| Best time to conceive
Women tend to ovulate mid-cycle; however,
it is more accurate to say that they ovulate fourteen
days before menstruation. Women have been known to
ovulate at any time during their cycle, including during
menstruation, although this is unusual. In terms of
conception, fertility depends on three factors: a
healthy egg, healthy sperm, and favorable cervical
mucus. A woman ovulates once a cycle. The egg lives
twelve to twenty-four hours and then disintegrates if
not fertilized. Under favorable cervical mucus
conditions (cervical mucus nourishes and guides the
sperm, which would otherwise die in about a half-hour or
never reach the egg), sperm can survive as long as five
days within the body.
The symptothermal method of fertility awareness is the
most exact way to determine the best times for
conception. This method has two parts: 1) before a woman
ovulates, mucus observations are combined with
predictions based on past cycle history (using a
calendar calculation), and 2) to confirm ovulation,
changes in basal body temperature are combined with
cervical mucus observations.
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