How safe are the 'safe days' in a girl's menstrual cycle

One thing I know is that girls only know they are safe after having their periods, but for how many days -many of them don’t know, Susan Amuge, a Comprehensive Nurse says.

She blames this to reluctance in finding right information. What I know is that Ugandans/Africans hardly visit health facilities for such information, although many girls prefer sitting with their peers and chat over it.

Amuge says girls should visit health facilities to be educated more about reproductive health, safer and healthier sex practices.

“Its not a crime to learn about safe days even when one is not going to use safe days- its not bad to know”, she notes.

But she cautions girls that safe days are not actually safe. So when they go for them, they should be ready for the consequences – it is better never to  try.

She adds that there are only times in a woman’s menstrual cycle when she is at her most fertile, and this is when she is most likely to conceive.

There is no “safe” time of the month, when you make love without contraception and not risk becoming pregnant. However, there are times in menstrual cycle when you are at your most fertile, and this when you are most likely to conceive.

Guidelines for getting pregnant — or avoiding pregnancy — usually assume an average woman is fertile between days 10 and 17 of her menstrual cycle. But researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences have demonstrated what some accidentally pregnant women may have long suspected.

Only about 30 percent of women actually have their fertile window entirely within that time-span.

In fact, the researchers found, there is hardly a day in the menstrual cycle during which some women are not potentially fertile.

Women in this study were of prime reproductive age (most between 25 and 35) when the menstrual cycles are most regular.

The window of fertility would be even more unpredictable for teenagers or for women approaching menopause, the NIEHS researchers said.