...to be amazed by how little some women know about their bodies?

[Celebelly]

Just an idle thought while browsing Conceptions/Pregnancy forums. Every day there seems to be someone asking 'Could I be pregnant?' with seemingly no idea how their cycle works, when you can realistically get pregnant, etc etc. I really find it quite worrying that education is obviously failing women in this way and that all we seem to be taught is how to deal with periods and nothing else. I really find it astounding that so many women don't seem to understand how ovulation works and how conception takes place. It's not even for conception; it's really valuable for contraception too to understand how a menstrual cycle works. Some of the questions are really mind-boggling.

AIBU to wonder why so many women apparently don't know how their body works? And to wonder what can be done to fix it?

I have still never got over the a thread on MN when several women said they didn't know that they pissed out of a different hole than their vagina. They thought they pissed and bled from the same place. Mind. Blown. At how fucking stupid people can be about their own bodies.

YABU, on paper its easy to work out how to get/possibly be pregnant but its not gospel, you can Ovulate early/late, semen can live for days etc etc, I would rather women be supportive on those threads.

indeed.
I got pregnant, and not with my first one, when it shouldn't have been possible, due to the dates of my period etc. I was keeping track for various reasons, and technically it doesn't add up, and I shouldn't have been pregnant. Still got a baby 9 months later.

There are so many babies conceived by women who were trying to follow their natural cycle, temperatures, dates etc.

For people confused with the urine/period/holes situation, they should watch Orange is the New black

is the one

Don't wish to get pregnant - you can get pregnant anytime in the month
Do wish to get pregnant - you can only get pregnant in a specific window of the month

That's called sod's law, isn't it?

Has to be education, starting at home. Can't rely on schools and why should we. Taking your point perhaps a leaflet should be given to pregnant Mums, 'What to tell your kids about conception and contraception'.

It was only when I started using the Natural Cycles app that I really started to understand my cycle and my body. Being on the pill for 16ish years probably played a big part in this, I mean I’d never had to really think about this until I came off. It royally screwed my body

I have a PhD in Science and I can say hand on heart I didn't realise what it takes to get pregnant. I mean yes dtd but we are told so often as young women to be careful as it is easy to fall pg easily that we just think ok DTD no contraception = baby unless issues. I did of course do a lot of research before (can't help it) so I knew once I was starting to ttc.

Don't wish to get pregnant - you can get pregnant anytime in the month
Do wish to get pregnant - you can only get pregnant in a specific window of the month

Great summary and that's the lesson all girls need to learn! I'd rather my daughters to understand that they could get pregnant anytime, could catch STD anyway, so it's protection EVERY SINGLE TIME, I don't care if it's the middle of your periods.

I still read some women discussing the "fact" that you can't be pregnant the first time you have sex.

Before I started trying to conceive (age 30) I thought you could get pregnant at any time of the month - I thought you ovulated somewhere near the beginning of the cycle and then the egg hung out in there all month waiting for sperm and then came out with your period. I didn't know the purpose of cervical fluid either.

I educated myself pretty quickly when I needed too.

I think the thinking is that if you tell teenagers they only have a few fertile days per month they'd take more risks?

When I was taught contraception, I was taught that even if I touch a boy and touched myself fterwards I could get pregnant. Basically, it amounted to sex=pregnancy or STI's.

I genuinely believe that girls in school should be taught a lot more in depth about cycles and the way re productivity really works and the way the pill and different contraceptive methods actually work, rather than basically implying that sex is a massive risk ad condoms are the only way.

It's all so basic, and a lot of girls I knew in school, including myself, were incredibly naive to it all.

I am unsure if having a ( strong) orgasm during the first trimester was responded for my miscarriage. It happened the next morningI can't find any research on it.

I saw a post from a woman asking if it was still possible to get pregnant if she had sex the day before her period was due. I will admit that I was quite surprised that someone could actually think was a possibility.

I (and my midwife) am pretty sure I got pregnant by having sex on day 28 of my cycle (and then had a period). Natural 20 day cycles (the 28day one was first month off the pill for over a decade), sex on day 28, no sex on days 1-5 due to period, no sex on days 6-8 due to travelling halfway across the world and then too tired from aforementioned travelling. No sex on days 9 - 15 as dh was away. Lots and lots of sex on day 16 onwards as ttcing. Did pregnancy test on day 26 (naughty me - too excited to wait!) and it came up strong positive.

Went into scan at 12+4. Came out of scan at 13+5. On questioning (and dh looking a bit suspicious) the best answer we could come up with was that I ovulated on day 6 (which makes sense with a 20day cycle) and that one of dh’s (very virile!) swimmers had survived until then.

In case anyone is wondering - baby was indeed a girl! In fact the first girl to be born in dh’s family for 4527 generations. (Am slightly exaggerating here.)

Beyond Two healthy babies here despite my “irregular” (annoyingly regular) 20 day cycle. My mum’s was 20days too. Funnily enough every woman I have ever met with a 20day cycle is on hormonal contraception. Can’t think why!

Those saying it's wrong to lie to teenagers about fertile windows... Why is it?

A good general rule is to use contraception if you don't want to get pregnant and to not use it of you're TTC.

Bodies are weird. You can ovulate late/early, your previously bang on 28 days cycle can go skewed at any time, even contraception isn't 100%.

I would far rather my daughter be told to use contraception every time rather than 'Oh its fine to have unprotected sex at X time as you won't get pregnant. Promise!'

I say this as someone who conceived while using contraception 100% correctly.

Bodies are weird. They do weird shit sometimes.

And don't even get me started on the 'am I pregnant posts'. Fair enough if it's 'I can't get a test until tomorrow but am freaking out and need to vent' but the ones that annoy me are the 'I had unprotected sex all month, am I pregnant?'

Pee on a bloody pregnancy test. My x Ray vision cannot see a fertilised egg bouncing down your fallopian tubes or getting snuggly in your womb lining. How the crap are we meant to know!?

"05/02/2018 22:50 Frogqueen13

I am a nurse in ED and it suprised me how frequently I have to explain that there are 3 holes down then and that baby's don't come out where you wee from"

I'm absolutely flabbergasted by women who don't have any idea about their own anatomy and the names for the different parts... you wouldn't get a guy referring to his balls as his cock, and yet SO many women seem to not realise that the vagina is a different thing to the vulva, labia, clitoris etc. The number of women who say 'had my vagina waxed' is astonishing! I do feel it's a failure of education!

I don't give a shit how my cycle works and never needed to find out. So what?

Because that level of ignorance is bad enough, to be proud of being ignorant? That's just mind boggling.

I don't understand how people think "they never taught us at school" is any kind of answer. So you stop learning when you finish school? You never picked up anything from books or tv or the internet? How do neither know nor care to find out the most basic things about your own body?

mammatj did you have a girl or boy?

I didn't know I was pregnant at all.. thought I was getting fat 😂 must've been around 2 months in when I went docs coz I was puking so much and so ill, did 1 pregnancy test which must've been faulty as said negative, didn't find out till 5.5 months, big shock at 18 years old and only once unprotected was all it took lol. Understand body more now 🙈

Tbf some doctors aren't much better. I had a male registrar trying to catheterise me , he said plainly 'I haven't a clue what I'm looking at here', before proceeding to attempt to catheterise first my clitoris, then perinuem, and then vagina. I was almightily relieved when the medical student chaperoning told him to stop and took over.

I had complete labia fusion (plus what they called elongation) as a child, I remember they split at 13 or so. Having no clue what these things were I was petrified and thought I'd somehow broken myself. I was 21 when I talked to GP who explained it all in full and told me what each thing was for. Told me to go home with a mirror . Helped a great deal.

I've been having periods for 36 years and have two children. I have no idea at all when in my cycle I ovulate. No pain, no other symptoms, I just don't know.

Went into scan at 12+4. Came out of scan at 13+5. On questioning (and dh looking a bit suspicious) the best answer we could come up with was that I ovulated on day 6 (which makes sense with a 20day cycle) and that one of dh’s (very virile!) swimmers had survived until then.

Given that scans have a +-7 day accuracy, I'd say it's just as likely that you were dated ahead of where you 'really' were. I am absolutely certain of when I ovulated, and the scans at 6 and 8 weeks matched that date perfectly - at the 12 week scan I was put ahead by 5 days. Which definitely makes that 'wrong', but it's within the accuracy limits of a scan.

I never thought about it until I was trying to conceive. I figured I was fertile all the time, so I always used contraception. I was on the Pill, I took it every day, that was that.

2 babies here too, mumof. Despite PID, first one was conceived on the second month of trying and the second while I was still breastfeeding the first! Clearly I'm hyperfertile and will be useful in a zombie apocalypse for that, at least

I also started periods early (at 10) and family history points to early menopause too, which I guess would be more likely with a short cycle (off to research that...)

25 years ago I explained to a shocked male friend that yes periods happen every month. He was a 25-year-old language teacher at a boys comp and had just been told he had to teach an early form of PSHE. I told him everything I could in those pre-Internet days and lent him an old A level biology textbook because I was worried for those teenage boys . (I think the world has moved on a little and it’s a less likely scenario now, fortunately, but even then it felt like something from the dark ages)