Jun 22 2009

Making a Baby or Preventing a Baby

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Making a baby needs a healthy egg and healthy sperm to meet in the Fallopian tube.

A few facts:

  • Just how long does sperm survive?
    • Outside the body, sperm can survive for up to 60 minutes. As long as it is still wet, there is a chance that sperm is still living.
    • Inside the Vagina sperm can survive for up to 6 hours
    • Inside the Cervix, Uterus and Fallopian Tubes sperm will survive for 3 days. It is not uncommon for sperm to survive 5 days and under extremely good circumstances, 7 days
  • Once released the egg can survive for 24 to 48 hours.
  • The longer sperm and the egg have to survive, the weaker they get.

According to the latest research, the egg’s preparation for release starts 3 menstrual cycles before it is actually released. The egg’s health can be affected in this 3 month period by many environmental factors around the woman, health, contaminants, drug and alcohol use, smoking, hormonal changes and diet. Many times what is known as a chemical pregnancy will occur.

A chemical pregnancy is where a live sperm reaches a live egg and fertilizes it. Because of many factors, the genetic makeup of the fertilized egg is however not good and the body will abort the fertilized egg at the next menstrual period or just after that. This is the bodies way of ensuring that only a healthy fertilized egg will grow to maturity. If the body can detect genetic problems, the fertilized egg will be aborted. The reason for this is often that the egg got damaged in this 3 month preparation cycle or the sperm have genetic defects.

If this does not happen, the fetus will be aborted at a later stage or a hugely malformed child will be born prematurely.

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