Why the Timing of Intercourse Matters for Conception

It’s important to have intercourse at the right time when a woman wants to get pregnant because only one egg usually is ovulated each month, and that egg only survives in the woman’s body for about 12-24 hours. So it’s really essential for sperm to be around the egg in the fallopian tube, which is where fertilization occurs, within the 12 to 24 hours that ovulation actually happens.

Now the sperm actually can live for about two to four days and so the way that translates into what should be done is if the couple have intercourse every couple of days or so there will always be viable sperm in the fallopian tube waiting for the egg to show up at the time of ovulation and that’s why we make the recommendation to have intercourse every couple of days starting four or five days before the expected time of ovulation.