Can you get pregnant right after your period? The short answer is: while it’s unlikely, some women can.

Getting pregnant at any point depends on ovulation. Ovulation is the phase of your menstrual cycle when your ovaries release an egg that can be fertilized. Getting pregnant right after your period depends on one factor: when you ovulate during your menstrual cycle.

If you already know you’re pregnant, take our Clarity Quiz, to get a personalized report on how a pregnancy could affect you.

When do you ovulate?

Ovulation is only one phase of your menstrual cycle. It’s made up of four essential phases: the menstrual, follicular, ovulatory, and luteal phase.

Menstrual phase

Your menstrual cycle starts on the first day of your period, when levels of estrogen and progesterone are low. If the egg released during your previous cycle wasn’t fertilized, the thickened uterine wall will shed its lining. This causes your period. Your menstrual phase ends on the last day of bleeding.

Follicular phase

During this time, eggs are developing inside follicles in your ovaries. FSH (follicular stimulating hormone), released from your pituitary gland, increases during this time. It tells your ovaries to release a dominant follicle with a fully developed egg inside. Estrogen is also increasing and peaking right before ovulation.

Ovulatory phase

Usually about 9-16 days before the start of your next cycle, you ovulate, or release an egg from one of your ovaries. Estrogen will trigger a sharp increase in LH (luteinizing hormone), which triggers your ovary to release an ovum (or an egg). This egg is able to be fertilized for the next 12-24 hours. That means that technically, you only have a 12-24 hour window to get pregnant each cycle.

How long does your fertile window last?

Most women have a “fertile window” up to 6 days because sperm can live up to 5 days in fertile cervical mucus, waiting for the egg to be released during ovulation.

Each woman’s fertile window is unique, and figuring out yours requires tracking your cycle. It’s unlikely that your fertile window will be the exact same from month to month.

If you’re experiencing any of these symptoms mid-cycle, they may be signs that you’re in your fertile window:

Symptoms of ovulation

• Fertile, “egg-white” cervical mucus
• A slight decline, then increase in your basal body temperature (BBT)
• Light spotting
• Mild pain/cramping on one side of your pelvis
• Breast tenderness
• Increased libido

Luteal phase

After you ovulate, you enter your luteal phase, which in a “healthy” cycle should last around two weeks. The follicle that released the egg develops into a corpus luteum, and releases estrogen and progesterone to support a possible pregnancy. If no pregnancy occurs, estrogen and progesterone will drop again, triggering your uterine lining to shed, and your period (or the first day of your next cycle) begins.

Of course, the natural progression of your menstrual cycle assumes no interference from synthetic hormones found in many forms of birth control.

Are you ovulating?

If you’re on hormonal birth control that contains progestin, there’s a good chance your ovulation is being inhibited. Progestin is the synthetic form of progesterone. It’s taken to inhibit ovulation and thicken cervical mucus and makes it harder for sperm to travel. Any ovulation that occurs while on hormonal birth control is considered “breakthrough ovulation,” and is not consistent.

It may be important to note that when taking the progestin-only pill, 4 in 10 women will still continue to ovulate, according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG). Many women will also continue to ovulate while using a hormonal IUD, especially ones that contain lower doses of progestin.

Confirming ovulation

The easiest ways to confirm whether you are ovulating at home is to track your basal body temperature (BBT) or to use at-home urine tests. A urine test that detects a surge in LH during your follicular phase would tell you that ovulation is about to happen, usually in the next 12-36 hours.

Monthly bleeding on hormonal birth control is not an indicator of whether or not you’ve ovulated. This bleeding is usually not a period at all. It is called “withdrawal bleeding” caused by a drop in hormones from your birth control (e.g. the week of “placebo pills” when taking the pill).

Are you likely to get pregnant right after your period?

To become pregnant you need to be ovulating. So to answer the question of whether you are pregnant or not you need to discover when you ovulate. The average cycle length is 28 days. Women with shorter cycles (27 days or less) may have a fertile window that begins closer to the end of their period.

In a 2000 study only 2% of participants were in their fertile window by the 4th day of their cycle, and only 17% were in their fertile window by the 7th day (when most periods would have ended or just ended). About half of the women were in their fertile window by days 12-13, which could be several days to a week after their period ended.

This means that over half of the women in the study weren’t “fertile” in the days right after their period. But if your cycle generally lasts less than 27 days, there is a chance that you’ll be in your fertile window right after your period.

If you suspect you may have gotten pregnant and don’t want to be, and are even experiencing possible early pregnancy symptoms, take a deep breath and keep reading. Even if it feels like there is no time, we’re here to give you the space, permission, and resources to take the time you need.

What next steps can you take?

Getting pregnant the day or two after your period is unlikely, but possible. If you’re on hormonal birth control, you’re probably not ovulating consistently or at all, depending on the level of progestin it contains. If breakthrough ovulation occurs, you can get pregnant, but your fertile window depends on when you ovulate.

If you think you may be pregnant:

Use our Pregnancy Test Calculator to figure out what day to test and get the most accurate results. If you find yourself unexpectedly pregnant, you can make a whole-hearted pregnancy decision without fear and with clarity, using our She Might Pregnancy Clarity Quiz.

We’re here to walk with you through this unexpected journey, no matter the story that brought you here.