MYTH: You have to have sex every day if you want to get pregnant.
FACT: This is one of those situations where it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Not only can a daily regimen of baby-making sex quickly begin to feel like another task on your to-do list, it’s biological overkill.
“If your partner has a normal sperm count, having sex every other day is plenty,” confirms Margaret Lightheart, M.D., an associate clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. “If you have sex more often than that, you actually start depleting the numbers of sperm.”
Since sperm can survive for up to five days in a woman’s reproductive tract, having sex every other day during your fertile period—which starts at about day 9 or 10, for a 28-day cycle, until ovulation occurs around day 13 to 15—is more than enough. It also means you don’t need to stress about the exact timing of ovulation.
This is not to say that you can’t have sex every day, if you’re so inspired. The fertility police won’t show up to ticket you, and you’re unlikely to actually hurt your chances of conceiving if you do the deed daily, since a healthy man has millions of sperm each time he ejaculates. Just be sure to balance maximizing fertility with staying connected to your partner, and listen to your fertility doc if he says daily sex might impair your chances because your partner has less sperm than normal. In other words, let equal parts common sense and passion be your guide.
Related Topics: Fertility Basics, Fertility Tips, Sex and Conception
