Scarleteen

This is not a pregnancy scare! I have just heard so many different things about precum. Some websites say that the precum, the fluids the male has coming out of him before/during sex/before ejaculation have sperm in them and you can get pregnant from precum. But I remember seeing something on here, saying you can't get pregnant from precum. What is the real answer?

We cannot say that precum (pre-ejaculation) doesn't have any sperm but what we know is that the sperm it could have wouldn't be the best and strongest to create a pregnacy. That said, if people have a DIRECT genital TO genital contact there could be a risk even if there's not ejaculation. Small one but a risk. That's why we always advice to use a condom for all direct contact between genitals.

The most up-to-date science says that pre-ejaculate (pre-cum) does not, itself, contain sperm. However, it may pick up some sperm cells that are still hanging around in the urethra in the penis.

That's the information we've been working with for some time now, so it's pretty unlikely that a staff/vol here would've said that someone can't get pregnant from pre-ejaculate, at least in recent years (I can't speak with authority for before I was here, because I wasn't here ). Pregnancy-risk-wise, genital-to-genital contact or intercourse without ejaculation is using withdrawal as a method of contraception: Withdrawal. In perfect use, that's 96% effective, so clearly, pregnancy without ejaculation is possible and does sometimes happen.