Is it possible to conceive days before your period

Department of Health and Human Services. Your menstrual cycle. Updated March 16, Day-specific probabilities of conception in fertile cycles resulting in spontaneous pregnancies. Human Reproduction. Menstrual bleeding patterns among regularly menstruating women. American Journal of Epidemiology. Cleveland Clinic. Female Infertility. Reviewed June 8, National Library of Medicine. Pregnancy - identifying fertile days.

Reviewed January 1, Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellFamily.

At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification.

I Accept Show Purposes. Table of Contents View All. Table of Contents. Before Your Period. During Your Period. Following Your Period. What Is Ovulation?

What Is Fertility? Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Verywell Family uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

This is the part of your cycle you are least likely to get pregnant. At the beginning of your new cycle, there is no egg those little shooters can impregnate. This is ovulation cramping — aka mittelschmerz.

Some women have this pain when the ovary releases the egg and can last a few minutes to a few days. Also, take a good look at your underwear. That discharge you see or feel at different times of your cycle is most likely cervical fluid a fancy way to say normal vaginal discharge.

Super fertile cervical fluid will be stretchy and clear like an egg white, and you might feel like you need to change your undies because things are getting pretty slippery down below. Intermediate fertility can be identified by creamy or sticky cervical fluid that is white or yellow. Cervical fluid that has the lowest fertility is either nothing at all or just a little dampness. A gross, but necessary tip for determining your cervical fluid is to just get in there yourself.

Reach in, give it a swipe and look at the fluid on your fingers. This might sound like an archaic method, but taking your basal body temperature resting temperature can help you pinpoint ovulation. Charting your cycle using temperature and cervical fluid is a huge part of the Fertility Awareness Method FAM , which some use to avoid and plan pregnancy. You have a bunch of birth control options, which include:.

The likelihood of getting pregnant right before your period is extremely low. For women with a typical to day cycle or longer and their cycles are regular, it is fairly safe to say your ovulation occurred between Day 11 and Day The egg is only available for 12 to 24 hours for conception. This means the days right before your period are the safest to have sex without the expectation of getting pregnant. If you wait 36 to 48 hours after ovulation, you should be beyond the possibilities of conception.

The further you are from ovulation, the less likely your chance for conceiving. This is not the time to have sex if you are trying to conceive. While pregnancy is less likely in the earlier days of your period, the chances increase in the later days.