...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?

OK, OK, I 'get' that you can have contraception failure, though am wryly amused when I ask my question, and they say 'Well, of course there's a possibility I might be pregnant!'- get huffy when I tell them I will have to reschedule them as we need to be a bit more certain than that.

But as for ignorance, I had a 19 year old attend, with her mum and her 4 year old, who I asked the question of, who announced she'd had a hospital pregnancy test done which was negative, 36 hours ago. So I asked if she'd had unprotected sex since, and she looked at me like I was mad as of course she had! But 'what are the chances?'... So I said, kindly and pleasantly (as I do not belittle publicly!) I wouldn't be irradiating her til we knew, but she said 'I had a negative hospital pregnancy test!...' and really struggled with the concept of time's continuum..!

Well, if you're counting 'pregnant' as 'it is remotely possible an egg was fertilised in me within the last few hours' then I'm not surprised you get a lot of women who don't know if they are! That's not most people's definition of 'pregnant'. Also I don't know why you asked her if she'd had sex 'since' the test, since she could have been six days past fertilisation when she took the test and it wouldn't have told her. Are you really saying you don't see women who are TTC-ing for two weeks out of every month?

Oh and re scans, my dates were moved forward by a couple of weeks for ds2. He was induced at 40+16, born smaller than ds1 and with a "not old looking" placenta. Knew my dates were right..!

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.

Well maybe. But dd was a week early (even on new dates) and 8&1/2 pounds. If the old dates were right then she was two weeks early. Plus I would have had a strong positive only 11 days post ovulation.

Weighing the two possibilities up I think ovulation on day 6 (and long surviving sperm) is more likely. (Especially as when ttcing for ds I did ovulate on day 7 that month.)

Actually the most likely is that I got up to naughty things with someone else whilst dh was away. Only I know for sure that I didn’t. (Although dd conveniently looks just like dh so if I did I picked well!)

Draylon It freaked me out a bit. Like going to bed on Monday night and waking up and being told it is Friday!

Maybe they're relaxed about irradiation as they would have no intention of keeping a pregnancy if there was one?

I'm on weekly abortifacient medication, an X-ray isn't going to hurt a foetus - should there be one I am as yet unaware of - any more than that, so what difference would it make?

I had a friend who didn't have regular periods. I thought that we were close enough to mention it at some point in the years we worked and hung out together. U only found out when several years later, she told me that she adopted bc she was unable to have children. Dr suggested that she should have gone to a gyn in her 20s. I still feel guilty bc if i had known, I would have driven her to my Dr.

I knew back then she wanted children and would be a wonderful mother. She knew that i had gyn problems.

Please go to dr if you're worried and keep going if you aren't satisfied with answers. I had fibroid the size of a grapefruit. First 4 Drs dismissed the "cyst."

*cyst grew and grew until i was hemorrhaging. I had reconstructive surgery and still have much difficulty as well as life threatening deliveries.

I was the same until I got pregnant. I truly thought you could get pregnant at any time. I think it's the constant warnings in sex education and as a teenager that did it. It made it sound like any sexual contact at any time could lead to pregnancy.

I have always known the ins and outs of ovulation etc. I have secondary infertility and was talking to my friend (who was 32 at the time) about ovulation and how thw egg doesn't release and she had no idea what I was talking about. I was a bit to be honest

I agree that women should have a good knowledge of how their bodies work.
I also think there can be quite a bit of snobbery attached to the issue on MN.
'OMG don't call it a vagina its a vulva fgs!'
Quite a lot of sneeriness if a poster doesn't have a gynecologist grade knowledge of the sexual organs and female reproductive system.

I am not advocating ignorance but I think its fine for a woman to have just the essentials about her own body and how it works. If that is what she wants.

Mind you, it wasn't until I joined MN that I realised women planned their own EDD. No one I had known did that. They decided they were ready to try for a baby and went from there.

I have no idea on my cycle, my period has always been irregular from from a month to 8 between periods at some times. So much so i didnt find out i was pregnant until 27 weeks. I had zero symptoms at all

I simply dont care if im ovulating or not, im not looking to track to get pregnant. I got more important things to worry about, plus bugger trying to track such an irregular cycle
I know where i can find out if i want to

Sometimes people just feel off/nauseous/hormonal in a similar way to when one is pregnant and their imagination runs away with them almost every month.

So they Google things like 'can you get pregnant if you have had a period/on day 4/5/6/24/25' to find out if they need to worry or can reassure themselves or maybe they just secretly want a surprise because their DH won't let them, not being in any way specific so hope it is true.

It often isn't because of a lack of sex education. Also does it matter?

(Does it matter that they ask, I mean...)

"Quite a lot of sneeriness if a poster doesn't have a gynecologist grade knowledge of the sexual organs and female reproductive system"

I really don't think it requires a medical degree and several years of specialising in gynaecology to know that your vagina is a distinct part of your anatomy different to, say, your labia there's nothing snobby about being dismayed that grown women don't know the difference between parts of their bodies. Nor is it snobby to be shocked that some women think they pee and bleed from the same hole, that's a disgraceful lack of education!

I'm 28. I remember every detail of my sex-ed/reproduction classes from school 15 years ago. It was all explained really clearly and we were tested.

I think what must happen is either the curriculum is applied unevenly from school to school, or the embarassing nature of the lesson means some children just don't take it in, or muck about.

I think what can be done to fix it is that women should find out for themselves by reading and talking to each other.

TBH I found my biology lesson confusing. We went over the cycle and the fertile window and were then told that you can ovulate when you climax. I got pregnant with DS1 outside of my fertile window and then tried years for DS2 doing it by the book and failing. Most women are textbook and there comes more confusion.

Well my dd wont be relying on books or school for her sexual education.

I bought her the 'what's happening to me' book. She had the year 6 sex ed talk at school. I had sat her down 3 or 4 times to talk about periods and puberty. Every 6 months from age 10 when she looked to be approaching puberty. Was very open and honest with her about everything. Told her she could talk to me about anything etc etc.

Was super proud when at age 11 she calmly told me her period had arrived. She had 3 different types of pads in her room already and some teen tampon. I was so happy she could tell me and wasn't upset (like I was).

2 weeka later I chucked a couple more packs of pads in her room. 'What's these for' she asks. 'Just for when you need them again' I said. 'Again? What do you mean again? Have had my period now'.

Poor girl was devastated it would happen every month for the next 50 years. How she missed the fact it's every month I don't know. But she had the book, the chats, her friends had started, I have always had san pro lying around etc.

But I think people genuinely believe what they want to believe. Conversation with mate who had DVT last week 'docs said it not caused by smoking. It was a knock to my shoulder. Probably. DP who has diverticulitis. It's probably age. Not the fact I don't eat fibre or fruit or much veg. My mum with blocked arteries. It's probably hereditary. Nothing to do with smoking. Me with being fat. It's my genes, not that I drinl too much and don't exercise enough.

We all kid ourselves sometimes. And convince ourselves we are right. And then are a bit indignant when we are proved wrong by our own bodies.

really don't think it requires a medical degree and several years of specialising in gynaecology to know that your vagina is a distinct part of your anatomy different to, say, your labia hmm

I didn't say it did.
What an odd response.

Helpful though.
It pretty much illustrated the type of response that makes other women steer clear and not ask questions for fear of being sneered at.

I'm ashamed to admit that I thought there were only 2 external holes until I was catheterised for my c section and I congratulated the midwife in how expertly she placed the catheter and she gave me a face.
... and I'm a vet but in my defence the opening of the urethra is inside the vagina in dogs and cats and can be quite tricky to catheterise!!!!

I mean, how could you be so relaxed about it? The possibility that you maybe carrying a foetus, who might alter the very fabric of your existence for the next 20 years?

It depends on your circumstances. If you are happily married, you might not be actively TTC, but another baby wouldn't be such a big deal.

Am I the only person that doesn’t know my cycle length/ when my period is due?

Am I a lazy fucker? self crit

No you aren't Shania.
Lots of women don't know and are not remotely bothered. I expect a lot of those women know at different points in their lives when its more important to them. When it isn't they forget about it.

I haven't ever needed to know. Not specifically.

Don’t forget that plenty of companies make money out of people TTC by selling them ovulation kits and the like.

It’s not in their interests for women to know when they are ovulating by tracking their vaginal discharge and lack of spots!

FWIW I Wish women’s knowledge of their anatomy also included education about bum wiping. A lot of women would save themselves from the misery of UTIs, which can be caused by transferring bacteria.

I presume that your situation was because your schools spent a good chunk of time each year in PSE teaching you about insta-pregnancy but showed a video with about 5 minutes of actual human reproductive fact in it to cover conception in humans? Certainly that was the situation in my school in the 1990s!

Yep! I went to secondary school in the early 1990’s. Our science teacher showed us how conception happened, by showing us the opening sequence to Look Who’s Talking...