Natural Family Planning
Natural Family Planning are ways to track ovulation — the release of an egg — in order to prevent pregnancy. Some people call "Fertility Awareness Based Methods"
It works by keeping sperm out of the vagina in the days near ovulation, when a woman is most fertile — most likely to become pregnant.
To prevent pregnancy, women can abstain from vaginal intercourse on their fertile days. Or they can use withdrawal or a condom on those days. Or they may enjoy other kinds of sexual activity instead of vaginal intercourse on their fertile days.
Emergency Contraception
If you have unprotected sex on a day that you may be fertile, emergency contraception is a good option. Emergency contraception can prevent pregnancy if started up to five days after unprotected intercourse. The sooner you start it, the better it will work.
Understanding Your Fertility Pattern
In order to know when you are most likely to get pregnant, you have to become familiar with your menstrual cycle.
Before pregnancy can begin, a woman's egg must join with a man's sperm. This is called fertilization. For a healthy woman, there are days when fertilization can happen. There are days when it can't. And there are some days when it's unlikely — but still possible. To begin a pregnancy, a woman can have vaginal intercourse — without protection — during the days when it's possible for the egg and sperm to join. We call those days your fertile days.
A woman's fertile days depend on the life span of the egg and the sperm. Her egg lives for about a day after ovulation. Sperm can live inside her body for about six days.
A woman has a chance of her egg joining a sperm about seven days of every menstrual cycle.
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This includes the five days before ovulation.
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It includes the day of ovulation.
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It also includes the day or two after ovulation — even though it's less likely to happen then.
Knowing when your fertile days will happen can help you avoid a pregnancy. It can also help you plan one. The key is to figure out when you will ovulate. This will let you figure out the other fertile days that come before and after you ovulate. Then you can track your fertility pattern — the days of the month when you are fertile and the days of the month when you are not. You must do this carefully. Women don't all have the same fertility pattern. And some women have different patterns from one month to the next.
Ovulation Predictors
Test kits that attempt to predict ovulation are available for home use. They may be useful for planning pregnancies. But they are not reliable for preventing pregnancy.