New Delhi, Feb 14 (IANSlife): This Valentine's Day it's better to be safe than sorry. Dr Rajinder Yadav, Director, Urology, Fortis Hospital, Shalimar Bagh talks about how having safe sex without protection is a myth.

Safe sex without protection (in terms of not getting pregnant) can happen when either of partner gets vasectomy / tubectomy or when the male has high doses of testosterone hormone which prevents the formation of sperms or by blocking pathway for the sperms / ovum.

Young women have a chance of pregnancy 1:20 ratio having sexually activity during menstrual cycle and 1:4 chances during ovulation. Even having sex during your period (menstruation) doesn't give any guarantee of not getting pregnant.

But there are chances where the pregnancy may be avoided and that is having sex during the safe period. The human sperm lives for 5 days and the life of the ovum is one day or rarely two days. So, one should avoid having sexual activity 5 days prior to ovulation or two days after ovulation.

What does that mean and how to calculate the safe period? It's very difficult to know the day of ovulation but there are certain methods by which it can be known by maintaining temperature, by mucous vaginal discharge and after calculating it, formula to know safe period is -

To predict the first fertile day (when you can become pregnant) in your current cycle

Find the shortest cycle in your past record

Subtract 18 from the total number of days in that cycle.

Count that number from day one of your current cycle and mark the day with an X

The day mark X is your first fertile day. For example, the shortest cycle in your past record was 30 days so subtract 18 out of 30, which is 12, so you can have sex for initial 11 days in the current cycle and 12th day is your first fertile day.

So, starting from the first day of the current menstruation cycle till 11th day is safe, then avoid sex for 6-8 days and then you can have sex for the cycle till the next menses.

The other way is the male partner should have heavy doses of testosterone injection which stops the production of gonadotrophins and other hormones related to spermatogenesis and hence there is no sperm production.

Another way is, if your family is complete and do not want to have accidental pregnancies, go for vasectomy (male) or tubectomy (female).

Do not have unprotected sex during your period. A lot of people think that during period one cannot get pregnant, which is totally wrong. There is never a safe time to have unprotected sex. Do not think pulling out before ejaculation can prevent pregnancy. Treat the penis like a loaded gun so use a condom for protection. Even rubbing of unprotected penis around & outside of vagina, can result some sperms to get inside. Do not allow either partners fingers to touch penis and then enter vagina, as even before ejaculation some sperms can be present.

Finally, never underestimate the power of sperms, a small drop of semen at the end of the penis carries enough sperms to fertilise all the women in a cosmopolitan city, that is ~ 80 million pregnancies!!