Sperm Survivability in Period

[Rhea]

I don't believe I've found any articles and have tried looking on the internet and wasn't able to find any answers. I was curious in terms of sperm survivability, why is sperm able to survive during the menstrual period? I understand that cervical mucus is a major factor in how long sperm can survive inside and a person needs to have fertile mucus in order for sperm to survive longer inside the vagina and then cervix, but during the period, wouldn't cervical mucus not be fertile? I always thought that fertile mucus was only present when a person is ovulating, but I may be wrong. I am trying to understand my body better and how it functions in terms of ovulation and cervical mucus and was just wondering about this.

[Heather]

Hey there, Rhea.

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Are you asking how sperm cells that are deposited into the vagina could stay hanging around in the vagina or inside the cervix during a menstrual period? If so, then the answer as I understand it is that it wouldn't be all that likely, given the outward flow and gravity as well as the acidity of the vaginal environment at the time.

However, in the event that someone had very light flow, particularly if it was barely spotting, then potentially it could, but it wouldn't really matter if it did stick around then, since timing-wise, it would be nigh unto impossible for it to hang around long enough for ovulation.

[Rhea]

Yes, sorry, that was basically what I was asking. There was somewhere where I had read that sperm cells are able to survive in the vagina or cervix during a menstrual period because of fertile cervical mucus being present and I was confused on if fertile cervical mucus could be present during a menstrual period.

[Heather]

Bodies can certainly do weird things sometimes, but that would be pretty hard for a body to pull off, since it'd effectively be asking it to have been doing two opposing things hormonally for most of a cycle at the same time, you know?

[Rhea]

Yea! That makes a lot of sense, thank you for taking the time to answer my question! It's really interesting learning about how my body works and this website has been really helpful in keeping me informed. My health education was very on the surface, so there was a lot that I didn't know, but reading articles on this website has helped a lot