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Myths and Wives Tales, Don't Believe It!

© Debbi Carter

Sex education classes, access to the Internet, planned parenthood offices, health departments, and newspapers. What do all of these have in common? They help to inform us of the realities of not using birth control and believing in those Old Wives Tales and Myths that are heard so often.

So what are some of the more common wives tales that are still circulating today? You can't get pregnant if it is your first time. You won't get pregnant if you douche with Coke or Pepsi. Have sex during your period. Jump up and down right after sex. Cough really hard after sex. Only have sex in a bathtub. The list goes on and on, and I am sure you have heard of others. Find out why these myths and wives tales are false and can lead to pregnancy.

First you have to understand that sperm swim very fast, and once they are inside a woman, you are not going to get them out no matter what you do. Because of this jumping, coughing, and douching don't work. As soon as the semen is deposited, sperm start entering the woman's reproductive organs. By the time the sexual act is over, more than enough sperm have entered the reproductive organs and are on their way up to the fallopian tubes. So how do you keep the sperm from entering in the first place? You can use a barrier method of birth control (condoms, diaphram, cervical cap, foams, and spermicides). These methods keep the sperm from entering the woman's reproductive organs by blocking them. If the sperm can not get to the cervix, they can not get to the uterus and out to the fallopian tubes. If the sperm can't get to the ovum, pregnancy can not occur.

So what about the myths about the first time? Well, sorry to say it, but there are many pregnancies that occur because birth control was not use for the first time. A woman is just as likely to get pregnant the first time, as she is the twentieth or twenty-thousandth time. There is nothing that protects a woman from getting pregnant the first time she has sex except for reliable birth control that must be used not only the first time, but each and every time sexual contact occurs.

So how many women and men have heard that a woman can not get pregnant if she has sex during her period? I know that I heard that when I was in high school, and I knew quite a few girls that believed it. A recent study conducted at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Durham NC showed that a woman's fertile window is unpredictable. It has always been thought that women ovulated about 14 days after the first day of their periods, but this study has shown otherwise. According to this study only about 30% of the women did ovulate between the 10th and 17th days of their cycles. That leaves 70% of the women to ovulate at any other time during their cycles, which did include during their periods. Because it is possible for a woman to ovulate at any time during her cycle, thinking that you can't get pregnant during your period is a myth that needs to be exterminated.