Shock Being pregnant: Why Unplanned Pregnancies Occur

It occurs extra typically than you may assume. Nearly half of all pregnancies within the U.S. are unplanned.

“If you happen to’re a lady and haven’t gone by way of menopause but, then it’s attainable so that you can get pregnant,” says Siobhan Dolan, MD, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and ladies’s well being at Albert Einstein Faculty of Medication.

You’ll be able to take steps to enhance your probabilities of conceiving solely if you’d prefer to.

Because the saying goes, the one type of contraception that’s 100% efficient is abstinence. “More often than not, contraceptiondoes work, however ‘accidents’ can occur,” Dolan says.

Condoms, contraception capsules, intrauterine gadgets (IUDs), and different strategies often work 80% to greater than 90% of the time. And everlasting contraception, like feminine sterilization or male vasectomy, has a failure fee of lower than 1%.

If you happen to use contraception flawed, your probabilities of getting pregnant go up. Generally it’s apparent that it didn’t work, like when a condom breaks. In that case, you could wish to take a second step, just like the over-the-counter “morning after” tablet. It could stop being pregnant as much as 5 days after unprotected intercourse. However in the event you don’t discover an error like a small gap in a condom, or that you simply missed your every day tablet, you possibly can turn into pregnant.

The only greatest cause for unplanned being pregnant isn’t ineffective contraception — it’s from a pair not utilizing anycontraception. “Some girls could not use contraception commonly, and others by no means,” says Maureen Phipps, MD, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Girls and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island. “They could not prefer it, may not have entry to it, or could actually have a associate who would not need them to make use of it.”

Many instances, girls or their companions aren’t positive if they need a baby or not, Phipps says. “They’re not planning [to have a baby], however they’re not actively attempting to keep away from being pregnant, both. And so they find yourself getting pregnant.”

Some girls don’t understand that they may get pregnant. If you happen to’ve struggled with infertility up to now, don’t have common durations, or are in perimenopause (the time interval earlier than menopause, which may result in mild or irregular durations), it’s nonetheless attainable so that you can conceive, although you don’t anticipate it.

If you happen to nonetheless get your durations — even when they aren’t common — and also you don’t wish to get pregnant, you “ought to hold utilizing contraception,” Dolan says.

When you undergo menopause (that means you are now not menstruating and it’s been a full yr because you’ve had a interval), then it’s secure to imagine you may have intercourse with out contraception and never get pregnant. You’ll nonetheless want to guard your self from sexually transmitted ailments, although.