Once inside the body of a woman, a healthy sperm can live up to 2-5 days. Once the sperm reaches the released egg, it does not mean that it is capable of fertilizing it immediately. The sperm will then undergo a process called capacitation in the reproductive tract. This process will take about 10 hours.
Sperm, on the other hand, can live for 3 to 5 days inside your body. There is a window of time known as the “fertile window” where pregnancy is possible during each month. An egg can be fertilized if you have sex anywhere from approximately five days before ovulation until the day of ovulation.
It can take up to 6 days after sex for the sperm and egg to join — if a sperm cell joins with an egg, it's called fertilization.
Ejaculated sperm remain viable for several days within the female reproductive tract. Fertilization is possible as long as the sperm remain alive — up to five days. Sperm can also be preserved for decades when semen is frozen.
Usually, the sperm reaches the egg within 15 to 45 minutes of ejaculation. However, the process could be much longer than that if you haven't ovulated yet by the time you have sex, because sperm can live inside a reproductive tract and wait for an egg for up to five days.
Only 6 percent of the conceptions could be firmly attributed to fertilization by sperm three or more days old.
Sperm that's been ejaculated into a woman can live inside the uterus for 5 days.
When you are most fertile. The 5 days before ovulation, together with the day you ovulate, are the days when you are most likely to conceive. Sperm can live up to 5 days inside your body, so if you have sex up to 5 days before your egg is released, you can get pregnant.
FAQs about the sperm lifecycle
Sperm can live up to five days inside a woman's body. This is why even if intercourse happens five days before a woman ovulates, she has a chance to get pregnant because the sperm can remain alive all that time and fertilize the egg.
Pregnancy After Ovulation
Getting pregnant after ovulation is possible, but is limited to the 12-24 hours after your egg has been released. Cervical mucus helps sperm live up to 5 days in a woman's body, and it takes around 6 hours for active sperm to reach the fallopian tubes.
Conception (when the egg is fertilized by the sperm) can take place as soon as three minutes after sex or it may take up to five days. Implantation (when the fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall) occurs five to 10 days after fertilization—which means it can happen anywhere from five to 15 days after you had sex.
It's possible to get pregnant outside of your predicted fertile window because timing of ovulation may differ each month and sperm lives in the body for several days. Therefore, though more unlikely at some points, pregnancy can result from unprotected sex at any time during your menstrual cycle.
There's no "safe" time of the month when you can have sex without contraception and not risk becoming pregnant. But there are times in your menstrual cycle when you're at your most fertile, and this is when you're most likely to conceive.
Since sperm can only live for a maximum of 5 days in the female reproductive tract, only a small number of sperm will even survive the long journey through the female reproductive tract. Therefore, couples trying to conceive should plan to have intercourse a number of times in the days just prior to ovulation.
There is no specific frequency with which a man should ejaculate. There is no solid evidence that failure to ejaculate causes health problems. However, ejaculating frequently can reduce the man's risk of getting prostate cancer. Ejacu-lation can be through having sex or masturbating a few times a day.
The highest pregnancy rates occur in couples who have sex every day or every other day. Have sex near the time of ovulation. If having sex every day isn't possible — or enjoyable — have sex every 2 to 3 days a week starting soon after the end of your period.
Can you feel when an egg gets fertilized? You won't feel when an egg gets fertilized. You also won't feel pregnant after two or three days. But some women can feel implantation, the process in which the fertilized egg travels down the fallopian tube and buries itself deep within the wall of the uterus.
The fertilized egg stays in the fallopian tube for about 3 to 4 days. But within 24 hours of being fertilized, it starts dividing fast into many cells. It keeps dividing as it moves slowly through the fallopian tube to the uterus. Its next job is to attach to the lining of uterus.
It can take anything from 45 minutes to 12 hours for a sperm to reach your fallopian tubes, which is where conception usually happens. However, sperm can survive inside your body for up to seven days, so conception can happen at any point in the week after unprotected sex, if you're ovulating.
The fertilized egg, called a “zygote,” typically enters the uterine cavity 3 days after fertilization. The zygote implants itself into the uterine wall about 3 to 4 days after it has entered the uterine cavity. Implantation bleeding, if it happens, usually only lasts around 1 to 2 days.
If pregnant, a urine pregnancy test is not expected to be positive until 3-4 days after the implantation (at the very earliest) is done, which is about 10 days after ovulation/fertilization and also 4 days before the next period.
Trace levels of hCG can be detected as early as eight days after ovulation. That means you could get positive results several days before you expect your period to start.
Here's the thing: While the amount of the hormone the tests can detect varies depending on whether it's a urine or blood test, typically your body doesn't produce enough of this hormone to be detectable until at least 10 days after the sperm has successfully implanted the egg.