Orgasms cause women to release eggs.

This is an especially intriguing myth — that orgasm can lead to spontaneous ovulation. But alas, it’s completely false. The process that leads to ovulation is the gradual increase of estrogen over a period of several days.  Now I suppose if you had an orgasm that lasted from, say, Monday to Friday, you might be able to instigate the release of an egg. But by that point you might be too exhausted to care.

A woman can spontaneously ovulate at any time in the cycle.

This is the other side of the orgasm coin! Even though the timing of ovulation can vary from cycle to cycle, once a woman ovulates, it is virtually impossible for her to ovulate again until the following cycle. This is because once ovulation occurs, the hormone progesterone suppresses the release of all other eggs until the following cycle.

Worrying about a late period may only delay it.

This myth is often spread by the most well-meaning friends. But the reason it’s not true is that stress in itself does not delay one’s menstrual period; it may only delay ovulation. Once ovulation has occurred, the woman’s body has already determined when she will menstruate. In other words, the time from ovulation to menstruation is usually about two weeks and rarely varies from cycle to cycle.

A woman can get pregnant only one day per cycle.

Not true. While a human egg is only viable for 12 to 24 hours, a woman can actually get pregnant from an act of intercourse occurring anytime from about five days prior to ovulation to even occasionally a day after, for a total of about a week. If you must, blame it on the man’s sperm, which can live up to five days in your fertile cervical fluid.

Conception occurs in the uterus.

This is a common myth that is understandable, but wrong. Conception actually occurs in the outer third of the fallopian tubes, and not in the uterus. The reason for this is that an egg can only live 12-24 hours, so by the time 24 hours have passed, the egg has only traveled as far as the outer third of the tubes. Implantation of the fertilized egg, on the other hand, does occur in the uterus.