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It’s wasn’t something you thought would happen. Your period is LATE!!! And you were sooooo careful — you didn’t use any contraception because you heard if he didn’t ejaculate or pulled out right away, you couldn’t get pregnant. And, just to be extra sure, you did jumping jacks for several minutes right after! What went wrong? Is it possible that the information you heard from your friends about how not to get pregnant was incorrect?

Sperm have one mission: to find and fertilize an egg. They don’t care what position you’re in, whether you have an orgasm, or if it’s your first time.

You know how babies are made, but you may have misunderstood some basic facts of human biology. The male body produces that tiny resilient sperm — actually millions of tiny resilient sperm — whose only mission is to find and fertilize a woman’s egg. They are so resilient that they can travel farther and live longer than you might think. They are present in men’s ejaculated fluid (semen) and also in the pre-ejaculate (the small amount of fluid that leaks out of the penis before a guy ejaculates). If any of that semen comes in contact with a woman’s vaginal area, there is a chance of her becoming pregnant. And if you don’t use some form of contraception with each and every act of intercourse, you are having unprotected sex, which increases your risk of getting pregnant. It only takes one sperm to fertilize an egg.

Let’s look at some common misconceptions you may have heard about how not to get pregnant. Continue reading →

Our immune systems are beautiful things, refined through millions of years of evolution. The immune system’s complexity is testament to the “arms race” that has been taking place between our species and the harmful pathogens that surround us. Last century, a virus called human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) emerged, and it found a weak spot in our immune system’s armor. HIV has been exploiting this weakness ever since, and an HIV infection can eventually progress to a disease called AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome. AIDS is a condition that disables our immune system’s ability to function properly, rendering us vulnerable to a host of opportunistic infections and cancers.

Even if you don’t think you’ve been exposed, HIV testing can be a good idea.

HIV is transmitted via bodily fluids: blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid (which can be present without ejaculation), breast milk, vaginal fluids, and rectal mucus. (It can also be present in bodily fluids like amniotic fluid, cerebrospinal fluid, and synovial fluid, to which health-care workers might be exposed.) The virus is not transmitted by fluids like snot, saliva, sweat, tears, and urine — unless blood is present.

Activities that can bring you into contact with HIV-infected bodily fluids include injection drug use and sexual activities like anal, vaginal, or oral sex. It can also be transmitted to a fetus or baby during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding. In the early days of HIV, many infections occurred as a result of blood transfusions or organ transplants — though nowadays this is a rarity thanks to tissue screening. Lastly, health-care workers might be exposed to HIV through accidents involving needlesticks or cuts. Continue reading →

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Teen Talk: I Can’t Get Pregnant … Can I?

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