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To know the best time to get pregnant use Maya’s popular ovulation calculator to calculate when you are most likely to ovulate and is most fertile. You're most likely to get pregnant if you have sex after you ovulate. This is usually about 12 days after the first day of your last period.

After an egg is released from the ovaries, it travels down the fallopian tube. The egg lives for only 24 hours so for pregnancy to happen, the egg must be fertilised by a sperm within this time. This doesn't mean that you have to have sex on the day of ovulation – sperm can survive in the fallopian tubes for few days after sex and still fertilise the egg when it's released from the ovary. So if you've had sex in the 2 or 3 days before ovulation, the sperm will have had time to travel up the fallopian tubes to 'wait' for the egg to be released.

When does ovulation happen?
It's difficult to know exactly when ovulation happens, unless you're practising fertility awareness. But in most women, ovulation usually happens 10-16 days before the start of the next period.

The menstrual cycle is counted from the first day of a woman’s period (day one). Some time after her period she will ovulate, and then 10-16 days after this, she'll have her next period. The average cycle takes 28 days, but shorter or longer cycles are normal. You cannot accurately say that you are fertile on the 14th day of your menstrual cycle but it may be true for women with a regular cycle of 28 days. If your cycle is 35 days long, you're not going to be fertile on day 14 of your cycle but around days 19 to 25. If you have a shorter cycle, for example 23 days, you might ovulate around day 7 to 13.

As mentioned above, the sperm can survive for 2-3days in a woman's body. If you want to get pregnant, having sex every couple of days will mean there's always sperm waiting in the Fallopian tubes to meet the egg when it's released. This is particularly suggested for women with irregular cycles.

Find out more on getting pregnant. If you think you might be pregnant you should know the symptoms of pregnancy and the tests that can confirm it.

Avoid getting pregnant
If you are avoiding pregnancy, there are several methods of contraception that you can use. Find the contraception that is best for you. Condoms are the only method that help protect against both pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

It's difficult to know exactly when ovulation happens, therefore if you're trying to avoid pregnancy, there isn’t a ‘safe’ time of the month to have unprotected sex.  A woman who doesn’t want to get pregnant shouldn’t risking having unprotected sex.

A woman with a short menstrual cycle means she can get pregnant even if she has sex during her period. Sperm survives in the tubes for up to 7 days and there are chances that she might ovulate as soon as her period has finished.

The best way to avoid pregnancy is learning your body’s signals, your menstrual cycle and the fertility indicators. It involves monitoring vaginal secretions, taking your temperature every day, and keeping a calendar of your cycle to help pinpoint when ovulation is likely to be happening.

Your vaginal secretions constantly change throughout menstrual cycle. When you ovulate it becomes thin, stretchy and looks a bit like raw egg white. The body temperature rises by 0.4-0.6 degrees Fahrenheit when you ovulate. If you follow these for 4-5 months along with any other symptoms such as lower abdominal pain, you should be able to pinpoint the time of your ovulation. If you are facing problems figuring them out yourself, take an expert’s opinion or ask our Maya Apa.

As your body signal are not 100% reliable you must use some form of contraception. The most effective methods of contraception are long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) methods, such as the injection, implant, IUS (intrauterine system) and IUD (intrauterine device).

Emergency Contraception

If you’ve had unprotected sex or your contraception has failed, emergency contraception can help prevent an unplanned pregnancy.

There are two types:

• the emergency contraceptive pill (sometimes called the morning-after pill), which needs to be taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex.
• the IUD, which can be inserted within five days after unprotected sex, or up to five days after the earliest time you could have ovulated.

The morning-after pills are available in all local stores in Dhaka. If you wish to get an IUD inserted, this must be done in the hands of an expert. You don’t have to get admitted in the hospital but it’ll protect against pregnancy for longer.