If you’re trying to get pregnant, you know step one: Have unprotected sex. But what about what to do after sex to conceive—is there any truth to the idea that just lying there, hips elevated post-orgasm, will increase the chances of sperm meeting egg? And if not, is there something else you should be doing to increase your chances of conceiving instead?
To help ease the frustration that can be part of baby-making, we asked gynecologists and fertility specialists to break down the process of getting pregnant and explain how what you do immediately after sex might impact your chances of conception.
Our experts:
- Asima Ahmad, MD, board-certified ob-gyn, reproductive endocrinologist, and fertility expert, chief medical officer and cofounder of Carrot Fertility in Chicago
- Mary Jane Minkin, MD, ob-gyn, clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut
- Michelle Montville, MD, board-certified ob-gyn at HerMD in Franklin, Tennessee
- Emmanuelle Bagdasarian, MD, ob-gyn at Good Samaritan Medical Center in the Palm Beach Health Network in Palm Beach, Florida
How long does conception take?
First, a little refresher on how one gets pregnant in the first place. The basics: When a heterosexual couple has intercourse without contraception, the male partner ejaculates and semen is deposited into the vagina. “Semen is a mixture of fluid, special enzymes, and sperm. The sperm release from the fluid after ejaculation, swim through the cervix (where you get your Pap smear), into the uterus, and up into the fallopian tubes,” explains Michelle Montville, MD, board-certified ob-gyn at HerMD in Franklin, Tennessee. “Scientists think it takes about 30 to 45 minutes for the sperm to make that long trip.”
Sperm is of course only one piece of the puzzle, as you also need ovulation to occur. To bring it back to health class again, ovulation occurs when the female partner’s ovary releases a mature egg into the fallopian tube, which is where fertilization typically takes place. “Ovulation may or may not have occurred prior to intercourse, but if it has, the egg may already be in the fallopian tube ready for fertilization,” says Asima Ahmad, MD, a board-certified ob-gyn and reproductive endocrinologist and fertility expert who is chief medical officer and cofounder of Carrot Fertility in Chicago.
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