Why It Is Done
Fertility awareness is done to help a woman learn when she is likely to ovulate. This information can help a woman to:
- Become pregnant. Pregnancy is most likely to occur when sexual intercourse occurs close to the time of ovulation.
- Avoid pregnancy. A couple can avoid intercourse or use another method of birth control around the time of ovulation.
How Can You Detect Fertile Days
Temperature rise
After ovulation, your basal body temperature increases by 0.51.0°F . While this temperature rise is usually too small to notice, you can detect it with an accurate thermometer.
LH surge
As you approach ovulation, your body will produce increasing amounts of estrogen. The high estrogen levels in your body will trigger an increase in luteinizing hormone . This LH surge will cause the release of mature eggs from your ovary, which is ovulation. Since ovulation usually occurs about 24-48 hours following the LH surge, this hormone is often an excellent predictor of peak fertility.
Changes in saliva
Research has shown that a womans saliva also changes considerably depending on the bodys estrogen level. During your monthly cycle, you will experience a large increase in estrogen a couple of days before ovulation and another minor increase a few days before your period is due.
If you experience irregular menstrual cycles, tracking ovulation could be helpful using several different tools.
Cycle chart
If your cycle is irregular, try tracking it on your calendar for a few reasons. You might notice a pattern, and you can share the information from your tracking efforts with your gynecologist or fertility specialist.
Cervical mucus
What Can I Do To Get Pregnant
If you want to get pregnant, its a good idea to talk to your doctor. Many doctors will advise a few lifestyle changes if youre trying for a baby, such as taking a folic acid or prenatal vitamin supplements, avoiding alcohol, quitting smoking, and trying to maintain a healthy weight. You may also want to use an ovulation test to help you identify when your most fertile days are. You can see our range of ovulation tests and fertility monitors here to help you maximize your chances of conceiving.
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What About Just After Your Period Ends
Youre dealing with the same scenario here. Its super rare to get pregnant a day or two after your flow, but you cant discount lurking sperm.
If you have a naturally short cycle 21 days or fewer unprotected sex just after your flow is risky. If you have longer cycles, theres still a chance youll ovulate sooner than usual.
Can You Get Pregnant On The First Day Of Your Period
It’s possible though not very likely for you to get pregnant on the first day of your period, especially if you have a regular, 28-day cycle.
If you have an irregular or a shorter menstrual cycle, however, ovulation might occur much closer to day one of your period, which would cause you to get pregnant on the first day.
Recommended Reading: Life Insurance With No Waiting Period
How To Avoid Pregnancy
To avoid pregnancy, use contraception. There are many methods of contraception you can choose from. Condoms are the only method that help protect against both pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections .
It’s difficult to know exactly when ovulation happens. Therefore, if you’re trying to avoid pregnancy, there isnt a “safe” time of the month to have unprotected sex.
A woman who doesnt want to become pregnant shouldn’t take the risk, says Belfield.
For a woman with a shorter menstrual cycle for example, 23 days having unprotected sex during her period could put her at risk of pregnancy. Sperm can hang around for seven days, and she might ovulate very soon after her period has finished.
Some women use natural family planning to plan or avoid pregnancy, but this needs to be taught by an expert. “Working out your fertile time is very dependent on knowing your cycle and knowing your fertility indicators, which takes observation, says Belfield.
It involves monitoring vaginal secretions, taking your temperature every day, and keeping a calendar of your cycle, to help pinpoint when ovulation is likely to be happening.
Vaginal secretions change during the menstrual cycle and become thinner and stretchy around ovulation a bit like raw egg white.
The most effective methods of contraception are long-acting reversible contraceptive methods, such as the contraceptive injection , contraceptive implant , intrauterine system and intrauterine device IUD .
Increase In Basal Body Temperature
The basal body temperature is the temperature of your body when you take rest. As we know, the average body temperature of human beings is 98.6 the actual body temperature varies a little bit from that throughout the day. Based on our regular activities, our eating habits, hormonal changes, and sleeping habits, body temperature increases or fall.
As the research suggests, right after the ovulation day, the BBT increases in a range of 0.4 to 1 degree Celsius. Though the changes are tiny, still you can use an accurate thermometer and keep a track on your basal body temperature rise to detect the fertile days of the menstrual cycle.
Recommended Reading: How To Know When Your Period Is Coming Again
What If You Want A Baby
If youre trying to get pregnant, its vital to schedule plenty of time between the sheets during your fertile window.
If youve been getting frisky mid-cycle for a while and still arent preggo, it might benefit you to have sex more regularly. Cycles vary, after all. It also helps pinpoint your ovulation knowledge is power!
Heres how to get a better handle on your bodys ovulation patterns:
How Many Days After My Period Can I Become Pregnant
For many women, monthly menstrual cycles are very predictable, allowing them to easily track and know when to expect their monthly period. When they decide they want to have a baby, a few simple calculations can help them figure out the most fertile times to try to conceive. The technique also works in reverse, and they can estimate the best times to avoid intercourse if birth control isnt an option.
While its not possible to guarantee you can pinpoint your most fertile days for conception every month, some real science is behind the method used to calculate a best guess. Whether you want to conceive or add an extra layer of protection to your birth control method start by using these tips to calculate when you could become pregnant.
Will Your First Postpartum Period Be Heavy
In short, theres no typical pattern for the first period after having a baby. Some women may have heavy, painful periods. Others may enjoy light, easy periods. Many women are surprised to find that their first period after baby has more blood clots in it. You can use tampons once it’s been four to six weeks since you gave birth and with your doctor’s okay.
Your postpartum flow may depend on your choice of birth control. If youre not breastfeeding and decide to go back on the pill after giving birth, you may have a lighter period.
The Importance Of Ovulation Predictors
The whole idea of determining when your most fertile days rests on the notion that you can accurately predict your ovulation. So the very first step in understanding your fertility is knowing when you ovulate.
Becoming a good ovulation predictor means relying on your own fertility awareness and the ovulation signs your body shows you each month. Fertility iPhone apps are actually really good at helping you to chart your fertility to determine when your most fertile days may be occur.
Length Of Your Menstrual Cycle
Your menstrual cycle begins on the first day of your period and is a critical component in determining when you can get pregnant. Most women have a 28-day cycle from the first day of one period to the first day of the next, but it can vary. Some have cycles as short as 21 days, for example. Technically, your cycle is considered regular if you have your period at least every 24 to 38 days, but that degree of variation can make estimating your fertility period challenging.
If you skip periods entirely or have cycle lengths that fall outside the regular range or change significantly from month-to-month, then you have what is known as an irregular cycle. Unfortunately, that will make it harder to pinpoint when you are likely to ovulate. If you are having difficulty conceiving and want to calculate the best estimate for when you could become pregnant, you may have to track your periods for a few months to determine an average length or some sense of a pattern for your cycle.
Basal Body Temperature Method
Take your temperature every morning for several months just after you wake up. Do it before you eat, drink, or do any other activity. Use a special ovulation thermometer or digital thermometer that shows tenths of a degree. You can take your temperature orally or rectally. Be sure to use the same location and the same thermometer each time. Leave the thermometer in place for a full 5 minutes. Write down your temperature. Then clean the thermometer and put it away. Any activity can change your basal temperature. Record your temperature on a chart or graph. Use a tracking chart with either Fahrenheit temperatures or Celsius temperatures to keep track of your temperature. Ovulation usually causes your BBT to rise by 0.4°F and to stay high for over a week.
If you want to become pregnant, have sex every day or every other day from your first fertile day until 3 days after your BBT rises.
If you do not want to become pregnant, do not have sexâor be sure to use another method of birth controlâfrom the end of your menstrual period until 3 days after you ovulate. After your temperature rises and stays high for 3 full days, your fertile days will be over. Your temperature on these 3 days should stay higher than on any of the other days in that cycle.
Use A Cycle Charting App
Phone apps can help you chart your cycle. You record details like the first day of your period, OPK results, and basal temperature. You’ll get alerts when you’re likely to be more fertile.
The drawback is most use a standard 28-day cycle, with ovulation on day 14, which isn’t accurate for many women.
Factors That Make It More Likely
Anyone can become pregnant right after their period.
A 2018 article found that a healthy persons cycle can vary by up to 9 days a year. Therefore, even someone who normally ovulates around day 17 or 18 might occasionally ovulate much earlier.
A person may be more likely to become pregnant during or right after their period if they:
- frequently have unprotected sex
- have a very short or irregular menstrual cycle
- are over the age of 40 years and approaching menopause. A 2002 study found that women aged 4045 ovulated slightly earlier in their cycles than younger women.
How To Spot The Signs Of Ovulation
Ovulation usually happens about 10 to 16 days before the start of your next period, so it helps to know your cycle length before you start trying to conceive.
You may never have considered when you might ovulate within your cycle, and if you have been using a hormone contraceptive such as the Pill, you wont have had a natural menstrual cycle for a while.
As a first step, mark on your ovulation calendar the dates that you bleed during a period. You can then count how many days from the first day of your period to your next period to work out the length of your cycle.
What About Right Before Your Period
The likelihood of getting pregnant right before your period is extremely low. For women with a typical 28- to 30-day cycle or longer and their cycles are regular, it is fairly safe to say your ovulation occurred between Day 11 and Day 21. The egg is only available for 12 to 24 hours for conception.
This means the days right before your period are the safest to have sex without the expectation of getting pregnant. The number of safe days right before your period go up with longer cycles and lessen with shorter cycles.
If you wait 36 to 48 hours after ovulation, you should be beyond the possibilities of conception. The further you are from ovulation, the less likely your chance for conceiving. This is not the time to have sex if you are trying to conceive. Its still a good time to enjoy intimacy with your partner.
Want to Know More?
When Can I Get Pregnant
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Knowing when you’re likely to release an egg can help you plan or avoid pregnancy. Find out when ovulation occurs in the menstrual cycle, and when you can get pregnant.
During the menstrual cycle, an egg is released from one of the womans ovaries and travels down the fallopian tube.
The egg only lives for 24 hours after ovulation, and a sperm must meet the egg within that period for pregnancy to happen. However, this doesn’t mean that a woman has to have sex on the day of ovulation, as sperm can survive in the fallopian tubes for several days after sex and still fertilise the egg when it’s released from the ovary.
The Best Time To Conceive: When To Have Sex To Get Pregnant
Lets unpack what you need to know to maximize your chance of getting pregnant. Well explore when youre most fertile, how frequently to have sex, and which factors may impact conception.
Do you want to know the best time to try for a baby? You have come to the right place. Did you know you could get pregnant even during your period?
Getting pregnant happens when a male sperm fertilizes a female’s egg. For some people, this can happen quickly for others, it may take longer.
Out of every hundred couples actively trying to become pregnant, about 80 percent will do so within the year. The remaining 20 percent will take longer or may need medical help to conceive.
Chances Of Getting Pregnant
The chances of becoming pregnant vary from person to person and from cycle to cycle.
On average, a 30-year-old persons odds of getting pregnant are about 20% per cycle, assuming they are having unprotected sex.
The odds of becoming pregnant also depend on when a person has sex relative to ovulation. An app-based study of people who were trying to get pregnant found the average chances of pregnancy were as follows:
| Timing of sex relative to ovulation | Average chance of pregnancy |
| the day after ovulation | 8% |
Therefore, people should not rely on when their period is due to decide whether to have sex.
The most crucial factor is ovulation. A period indicates the beginning of a new cycle, but it reveals little about when a person might ovulate.