TikTok's 'real-life Virgin Mary' claims she got pregnant without having penetrative sex. Here's how that could happen.
- TikTok user Samantha Lynn Isabel was 19 when she became pregnant, and she says it was unexpected.
- Isabel, who told her story on TikTok, said she had not had penetrative sex with her boyfriend but she took six pregnancy tests, and all of them came out positive.
- It is possible to become pregnant without having full penetrative sex.
Samantha Lynn Isabel said she was 19 years old, five years ago, when she felt crampy and noticed her period was a week late.
At the time, Isabel told her TikTok followers in a video posted last week, she hadn't had penetrative sex, so pregnancy was not on her mind. To make sure, Isabel said she told her then-boyfriend to pick up some pregnancy tests.
"Takes pregnancy test and thinks it will be negative," she wrote in the caption in the Tik Tok. "Me thinking it's a false positive and takes 6 more tests."
When the pregnancy tests all came out positive, she said she went to her doctor to make sure there wasn't another reason for the tests coming up negative. To her surprise, she said, the doctor told her she was five weeks pregnant.
According to BuzzFeed, she is happily raising her five-year-old son. Bentley. Her friends and family now teasingly call her "Virgin Mary," Isabel told her followers. But OBGYNs say pregnancy without penetrative sex doesn't constitute a miracle.
It's uncommon, but it is possible to become pregnant without having sex
Isabel told BuzzFeed she and her boyfriend were "fooling around" without having penetrative sex, and Isabel was not on birth control at the time.
Dr. Alyssa Dweck, an OBGYN in New York, told Insider it only "takes one good swimmer," by which she means sperm, to get someone pregnant.
"My suspicion is that there was 'penis-vagina contact' and even the slightest penetration even at the vaginal opening and or exposure to pre-ejaculate can lead to pregnancy," Dweck said. "This comes as a surprise to many."
Gynecologist Dr. Jennifer Lincoln told Buzzfeed such a pregnancy is rare, but possible.
"With fingering, if some semen is on the fingers that touch or enter a vagina, the amount is likely lower than with penetrative sex," Lincoln said.
The best way to prevent pregnancy is to use birth control, even if you aren't having full penetrative sex.
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