Your body spends a long time getting ready for ovulation, but the moment itself goes by pretty quickly. How long does ovulation last, exactly? Read on to find out.
Ovulation itself is a short event, but the time of the month when you can get pregnant is a bit longer. Still, in order to find that time, you have to understand ovulation first.
Determining when and for how long you ovulate is part of the key to conceiving—or avoiding it.
If you’re wondering, “how long does ovulation last?” here's what you need to know about when ovulation happens during your cycle, its duration, and some signs that can help you confirm if you’re ovulating.
The ovulation timeline Ovulation is the moment in your menstrual cycle when your ovaries release a mature egg.
But first, a lot happens in the lead-up, as hormones like follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), estrogen, and luteinizing hormone (LH) put in work to prep your body for ovulation.
Prep begins in the follicular phase , which starts the first day of your period (aka day one of your cycle) and can last anywhere from 10 to 16 days .
Hormone-producing glands in your body jump into action , releasing FSH. This tells your ovaries to start producing follicles, one of which houses the egg that will mature and later be released. (Or, multiple eggs mature, as in hyperovulation.)
The growing egg releases estrogen, causing the uterine lining to thicken and directing your body to lower FSH while increasing LH. Finally, the LH surge (when LH hits its peak) tells your ovaries it’s time.
All of this happens pre-ovulation. Then, when the egg is released, the clock starts on ovulation.
How long does ovulation last? So, with all that build up in mind, how long does ovulation last? The answer is, not very long—just between 12 and 24 hours. Yes, prep for ovulation takes a couple weeks, but the main act is brief.
Ovulation starts when your ovaries release a mature egg, which enters your fallopian tube. At this point, the egg has 12 to 24 hours to get fertilized by sperm, in which case you could become pregnant. If the egg isn’t fertilized in that timeframe, it disintegrates, ovulation ends, and your period comes a couple weeks later.
All in all, that’s ovulation: starting from the moment the egg is released, up to the moment it disintegrates (if it’s not fertilized).
This means that ovulation lasts about half a day to one day. Pretty quick!
Do you need to have sex during ovulation to get pregnant? If ovulation lasts 12 to 24 hours, does that mean that conception is only possible during half a day to a day each cycle? No, you have much more time than that!
In fact, you don’t need to have sex during the exact 12- to 24-hour moment of ovulation in order to get pregnant—you just need to have sex around when ovulation occurs.
This is because conception can happen at any point during your fertile window , and ovulation is just one small part at the end of that window. You can even have sex prior to ovulating and still get pregnant.
Generally speaking, the fertile window starts five days before ovulation and continues one day after ovulation. Why? Because sperm can survive in the reproductive tract for up to five days after ejaculation, and the egg released during ovulation can survive for up to one day.
In fertile math terms, that equals five fertile days pre-ovulation plus one fertile day post-ovulation, for a total of a six-day window for conceiving each cycle.
In other words, while ovulation only lasts a day, the window of time for conceiving in a given cycle is really about a week long.
How to tell if you’re ovulating Certain signs of ovulation can help clue you in to whether you’re ovulating, including:
Many of these signs of ovulation are a common experience across different life stages, whether you just stopped birth control , you’re trying to conceive , you’re breastfeeding , or you’re going through perimenopause .
However, while these physical signs of ovulation are helpful, they aren’t necessarily easy to notice.
How to track your ovulation Signs of ovulation aren’t always easy to decipher, but there is another method to confirm ovulation.
The surest way to know whether you’re ovulating, when ovulation occurs, and how long ovulation lasts is to measure and track your hormones.
>>MORE: How to Track Ovulation: Finding and Testing Your Fertile Window
At-home hormone tests like the Oova fertility kit can help you learn your hormone baseline and track your cycle movement. That way, you can recognize the changes in estrogen and LH that indicate ovulation is coming, then catch the changes in progesterone that mean ovulation is over .
Why should you track ovulation? Ovulation doesn’t last very long, and although your fertile window is longer, it can be easy to miss both events—even when you know the physical signs to look out for.
If you’re trying to conceive (TTC), you likely spend time and energy figuring out when and how often to have sex each cycle. That’s where ovulation tracking comes in.
Tracking your ovulation, and using that data to find your fertile window, helps you optimize timing and frequency of sex in order to maximize your chances of conceiving in a given cycle.
Tracking ovulation may be particularly helpful if:
On the flipside, for those who aren’t TTC, knowing when you’re most fertile can help you figure out when to make doubly sure you’re protected against pregnancy.
How long does ovulation last: the takeaway Each cycle, your hormones work around the clock to get your body ready for ovulation. While this prep period lasts a couple of weeks, ovulation is much shorter—really just a moment in time.
From the instant your ovaries release an egg to the instant that egg is no longer viable, 12 to 24 hours go by. In other words, ovulation lasts about half a day to a day.
However, it’s possible to conceive outside of the day of ovulation. Your fertile window lasts about six days each cycle, and pregnancy can happen at any point during that time.
If you’re TTC, tracking your ovulation is key to finding your fertile window and maximizing your chances of getting pregnant each cycle.
