You need to know how long your ovulation lasts, in order to avoid or bring about pregnancy. For women, who are trying to get pregnant for a long time, ovulation may appear to be an illusion. On the other hand, for women who are trying to avoid pregnancy, but had to end up aborting it once or more, ovulation may appear to be a continuous phenomenon.

In reality, ovulation does happen, but only during a short duration. Usually, a woman’s body releases only one egg in a cycle. This egg can survive for a maximum of 24 hours and a minimum of 12 hours. It needs to meet a sperm within this time.

Sperms survive in the female reproductive system for about 5 days, in their mission to meet the egg. So if you have sex 4-5 days before ovulation, i.e release of the egg, you can practically have a window of 6-7 days for the consequences of ovulation, i.e. fertilization, to manifest. So you can estimate your ovulation to last for approximately 5 to 7 days. However, as explained above, this is an estimate of the maximum window of time that a woman has to get pregnant. Strictly speaking, ovulation, or the survival of the egg or eggs, lasts only for a maximum period of 48 hours. In some women, though, the egg may end up losing its virility within 12 hours.

Read more: 11 Signs and Symptoms of Ovulation