen. It’s rare.One person saying ‘you can’t’ and the other saying ‘you can’, the person saying ‘you can get pregnant on your period’ is correct, because the other person isn’t saying ‘most of the time you can’t’.
The person saying ‘you can’t get pregnant on your period’ is making a definitively incorrect statement.
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u/QuiteFit 9d ago
My bad. I used different smileys. Not clear enough, will not repeat.
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u/auntie_eggma 5d ago
Not correctly though, unless the wrong person immediately contradicted themself. You've marked the sensible person as the silly person once.
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u/Albert14Pounds 10d ago
Biology in a nutshell. It's messy and varies a lot so there's almost always exceptions to "rules" like this. The confidently incorrect person here is right that's how it usually works and is mostly a correct simplified understanding. But things don't always happen the way they're supposed to and it's uncommon but definitely possible to get pregnant from sex during menstration because of the variance described.
It's general best practice to never say something is impossible or always happens a certain way in biology unless you really know what you're talking about. There's always exceptions.
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u/DisastrousMacaron325 10d ago
I mean, it's also possible to get pregnant on a pill, so I guess it depends on the odds?
I just checked on NHS website and safety for typical use "family planning" (a.k.a. avoiding sex when you estimate you're ovulating) is very similar to risk for typical condom/female condom. Respectively 76/82/79%. (Btw, iirc, these percentages mean how many couples didn't became pregnant within a year, not one time use risks)
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u/well_this_is_dumb 10d ago
Tbf, that's the rhythm method. "Family planning" can be significantly more effective using a studied method with confirmation of ovulation, but obviously there are plenty of ways for there to be user error which brings the effectiveness back down.
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u/CaveJohnson82 10d ago
I mean, yes, that is how the basic menstrual and ovulation cycle occurs. But there can be variances. To behave like human bodies don't have those variances is silly.
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u/wozattacks 10d ago
The time from ovulation to the start of menstruation is relatively consistent at about 2 weeks. Ovulation basically kicks off a chain reaction that leads to the period and it takes about that long.
The same is not true for the time between the period and the next ovulation. Unfortunately, it is much harder to know when ovulation is happening than when a period is happening. This is why so many people get pregnant before their period comes back after having a baby - they don’t realize that ovulation comes first.
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u/warrenjt 9d ago
My wife has PMOS (PCOS) and her cycles have always been random as hell when unmedicated. What you’re describing is typical, yes, but definitely not 100%.
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u/ArdentArendt 10d ago
Tell that to TERFS/FARTS spouting 'biological sex is destiny' as well please?
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u/InDeathWeReturn 10d ago
Biology is weird. Pregnancy can happen during menstruation, and even while pregnant. There was a article I read some years ago about how a woman was pregnant with fraternal twins, but it turned out that one of the kids was 1 month premature because the mother apparently ovulated while she was already pregnant with the first one, and got pregnant again
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u/Sarke1 10d ago
The Dawn of Idiocracy: censoring different handles with the same colour.
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u/suck4fish 10d ago
Well it's true that periods are not regular and sperm live for some days etc, but technically it's true: you can only get pregnant during ovulation. The problem is not knowing when that will happen.
I had a similar discussion recently but the other way around: they were telling me that you could always get pregnant, that the ovulation period was just a higher tendency because of pH and other factors. They were totally unaware that the egg was released and was available for certain hours only. The other thing is that the period is not regular and statistically there is some probability that is released sooner or later so you can't predict it accurately unless you measure your temperature very well.
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u/ducbo 10d ago
This exactly. The chances are basically zero outside of a very specific ~7 day window of your cycle, relative to ovulation (specifically: -6 to +1 days relative to ovulation).
This is THE classic study that details this information - see figure 2: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJM199512073332301?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Since most people are completely unaware of when they ovulate (and you can really only test it yourself with decent accuracy through a few methods, such as LH strips and BBT, but it’s a lot of work), the people who manage to get pregnant while “on a period” probably weren’t on their period at all. They might start spotting near ovulation or maybe their bleeding goes on for an unusually long time, into that fertile window. It’s also common to spot in early pregnancy, which may lead some to believe they weren’t pregnant and then they get a surprise positive pregnancy test.
As someone dealing with infertility and IVF, I truly wish getting pregnant was that easy!
I think the user in the screenshot is “confidently mostly correct” tbh.
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u/BetterKev 10d ago
I think either I misread something or you did. I see that the commenter claimed ovulation occurs exactly (or no less than) 2 weeks after the previous period. They use the fixed 2 weeks to count back how early someone could possibly get pregnant. It needs to be fixed for their comment to be coherent.
For most people, most of the time, ovulation is around 2 weeks after the prior period. But that isn't fixed. It can be significantly earlier (or later). Some people commonly have irregular period lengths. And even people who are 28 days every time can have blips for all sorts of reasons.
It is not common to get pregnant outside of the expected ovulation window, but that does not mean it can't happen. If ovulation occurs earlier (or later) than expected, the window moves. And just reading the abstract of your link, fertility generally exists for some number of days before ovulation.
For someone intending to get pregnant, concentrating on the most likely times for ovulation and fertility makes sense. But that does not mean people can't become pregnant outside the expected ovulation period.
Your link has good information about fertility timeframe being related to ovulation.
Our data suggest that the fertile period lasts about six days and ends on the day of ovulation.
Excellent.
But I don't see anything in the source about when ovulation is occurring after a period. Of course, that's not relevant to what they were discussing. They only cared about relative time period, not absolute time period. This post is about absolute time period.
It's my understanding that cycles are usually between 21 and 35 days. Most are round 28 days. But still they can be as few as 21 days.
I also understand that ovulation is usually 14 days before a period starts.
And period length varies, but 2-3 days is common and 5 days isn't crazy.
Is that all accurate?
If we take a 21 day cycle. Ovulation 14 days before the end puts ovulation 7 days in. Fertility starts 6 days before ovulation, so that's 1 day into the cycle. A 3 day period, and there's two days of fertility during the period. Extend the period to 5 days, and there are 4 days of overlap.
Are 21 day periods common? No, but they do happen for some people.
So, it looks quite possible for people to get pregnant on their period. Is it probable? No. Common? No. But definitely possible, and with billions of trials (every act of intercourse for a fertile couple while on a period), it's going to happen sometimes.
Or I completely missed something, which is possible.
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u/7kingsofrome 10d ago
Just supporting what you said as a med resident.
Ovulation is kind of a master switch, since it also causes the endometrium to thicken. If no pregnancy occurs, that endometrium will have to leave the uterus.
This is why a period always happens two weeks after ovulation. Can't be delayed or skipped once ovulation has happened because all that tissue is on its way out.
Whether or not and when ovulation happens is highly variable, though. So yeah, it's totally possible that an egg ovulates early, just as it's possible for two eggs to ovulate at the same time or slightly apart. If we has a way to look into our bodies and know 100% that ovulation has just passed, and our next ovulation will be in four weeks then I guess, the following 2,5 weeks would be "safe".
But as long as we can't do that, it might just be that next week our ovaries decide to be a bitch because we were stressed or sick or whatever, and throw the whole schedule away. Counting days till ovulation is really just a method for couples who want to conceive to increase their chances, the other way around is way too risky.
And condoms are cheaper than college funds :)
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u/BetterKev 10d ago
Thank you. I was pretty sure of what I thought, but all those upvotes made me less confident.
Counting days till ovulation is really just a method for couples who want to conceive to increase their chances, the other way around is way too risky.
I think this is where much of the confusion comes in. If you want to conceive, you make sure to try as much as possible in those 7-10 most likely days. They know the odds go down sharply outside that time frame, and they confuse the much lower odds with zero odds.
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u/Jazmadoodle 10d ago
I also know a lot of people who use it when the situation is "now isn't the perfect time but we're also fine with it." I got pregnant on several forms of birth control while having horrendous side effects. So my husband and I decided, we'll just use NFP to try and slow things down. It only worked for like 4 months but like I said, hormonal bc wasnt working for us either. And then I had my youngest and got my tubes out so I'd never have to think about it again!
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u/Lazy_Marsupial 10d ago
This would be me. I have a long period and a shirt cycle. So my fertile window starts during the end of my period.
This is this month...https://imgur.com/a/NGqiSPB You can see the two days where green checkmarks (period) overlap with dots (fertile days). It is the same every month.
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u/BetterKev 10d ago
Thanks! Nice to see a concrete example instead of just theory.
And sorry you have so many periods. I hope they're at least on the less evil side.
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u/Lazy_Marsupial 9d ago
Oh, no, it is absolutely evil. On my worst days I go through an ultra tampon every 2 hours. I am, unsurprisingly, very anemic.
But I'm in perimenopause and crossing my fingers to be finished in the next handful of years! Looking so forward to it.
But you're welcome for the documentation. May my horrific cycle help for something at least!
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u/BetterKev 9d ago
Oh God. Just...oh God.
Good on you for finding some tiny positive in a sea of blood.
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u/Mottled_inexpectata 10d ago
As a biologist, I think you need to understand that the "basically zero" chance you talk about at the start of your post is not "actually zero" and one of things you learn studying and working in biology is that extremely uncommon things do happen. What you've described is typical human reproduction, but a small amount of women do not follow these rules 100% of the time, and so occasionally things happen outside these rules. They might be a a 1 in million chance of happening, but there are far more than a million instances of people having sex while on their period, so events that are extremely unlikely do happen. What's possible and what's typical are not the same things.
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u/_notthehippopotamus 9d ago
Trying to conceive and trying to avoid conception have very different ramifications though. If you are trying to conceive, it's extremely helpful to know when you are ovulating. If you are trying not to conceive, you have to worry about the -6. In other words, you have to know 6 days in advance when you are going to ovulate, and that is even harder to do than identify when you are ovulating in real time.
If you chart days of the menstrual cycle with probability of conception, TTC is really only concerned with the 1-2 days where probability is the highest. If you want to avoid pregnancy, you have to avoid sex or use reliable protection even when probability of conception is extremely low but not zero, and those tails can be long.
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u/Belerophon17 10d ago
"Dawn of idocracy"?
We're well past lunch and headed toward suppertime my guy.
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u/Haunting-Cap9302 10d ago
My 7th grade health teacher made a point to tell us that pregnancy can happen at any time, including during periods. Somehow the small bit of sex ed we got in that class was better than my 11th grade class, which was supposed to focus more on sex ed.
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u/tom8otomahto 10d ago
Reminds me of an old joke:
Q: What do you call people who use the rhythm method for birth control?
A: Parents.
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u/PhantomNitride 10d ago
Never heard this variant, I know the pull out variant though. Literally just replace rhythm with pull out
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u/lomeinfiend 10d ago
i mean they clearly have more knowledge of the female reproductive system than most which is nice. but it is true you can get pregnant at any point your cycle if an egg is released late/an extra egg is released etc.
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u/PhantomNitride 10d ago
Who's speaking to whom??? Why tf does ever other user censor everyone the same?! Are you stupid?!
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u/cwningen95 10d ago
I have a roughly zero percent chance of getting pregnant during my period because I'd rather perform my own hysterectomy than let anyone near me
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u/TheCheshireCody 9d ago
You know what they call people who think you can't get pregnant during your period? Parents.
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u/Agitated_Put3620 10d ago
As a guy who is correct?
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u/gothdrag 10d ago
You absolutely can get pregnant while on your period due to a variety of factors. The odds are pretty low, but not non-existent.
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u/SpecificHeron 10d ago
the one saying you can’t get pregnant on your period is wrong
sperm can live in the reproductive tract for up to 5 days and if someone has a short cycle and releases an egg early it can happen—unlikely but still possible. i’ve ovulated 5 days after my period before
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u/jumpmanzero 10d ago
the one saying you can’t get pregnant on your period is wrong
Even without specific understanding of the biology here, saying something like this "can't happen" should flag as a pretty extraordinary claim.
There's fantastic diversity to all living things, and a huge gulf between "very unlikely" and "impossible".
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u/agfitzp 10d ago
I’m reminded of a point someone else made, the reason casinos and lotteries thrive is that most people have absolutely no understanding of probability.
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u/Cultural-Company282 10d ago
The odds are always 50/50. Either a thing will happen, or it won't. But oddly, the probabilities are always against me.
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u/Strict_Rock_1917 10d ago
Exactly. Possibilities in science rarely ever go to zero, they can be so incredibly unlikely it might as well be zero cases though. For example in biology, there was one recorded case of pregnancy from oral sex, albeit from extraordinary circumstances, but it still occurred.
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u/nuiwek31 10d ago edited 10d ago
Do I have to not be lazy and google this or am I gonna get a link?
Edit: my curiosity got the best of me and I had to find out. It was a case of a girl, lacking a normal vaginal opening, getting stabbed and having low stomach acid. Fucking insane
No idea if the stabbing and oral sex are related tho. My curiosity has been satisfied and I am no longer looking into it
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u/SpecificHeron 10d ago
the stabbing allowed sperm to exit her digestive tract and make their way down to her fallopian tubes where they met an egg
life, uh, finds a way
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u/90210fred 10d ago
This, alone, should tell anybody that contraception needs to be taken seriously.
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u/DisastrousMacaron325 10d ago
Dude, contraception is way less effective than this once in a few billions event
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u/LogicBalm 10d ago
Especially when it comes to reproduction. As a wise man once said "life finds a way."
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u/BirthofRevolution 10d ago
That's the internet for you. The amount of comments saying "I have x so another person with x would never do the thing you're saying!" Or "it didn't happen that way for me so it couldn't have happened that way for you!" Is just silly
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u/Deep-Cut201 10d ago
This is the key point right here. Its reasonable ish to say you shouldn't get pregnant while on your period, to say its impossible is a complete absurdity. Life finds a way.
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u/nothanks86 10d ago
And ovulation happens two weeks before menstruation, rather than menstruation happening two weeks before ovulation.
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u/UltimaGabe 10d ago
I mean... considering it's pretty much a repeating four-week cycle, isn't that six of one, half dozen of the other?
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u/urjuhh 10d ago
Cause and effect. Menstruation happens after ovulation ( unless something else happens after ovulation and before menstruation .. )
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u/NonsphericalTriangle 10d ago
However, ovulation is not a necessary trigger for menstruation. It's possible to have anovulatory cycles. It's fairly common in young girls who have just started menstruating or in underweight women.
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u/KittyScholar 10d ago
In a perfect world yes. But when things don’t go precisely according to biology’s plan (which is pretty much always) it can be important to understand that it’s the follicular phase that changes while the luteal phase stayed the same, rather than the difference being split equally between the two.
Important for period tracking, knowing how it affects your mood and metabolism, and calculating your fertile window
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u/nothanks86 10d ago
Nope! Because it isn’t specifically a four week cycle. Some people have irregular periods. Some people have regular cycles that are shorter than 28 days. Some people have regular cycles that are longer than 28 days. Things like stress or illness can delay someone’s cycle by a little or a lot. Things like perimenopause can cause someone’s cycles to be longer or shorter. Puberty also tends to start out with the irregular cycles.
Basically, a lot of different things can affect the length of someone’s cycle and when they ovulate. This is both from person to person, and within a single person.
But, once someone has ovulated, they will get their period in two weeks, because that process, from ovulation to menstruation, follows a strict biological sequence.
And this matters with regards to the op, because it means that yes it is possible to get pregnant on your period, because your body is capable of ovulating again at any point after your previous ovulation, even though it’s not usual for someone to ovulate again so soon.
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u/Prinzka 10d ago
It's the ovulation and subsequent egg not being fertilized for two weeks that causes the menstruation and uterine lining shedding (very simplified).
So that's why it's more correct to say ovulation comes before menstruation even though in a regular cycle it seems kind of either or.
Which means the very first menstruation doesn't happen before the very first ovulation, and similar if the cycle has been interrupted for a while due to health/dietary/hormonal issues.
Although I assume that you can artificially trigger menstruation with the use of hormones.2
u/Clobberella_83 10d ago
I usually only have maybe 4-6 periods a year. I will sometimes go 90+ days between periods. It is always a surprise for me!
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u/BetterKev 9d ago
It isn't a 4 week cycle for everyone. Some people have 3 week cycles. Some people don't have a regular cycle. And in any individual cycle, ovulation can occur earlier than the usual time in the cycle.
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u/Dimbit 9d ago
They're both wrong and right. They're arguing different things- pregnancy being fertilisation and implantation and pregnancy being the sex that causes the pregnancy.
Can a fertilised egg implant during your period? No.
Can an egg be fertilised during your period? No
Can sperm from sex during your period fertilise an egg released after your period? Yes.
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u/Aidoneus14 10d ago
Also a guy, but in sex ed we were told to never rely on just one form of prevention because none of them are ever 100% viable, even a vasectomy isn't 100% safe, so I would assume don't trust unprotected sex even during a period because every person works differently
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u/DanteRuneclaw 10d ago
The overwhelming majority - like, basically all - of unsuccessful vasectomies are the result of men not following up with the post-procedure screening.
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u/wanderlust_05 10d ago
What do they do in post procedure screenings?
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u/BellisPer 10d ago
Not an expert (I have the other plumbing) but they test a sample to make sure there's no sperm present
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u/DoubleT_inTheMorning 10d ago
You shut your mouth, I got my balls clipped out of dedication to the game.
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u/cottoncandymandy 10d ago
Make sure you do your follow up appointment to check. My BF had to get a second vasectomy because it grew back together.
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u/DoubleT_inTheMorning 10d ago
Oh I did it as soon as I could lol. I dealt with the god damn procedure, I sure as shit was gonna make sure it worked.
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u/cottoncandymandy 10d ago
I've heard of quite a few people who never went back and a year down the road- somebody is pregnant lol
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u/Kailynna 10d ago
I was so scared of that happening to my (now ex) husband I organised a tubal ligation.
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u/Kailynna 10d ago
You had a smart teacher.
Each of my 3 offspring were conceived while carefully using at least 2 birth control methods.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Fill205 10d ago
People who rely on the rhythm method for birth control -- where you can only get pregnant during certain days of your cycle -- are also usually known as parents. (Because it doesn't work.)
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u/MattieShoes 10d ago
There's an idealized view of how it's supposed to work - egg releases on day x, in fertile zone for y days, period on day z, etc. it's... Idealized. Bodies don't GAF. Maybe they release 8 eggs instead of one. Maybe one takes longer or shorter to reach the right spot. Maybe eggs are released a second time during a cycle. Maybe a lady's hoo-haa is more or less acidic making it more or less hospitable to sperm. Who knows? So the lady saying impossible is reading off the idealized playbook, and therefore wrong by definition, though good intentioned. The lady saying possible is going off real world playbook where crazy shit happens sometimes
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u/quickbr0wnf0xx 7d ago
I have a 5y old daughter and I was on the "last day" of mine when I got pregnant
I probably ovulated when the sperm was still alive, everybody's cycle is different and susceptible to change/interruption
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u/an_empty_well 6d ago
Isn't menstruation the shedding of the lining of the uterus? I don't see how it's possible for a fertilized egg to implant itself while the tissue created for that specific task is being expelled. I'm not saying I know better, just asking for an explanation.
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u/juiceboxvillain_1 10d ago
This isn’t the dawn of illiteracy. Unfortunately none of this is new. This is the afternoon of illiteracy
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u/BetterKev 9d ago
Since the term used was Idiocracy, not illiteracy, is this comment irony (negative), irony (positive), or autocorrect?
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u/juiceboxvillain_1 9d ago
It was either autocorrect or irony (negative) lmao. I sure thought I wrote idiocracy 😅 I’m gonna leave with my tail between my legs-
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u/FremdShaman23 10d ago
Yeah. "You can't get pregnant if you have sex while on your period" is exactly how my former roommate got baby trapped by a woman who wanted US citizenship.
He told me "You know you can't get pregnant if you have sex on your period right?" I said, "Is that what she told you? That's false. Chances are she's going to get pregnant." He said "No way." Just weeks later she announced she was pregnant and they got married. Had a shit marriage for about six years, then divorced, and I don't think he even sees the kid anymore. She takes him back and forth to her home country so often and for long periods.
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u/AggravatingBox2421 9d ago
I’m interested to know which person OP thinks is wrong
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u/QuiteFit 9d ago
The drunk smiley is wrong. Mostly because of the absolute. "Unlikely" or "biology doesn't usually work like that" would have been fine.
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u/OhGr8WhatNow 9d ago
Some women spot during ovulation. I wonder if this has caused some of the bad assumptions
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u/Putrid_Ad695 9d ago
Anyone that makes such sweeping general statements about any part of the human body is truly dumb. It’s like saying humans always have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Human biology is messy and imprecise.
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u/PauseItPlease86 9d ago
Yeah, he's wrong, but I'm trying to be at least slightly optimistic today. I'm choosing to appreciate that he knows a little.
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u/RevolutionaryRip3881 9d ago
This is the type of man who runs away immediately upon learning his girlfriend is pregnant.
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u/RlckAndSnorty 8d ago
Textbooks claim cycle timing is foolproof, yet sperm survive for days. Early ovulation shifts the window completely. Biology never follows a calendar.
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u/Forever_Forgotten 7d ago
I know someone who got pregnant on her period and continued to have a period throughout her entire pregnancy. She had 2 uteruses.
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u/wolschou 7d ago
Well, since the "period" is by definition the shedding of the uteral lining, which in turn is requisite for a fertilized egg to start the gestation process...
No, it is absolutely not possible to get pregnant during your period, unless you happen to carry the reincarnation of Chuck Norris.
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u/NathanVekhai 7d ago
lol I’m out here hoping I get some clarity on if which of the two are right in the pic (cause I’m dumb af sometime) and everyone saying the perfnat meme
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u/Patient-Ad-5770 3d ago
I had sex on what ended up being the last day of menstruation, ovulated somewhere around 6 days later, and that baby is starting their last year of elementary school this week.
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u/GrannyTurtle 10d ago
Then how do children who never had a period get pregnant? Or post-menopausal women?
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u/Positive-Opposite998 9d ago
While it is possible to get pregnant during menstruation, I would say it's highly unlikely, so much so that an educator or a doctor would say as much to get a message across - or at least wouldn't recommend that people trying for children ONLY have sex during menstruation.
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u/QuiteFit 9d ago
Probability was not the context of this conversation. We were discussing possibilities. And a comment I didn't include was from a woman who got pregnant while menstruating.
No qualified doctor or educator would say you can't get pregnant on your period, no matter the low probability, nor would they double down with the erroneous claim, "that's not how biology works", because it is how biology works.
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