Charting Your Fertility Cycle
From Web MD.com
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While some lucky people may get pregnant almost as soon as they start trying, it takes longer for many couples. One good way of increasing your odds is to chart your fertility cycle; that way, you'll better understand when you have the best chance of becoming pregnant. As you go through your cycle, your body gives you all sorts of clues to indicate when it is going into ovulation. You just need to know how to look for them.
Why Bother Charting Fertility?Charting fertility may seem like a hassle. Obviously, people have managed to get pregnant without the assistance of charts and graphs for most of human history. But by keeping track of a few different things every day, you can improve the odds of becoming pregnant. Charting involves: |
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- Taking your basal body temperature
- Examining your cervical mucus
- Noting when your menstrual period begins
- Noting when you have sexual intercourse
Knowing this information can make a difference. Though the average couple conceives after about five or six months of trying, people who know how to determine when the woman ovulates and who have sexregularly during that time boost their chances of conceiving. Charting can bring you more in touch with your body's rhythms, and it can be helpful to a doctor who may be helping you in your quest to get pregnant.
Taking Your Basal Body TemperatureMonitoring a woman's basal body temperature -- or BBT -- has been a time-honored way of charting and predicting ovulation, and it's helped many women get pregnant. However, recent research has shown that it may not be as effective as experts previously thought.
Before ovulation, a woman's basal body temperature is usually about 97.0 to 97.5 degrees Fahrenheit, although those numbers can vary from person to person. During ovulation, your body releases the hormone progesterone, which results in a slightly raised temperature a day or two after ovulation -- usually by 0.5 degrees. Your temperature will probably stay elevated until your next cycle begins. If you become pregnant during that cycle, your temperature will stay elevated beyond that.
A tenth of a degree difference isn't much, but it counts. Also, keep in mind that the temperature change happens after ovulation, which means that once your temperature goes up, you've probably already missed your chance to become pregnant in that cycle. But by charting your temperature every day over several cycles, you may start to see a pattern and be able to predict when you are most fertile.
Tips for Taking and Understanding Your BBT
Although it may take some detective work -- and may be a little off-putting to some -- learning to detect changes in your cervical mucus is an easy and highly effective of way of predicting ovulation. According to a recent study, it's a more accurate way of predicting ovulation than BBT, although it can be used in conjunction with it.
For a woman with a 28-day cycle, the pattern of changes in her cervical mucus would look something like this:
Ideally, you should check your cervical mucus daily, possibly every time you go to the bathroom. If you rub some toilet paper or your fingers -- after washing your hands -- over the opening of your vagina, you should be able to detect cervical mucus. Examine the color and consistency between your fingers and make sure to record it.
- Begin taking your temperature on the first day of your period. (You will need a thermometer that measures by tenths of degrees.)
- Take it at about the same time every day, preferably before you get out of bed in the morning.
- Don't do anything -- eat, drink, smoke, or even move around -- before you take your temperature.
- You can take your temperature however you want -- orally, rectally, or vaginally -- but make sure you use the same technique each time.
- Write down your temperature every day on your fertility chart; you can make a graph with each day of your cycle on the bottom and temperatures on the left, connecting the dots as you go.
- Keep in mind that you will probably get some occasional freak readings -- either high or low temperatures -- that don't fit into the larger pattern. If they don't happen often, don't worry about them.
- After few months you may begin to see a pattern indicating the usual timing of your ovulation. You may want to have your doctor look at your chart to help you interpret it.
- Although BBT charting is a widely used technique, it is by no means foolproof. Some women may not see a clear pattern emerge by recording their temperature. Since ovulation can occur at different times in your cycle from one month to the next, your BBT chart may not be effective at predicting when you'll ovulate.
Although it may take some detective work -- and may be a little off-putting to some -- learning to detect changes in your cervical mucus is an easy and highly effective of way of predicting ovulation. According to a recent study, it's a more accurate way of predicting ovulation than BBT, although it can be used in conjunction with it.
For a woman with a 28-day cycle, the pattern of changes in her cervical mucus would look something like this:
- Days 1-5: Menstruation occurs.
- Days 6-9: Vagina is dry with little to no mucus.
- Days 10-12: Sticky, thick mucus appears, gradually becoming less thick and more white.
- Days 13-15: Mucus becomes thin, slippery, stretchy, and clear, similar to the consistency of egg whites. This is the most fertile stage.
- Days 16-21: Mucus becomes sticky and thick again.
- Days 22-28: Vagina becomes dry.
Ideally, you should check your cervical mucus daily, possibly every time you go to the bathroom. If you rub some toilet paper or your fingers -- after washing your hands -- over the opening of your vagina, you should be able to detect cervical mucus. Examine the color and consistency between your fingers and make sure to record it.
Cervical Position and Ovulation
Another way of learning about where you are in your menstrual cycle is to examine the position of your cervix. If you insert two fingers into your vagina, you should feel the cervix at the end. Before ovulation, it should feel hard and dry, like the tip of a nose. During ovulation, you should notice that it seems to have shifted higher and that it feels softer and wetter. However, you should always make sure that your hands are clean before you start poking around. And since it may be hard to tell exactly what you're looking for, you may want to talk to your doctor first.
Tests and Devices to Predict Ovulation Home tests and devices offer a different approach to monitoring your fertility cycle. Some people use these alongside traditional techniques while others use them as a substitute.
Another way of learning about where you are in your menstrual cycle is to examine the position of your cervix. If you insert two fingers into your vagina, you should feel the cervix at the end. Before ovulation, it should feel hard and dry, like the tip of a nose. During ovulation, you should notice that it seems to have shifted higher and that it feels softer and wetter. However, you should always make sure that your hands are clean before you start poking around. And since it may be hard to tell exactly what you're looking for, you may want to talk to your doctor first.
Tests and Devices to Predict Ovulation Home tests and devices offer a different approach to monitoring your fertility cycle. Some people use these alongside traditional techniques while others use them as a substitute.
- Ovulation Predictor Kits (OPKs) are available at most drugstores and cost about $20 to $75 a month. By testing the levels of luteinizing hormone (LH) in your urine, the kits can tell you when you're undergoing the surge in LH levels that precedes ovulation by 12 to 36 hours. Studies have found these kits more than 90% accurate.
The newest OPKs are digital. While a little more expensive, the advantage is that the display is easier to read. Instead of having to interpret those sometimes ambiguous pink lines, you get a clear symbol on the readout, like a smiley face. - Saliva or "Ferning" Microscopes use a different approach. These are small microscopes -- sometimes designed to look like lipstick cases -- for examining a sample of your saliva. As estrogen levels build up as you head toward ovulation, salt levels in your mucus increase, too. When the mucus is looked at under a microscope, the salt causes a pattern that looks like the leaves of a fern plant -- hence "ferning."
Manufacturers claim that by using the microscopes to examine your saliva -- and learning what to look for -- you can predict ovulation by 24-72 hours. They cost about $30 to $50, and, unlike many other ovulation tests, they don’t require additional expensive supplies. However, studies have not found them all that reliable. They don't seem to work for everyone, and the results can be hard to interpret. - Fertility Monitors can be very expensive, but they have a significant benefit. While most ovulation predictors only give you a fertile window of up to two days, these can predict up to six or seven days of potential fertility for each cycle.
They work in different ways. The Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor measures the levels of LH as well as another hormone -- e3G -- in the urine. The results are easy to understand and displayed on a digital screen. They're also stored in the monitor's memory. Studies show it to be quite effective -- more than 90% accurate. The device itself costs $200, and the test strips are another $30 to $50 per month.
The Zetek OvaCue is another computerized monitor that uses a different approach. It checks levels of electrolytes in the saliva. It's easy to use (you just stick a sensor in your mouth), stores your data, and displays the results clearly. An optional vaginal sensor can be used to confirm ovulation. However, studies have produced conflicting results as to the effectiveness of the approach. The monitor costs $300 (or $400 with the additional sensor), but it does not require further supplies.
The OV-Watch is sensor that's worn like a wristwatch. According to its manufacturer, it can sense chemical changes on the skin that predict ovulation.