A ????---how long does sperm live IN you?

Hi there,

I also read Taking Charge of Your Fertility and here's what I learned: If you do not have the fertile-quality cervical fluid (aka cervical mucus) then the sperm only live for a couple of hours because the vaginal environment is acidic, and the sperm need an alkaline environment to survive. If you are having fertile-quality cervical fluid (the clear, slippery kind that stretches several inches; like egg-white) then the sperm survive for as many days as you have fertile-quality fluid (up to 5 days) because this fluid is alkaline. The sperm swim upward in this fluid to the cervix and they take shelter in the cervical crypts (tiny pockets inside the lining of the cervix where the cervical fluid is produced) and wait for ovulation.

The number of days that each individual woman produces this fertile-quality fluid varies from 1 to 5 (typically, younger women have more days and older women have fewer). The fertile-quality fluid goes away after ovulation. So generally speaking, if you have unprotected sex during your time of fertile-quality fluid, the sperm will surive until you ovulate.

TCOYF is an amazing book. I highly recommend it to every woman!!

I have also heard that it depends on the age of the donor. Older men's spermies don't live as long. I forget where I read that, though. Course, that only matters if you are old fogies, like us.

5 days is what I have always heard. With madeline I ovulated on he 4th day. and well, we have madeline