By Catherine Pearson – Originally post by The Huffington Post

A new survey of women in the United States suggests there are significant gaps in women’s knowledge about their own reproductive health, as well as widespread misunderstandings about fertility and conception. . . We’re not talking about heavy science; we’re talking about basics.

One major area of confusion was the ovulatory cycle. Ninety-five percent of the women correctly said that “ovulation” refers to the release of an egg from the ovary, but 25 percent did not know that so-called “normal” menstrual cycles can take between 25 and 35 days, and 40 percent were unable to identify when ovulation typically occurs within that cycle.

The survey also revealed some blind spots about fertility and best practices for conception. Many women in the survey did not know, for example, that factors like obesity and irregular menstrual cycles may have consequences for fertility. Roughly half believed erroneously that having sex more than once a day increases the chances of getting pregnant. Click here to read the full article.