Can You Get Pregnant With a Condom?

If you use condoms, you probably have questions. Lots of questions, like: Can you get pregnant with a condom even if it doesn’t break? And: Should you use a condom during oral sex? Yep, pretty sexy stuff. It’s important to have those questions answered because the more you know about how to use condoms, the more likely you are to use them correctly.

You might think condoms are the ultimate defender against every sexually transmitted infection, the trusty goalkeeper blocking each sperm trying to get you pregnant—and while they’re pretty much the best barrier protection out there, the truth is they’re not 100 percent effective. Condoms can play a key role in protecting you—when they’re used correctly. And now is a good time to mention that nothing can safeguard you against STIs and pregnancy with 100 percent certainty if you have a vagina and are having sex with a person who has a penis. (Except, of course, not having sex. Which isn’t useful if you definitely want to have sex, so! Moving on.)

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“Condoms are the number one reason I get phone calls from friends in the middle of the night,” fertility expert and reproductive endocrinologist Brian A. Levine, M.D., and New York practice director for the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, tells SELF. Chalk it up to the operational hazards of being a board-certified ob-gyn. Here, he and other docs help us rectify the most common mistakes people make when using condoms—so hopefully you’ll never make them again.

1. Mistake: You assume that using condoms is the best way to avoid getting pregnant.

“Condoms are a great form of birth control, but they’re not perfect,” says Dr. Levine. Previous contraception research indicates that external condoms (which go over a penis) are 98 percent effective at preventing pregnancies when they’re used perfectly. By the way, “perfect use” in this case means using condoms consistently and correctly (which we’ll talk about more in a bit). With typical use (like when you put it on incorrectly, don’t use it the whole time, or don’t use it every time), the failure rate of external condoms goes up to around 18 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means that in a given year, 18 out of 100 people will get pregnant while using these condoms with typical use, versus just 2 out of 100 who use these condoms with perfect use. The failure rate of internal condoms, which go inside the vagina, is 21 percent with typical use and 5 percent with perfect use, according to prior contraception research.

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If you don’t want a baby right now, Dr. Levine recommends using condoms in tandem with another form of birth control, like the pill or an IUD for more thorough coverage. Because yes, you can get pregnant using a condom even if it doesn’t break.

2. Mistake: You don’t get tested for STIs because you’ve been using condoms.

Condoms can be effective at preventing STIs, but they’re not perfect. They offer the most protection against infections like gonorrhea, chlamydia, hepatitis A and B, and HIV, but they’re not always successful barriers against other STIs. The reason: Not all STIs spread through fluids (like semen or vaginal secretions), which means you could still contract an STI via skin-to-skin contact since condoms don’t cover the entire pubic region. Here are the STIs that can spread even with perfect condom use:

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