 A woman is able to conceive a baby after retaining sexual maturity. But it is seen that even after retaining sexual maturity and having a sexually active life, a lot of women or a lot of couple would not want to have a baby. Or maybe at least for several years after their marriage. Now every couple has their own reason for doing so. But in this video we are going to talk about how can such couples avoid pregnancy or how can anyone avoid pregnancy and most importantly without using anything artificial. But before we talk about how to avoid pregnancy we need to understand how does one get pregnant. Well a person or a female gets pregnant when the sperm cell of a male fuses with the ovum of the female and that happens during sexual intercourse. But now the question is even after having a sexually active life that means even after having sexual intercourse how can one not become pregnant? Well don't you think if we can somehow stop the sperm cell from reaching the ovum the problem can be solved? But how can we do it without using anything artificial? Is that even possible? The answer is yes and it is quite possible if we keep a track of the time. Time? Can just skipping a track of the time help us avoid pregnancy? Well the answer is yes and I will tell you how. Let's begin by talking about the first way in which if we are mindful about the time we can avoid pregnancy. So the first method is called the withdrawal method or quiteus interruptus. Now quiteus means sexual intercourse and interruptus simply means to interrupt or to stop. So this method says that if we withdraw the penis before the release of the sperm inside the females body the problem is solved. The sperm cells can never reach the ovum right? But here at the male has to be very careful about the time of the ejaculation. So he has to withdraw the penis from the females body right before ejaculation so that the sperm can never meet the ovum. Wonderful right? Without using anything artificial we can now stop the sperm cell from reaching the ovum. Alright now let's move on to another method of avoiding pregnancy and before we discuss what exactly it is we need to understand a little bit about the menstrual cycle in females. So here is a picture of the uterus and a pair of ovary. Now there is something interesting that happens every month in female and that is the menstrual cycle the bleeding through the vagina. So what happens exactly is that every month alternately the ovaries release an ovum or the egg cell from the ovary and we call it ovulation. So this is the egg cell okay this white dot that I have made it is the egg cell. Now as this ovary is prepared to release the egg cell the news reaches the uterus. The uterus thinks that hey wow we might have a baby this time the sperm cell can come and fertilize the egg cell and we may have a baby so let's prepare. So the uterus it starts to thicken its wall so that if a fertilization takes place the embryo can embed inside this uterine wall and then eventually a baby can grow in here. But the question is how long does this egg cell wait? The answer is just one day. This egg cell is very impatient you know it will wait just for 24 hours for this sperm cell to come and fertilize it and if there is no sperm cell this egg cell will eventually disintegrate and slowly the uterine wall also realizes that hey there is no point in you know just thickening the uterine wall because fertilization didn't take place. So all this thickening along with blood rushes out from the female vagina and we call it the menstruation. Now what happens next? Next our ovaries starts to manufacture another egg cell again. Actually it matures the egg cell and prepares to release another one into this tube and the cycle keeps on happening and this is what we call the menstrual cycle. Now since we are talking about avoiding pregnancy don't you think if we can somehow predict the day or the time in which this ovulation is taking place and abstain ourselves from having sexual intercourse within the 24 hours of ovulation the problem is solved. A person or a female won't get pregnant right? Now the question is can we predict it? Well at least we can try. So let's assume that the menstrual cycle lasts for 28 days. One cycle is of 28 days. Now every female is different every female's body is different so the length of the cycle can be different it can be as short as 21 days or it can be as long as 35 days but if the cycle is shorter than 21 days and longer than 35 days then a female is suggested to go see a doctor otherwise a 28 day cycle is considered a standard duration. Okay let's say the female that we are studying has a 28 days long menstrual cycle and the first day of menstrual cycle is the first day of bleeding and if we consider that the bleeding lasts for around five days so this initial first five days are the days of bleeding then around the 14th day is the day when the egg is released from the ovary that is the 14th day is the day of ovulation. So great right? Doctors have found out the day on which the ovulation take place. So if ovulation take place on 14th and the egg stays alive for 24 hours that means 14th to 15th that entire 24 hour is the duration in which we should abstain from having sexual intercourse right? Well it all depends on the lifespan of the sperm. We didn't discuss about the lifespan of the sperm right? So the lifespan of the sperm is of four days so if a female has sexual intercourse on the 10th day of the cycle the sperm inside her will stay alive till 14th and if she ovulates on 14th those sperms will be able to fertilize the egg. But wait these numbers are not rigid since it's a human body and not everything is theoretical so we can take into consideration that the ovulation may take place two days early or it may be two days late. So let's say that the ovulation took place on the 16th and we know that the egg cell will stay alive for 24 hours that means till 17th. So if we consider that say 14th to 16th is the period in which the ovulation would take place then from what we just discussed about the lifespan of sperm and lifespan of egg can you tell which are the days a female should stop from having sexual intercourse to avoid pregnancy? So the answer is from 10th to 17th is the period a female should stop herself from having sexual intercourse so as to avoid pregnancy and the remaining period is called a safe period in which even if a female has sexual intercourse she will not conceive and therefore this method is called the safe period or periodic abstinence. Abstinence simply means to stop sexual intercourse. It is also known as calendar method because a female generally keeps a track of her menstrual cycle through a calendar and from there she can predict the day of ovulation and it is suggested to all the females to keep a track of the menstrual cycle because it tells a lot about the reproductive health of a woman and is often suggested by doctors. So we got a second method called periodic abstinence in which if we keep a track of the time of ovulation we can avoid pregnancy. Alright now let's move on to the third and the last method in which we can avoid pregnancy naturally and to know about this method we have to learn about a very important part of the brain which is called the pituitary gland. Now this gland is called the master gland because its secretion controls almost every function of the body. Now this master has a headmaster called the hypothalamus. So this hypothalamus sends signals to this pituitary gland which is divided into anterior pituitary and posterior pituitary to carry on the functions. So after a female gives birth to a baby the hypothalamus sends signal to anterior pituitary to secrete something called prolactin and this prolactin is responsible for the growth of the mammary glands formation of milk and secretion of milk from the breast. But as this prolactin is released it sends a signal back to the hypothalamus as well and what this signal says that it should not produce any more gonadotropin releasing hormone. Now what is it? It is just a chemical that tells the anterior pituitary to release hormones that are required for formation of gonads and in this case the anterior pituitary otherwise would have released follicle stimulating hormone and that follicle stimulating hormone would have stimulated the ovaries to release an egg. But here since prolactin said that no do not produce gonadotropin releasing hormone. Therefore the anterior pituitary will not produce follicle stimulating hormone and in turn there will be no stimulus in the ovaries to release an egg and if there is no egg there is no question of having a pregnancy. So as long as prolactin is being produced in a mom there is no ovulation and in turn there is no pregnancy even after a sexual intercourse. So when a baby is very small and is breastfeeding a mother would not become pregnant and this method is called lactational aminoria. Lactation simply means to lactate or to breastfeed and aminoria means absence of menstruation. Since there is no ovulation there will be no menstruation and we know that since there is no ovulation there will be no pregnancy. But it is seen that lactational aminoria lasts only for six months and this is probably because the baby survives only on the breast milk till six months and after six months the baby is capable of having solid food and depends less on mother's milk and as less and less mother's milk is consumed less and less of the prolactin is being produced from the anterior pituitary and the negative signal that it was sending to hypothalamus also reduces. Therefore the hypothalamus again starts sending the gonadotropin releasing hormone this in turn sends follicle stimulating hormone to stimulate the ovaries to produce eggs and the female goes back to having the normal menstrual cycle and normal ovulation from the ovaries and thus becoming prone to being pregnant after sexual intercourse. But for the initial six months due to lactational aminoria a female do not become pregnant. So in this case we will have to be mindful about the duration or the time of lactation. So it is around six months. So these are the three ways in which if a couple is mindful about the time they can avoid pregnancy. So in the first one we discussed that the male partner should be mindful about the time of ejaculation. In the next we discussed about the time of ovulation and not to have sexual intercourse during the period of active ovulation and in the third one we discussed about lactation the period which is around six months in which there is absence of menstruation that means absence of ovulation and is quite safe to have sexual intercourse and a female won't conceive. And since we didn't discuss about using anything artificial in all these three different methods these three are the natural methods to avoid pregnancy. But these three also has the highest failure rate and also this methods of avoiding pregnancy is not capable to prevent sexually transmitted diseases between the partners and therefore scientists have come up with artificial methods of avoiding pregnancy and we will discuss about them in our future video.