Should I Track My Period Too
Tracking when your period starts and ends is another way of looking at your monthly cycle. Once youve nailed down your cycle length and when your period should arrive, simply determine what the midway point is or 14 days before the expected starting day of your period and this is your ovulation window.
Keep in mind that while the chances of conceiving when you have your period are low, theyre not zero either. The reason? You could have sex on the last day of your period and you might ovulate early, which means live sperm could be on deck inside and you just might get pregnant.
From the What to Expect editorial team and Heidi Murkoff, author of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. What to Expect follows strict reporting guidelines and uses only credible sources, such as peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions and highly respected health organizations. Learn how we keep our content accurate and up-to-date by reading our medical review and editorial policy.
- What to Expect Before You’re Expecting, 2nd edition, Heidi Murkoff.
- What to Expect When Youre Expecting, 5th edition, Heidi Murkoff.
Selection Of The Apps
From January 2020 to May 2020, the Apple store and Google Play store were searched using menstrual, menstruation or period combined with either one or two additional terms from tracker, cycle, calendar, predictor or calculator.
The 10 top reoccurring apps, with the most popular in descending order selected in the app stores, were decided following the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Inclusion: those marketed and used by individuals for tracking their menstrual cycle apps with the ability to track cycles and input retrospective data giving predictions of the next menses, apps available in both the Apple and Google Play store, apps accessible in English and the ability to be used without an Internet connection. Exclusion: those that did not allow for the tracking of previous and present menstrual cycles or did not predict future menstrual cycles, apps whose sole purpose was for fertility, trying to conceive or pregnancy, apps not present in both Apple and Google Play stores, those not in English or after download those determined to be dysfunctional or faulty.
The chosen 10 period tracker apps were downloaded onto five devices on June 2020 . Each of the five devices was used solely for menstrual cycle data for one of the five women.
Whens Your Period How To Track Yours With Ovia And How We Predict When It Will Come Next
After ovulation, your levels of the hormone progesterone spike. This hormone thickens the lining of the uterus in preparation for a fertilized egg. When your body recognizes that there is no fertilized egg, progesterone levels fall which causes the uterine lining to shed. This is what you see when you get your period. Read on to learn how period tracking works in Ovia.
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How To Set Period And Fertility Tracking Notifications And Prediction Data
Predictions begin after you enter your last period in the Cycle Tracking app and are based on logged data. If you log a period before it’s predicted to begin, you won’t get a period prediction notification for that cycle. Notifications appear on your Apple Watch and iPhone, depending on what you’re using.
Why Do I See A Period I Already Deleted In The Fitbit App
If you delete a confirmed period and you have predictions turned on, youll still see the predicted period for that cycle. For more information about the icons and colors on your menstrual health tracking calendar, see How do I read the menstrual health tracking calendar in the Fitbit app?
View your cycle trends to see your average period and cycle lengths, average estimated ovulation day, and graphs of your past cycles and details. Note that you wont see your average estimated ovulation day if you turned off fertile window predictions. You must log at least 2 periods to see trends.
To see your menstrual health trends:
To see the trends for each detail you logged during a cycle:
If your cycle is longer than 60 days, swipe left and right or tap the arrows to scroll through your cycle calendar.
Tap the Today tab , then tap the menstrual health tile.
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Q How To Find The Safest Days To Have Sex Based On The Period Calculator To Avoid Pregnancy
Calculating the safe period days is very simple. You have to fill in the dates of your last period, duration of your period and the duration of the menstrual cycle. And your data is ready for the next months! The dates with white spaces in the calendar are the safe day. Generally, one to seven days of the menstrual period, and the days after ovulation are considered safe or infertile.However, remember that the calculator is purely based on the details you give, and can be inaccurate if the data is incorrect.
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How Do I Use The Calendar Method
Before you can use the calendar method as birth control, you need to keep track of the length of your menstrual cycles for at least 6 periods. You can do this with a regular calendar or our period tracking app.
Heres how you do it: Mark the first day of your period . Then mark the first day of your next period. Count the total number of days between each cycle .
You must chart at least 6 cycles, but charting a few more months is even better. Heres an example:
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First Day of Period |
If all of your cycles are shorter than 27 days, the calendar method wont be accurate for you.
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S Of Tracking Your Period
Tracking your period doesnt have to be complicated. You should prioritize choosing a method that is easy for you to access, keep up to date, and you know youll actually stick with. For me, thats an Excel spreadsheet I keep pinned on my phone, my boyfriends phone, and my laptopone column for cycle length, one column for period days, and one column for PMS symptomsbut I get pretty intense about this stuff, if you havent been able to tell.
Here are a couple simple and dare-I-say fun ways to keep track of your flow:
the notes app on your phone, if youve read the same articles about period tracking apps selling your data that I have
an old school paper calendar
The Problem With Period Trackers
As period tracker apps grow in popularity and utility, so does concern about what happens with the personal information users input. Unlike medical records held by doctors and hospitals, the information collected by health-focused apps isnt covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act , a 1996 federal law that limits where healthcare providers can share your health information.
That means health app makers are mostly free to do what they want with the data they collect. For instance, they may work with companies that analyze how users interact with the app to improve its design or function. Or they may share information with digital ad and marketing partners who use it to send personalized ads to users for, say, baby products, or to recruit new users. These partners may be giant tech companies like Facebook and Google, small tech firms you never heard of, or both.
Those external partners may then have a relationship with data brokers, who collect, aggregate, and combine personal information about you from a variety of sources to create a profile on you and in turn sell it to others. And theres no way to really know who is getting that profile. A recent study by an advocacy group called the Norwegian Consumer Council examined 10 popular apps including Clue and found that they were collectively feeding personal information to at least 135 companies.
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Why Should You Track Your Period
Period tracking is like a multitool for monitoring your health. It can help you track fertility to achieve pregnancy, act as birth control, keep tabs on potential health concerns and provide insight on symptoms like cravings, pain and changes in libido and mood.
In other words, it helps you see patterns and learn whats normal for your body. This way, you can prepare for any gnarly premenstrual syndrome or premenstrual dysphoric disorder symptoms and increase or decrease your likelihood of pregnancy based on your goals.
Monitoring your cycle also helps you note any changes, like spotting throughout your cycle or an unusually long cycle, that can be red flags for larger health issues like polyps and fibroids or, in rare cases, precancer or cancer.
It is quite helpful to have the regular physical signs of menses to track as first clues about a system imbalance, says Dr. Ali Lewis, an OB-GYN who sees patients at UW Medical Center Northwest. By tracking your cycle details, you can pick up on subtleties that can help you and your healthcare provider diagnose potential problems or help you in avoiding or achieving pregnancy.
How Many Days After Your Period Do You Ovulate
If youre wondering how you know when you’re ovulating after your period, the answer lies with a tiny bit of math. To figure out how many days after the onset of your period youll ovulate, you need to know the length of your typical menstrual cycle. For some women, the timing of periods is a bit of a mystery, which means you may have to do a little more detective work to discover when you’re fertile.
But if your periods are as regular as clockwork, you’re in luck. Figure out when the first day of your period might be and count backward 14 days. The two to three days before that day in your cycle will be your most fertile window.
Keep track of your periods to see if you can detect a pattern. Maybe you think you’re often late, for example, but you really just have a long cycle . You can also try to watch for some ovulation symptoms, such as a change in the consistency of your cervical mucus or a slight dip and then uptick in your basal body temperature .
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Cycle Trackers & Period Tracking Apps
Keeping track of menstruation is an important part of our routines. It allows you to monitor patterns in your cycle and see how regular your bleeding or spotting is. We think its great that there are so many options for tracking periods we no longer have to rely on simply writing in our diaries or marking on a calendar, which has been the norm for women for a long time!
That said, noting our menstruation dates alone cannot teach us all there is to know about our unique cycles. Menstrual cycles are sensitive and can change if were stressed, our diet alters or we arent getting enough sleep. By simply tracking periods, we can observe the changes, but we cant anticipate them. Which is why period tracking apps should not be used to prevent pregnancy. While cycle trackers might give a prediction of the fertile window, an app thats based off the rhythm method will give static predictions, which means you wont know until the end of a cycle if the fertile window has shifted making it too late to prevent a pregnancy.
How To Track Your Periods Without Using An App
Ditching your app? Heres how to safely track your period
In light of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs Wade, women all over the United States have been deleting their period tracking apps, in fear that they could be used against them should they live in one of the states which have banned abortion. If you are worried about how safe your personal data is on period apps, we spoke to a cyber-security expert about it here. You’ll also want to check out our guide on how to turn off location tracking on your smartphone.
But how complicated is it to track your period without using an app? And how easy is it to work out your most fertile days? To find out more, we spoke to Dr. Michael Belmonte, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Colorado and a Fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health.
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What Is The Best Period Tracker App
There are several useful period tracker apps available, some of which are free to download and allow you to track things such as PMS symptoms, energy and mood levels.
The best period tracker app is the app that works best for you, depending on your personal needs. But the more you use your app, the more it may be able to tell you about your periods, cycle and fertility.
Tracking Your Cycle With Physical Ovulation Symptoms
Leading up to ovulation, cervical mucus becomes clear and slippery, with a consistency akin to egg whites. During ovulation, some women feel a twinge of one-sided , sometimes called mittelschmerz, described as sharp or cramping. After ovulation, basal body temperature slightly rises.
quick search online can lead to many free fertility charts you can download and print to help you track your physical symptoms. By taking your basal temperature daily, tracking your menstrual cycle and making notes of how your body physically feels each day, you can, with time, see patterns that can help you better identify the day youre likely to ovulate. If a paper graph or chart feels too old-school, many apps now exist allowing you to easily track these physical signs on your computer or phone, including the new Clearblue Me app.
However, relying on physical changes alone to manage fertility comes with a few challenges many women dont experience ovulation symptoms, or their symptoms vary from cycle to cycle. And a change in your cervical mucus is the only truly predictive physical symptom.
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Period Tracking: Whats The Point
Its thought of as a tedious task that requires discipline and a willingness to tune in to your body on a daily basis. Why should you even bother with period tracking? One of the most important benefits of period tracking is getting to know your bodythis is especially important if youre of reproductive age and youre trying to become pregnant or avoid pregnancy, Ramos explains. Using a period tracker can help you notice disruptions in your menstrual cycle. You might realize that your period has become irregular or changed in frequency, which could be symptoms of bigger health concerns. Sometimes a womans period is happening more often and for longer durationsigns that something could be abnormal. Heavier bleeding might also indicate a hormone imbalance, fibroids, or an underlying disease. Unless you know whats normal for your body, youre not going to know when somethings potentially wrong, says Ramos.And of course, one of the main benefits of period tracking is knowing when you should throw a couple of tampons in your purse. Who doesnt want that peace of mind?But despite all of these benefits, most women still havent figured out how to track their periods. Ramos estimates that only about a third of women use a period trackerthe rest of us are in the dark about our menstruation and ovulation. Yikes!
Understanding The Basics Of The Menstrual Cycle
Before we get into strategies for tracking your menstrual cycle, it’s important to know the basics on how said cycle actually works. Per the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services , the menstrual cycle is the hormonal process a menstruating person’s body undergoes each month to get ready for a pregnancy.
“The menstrual cycle is divided into four phases, starting with menstruation and ending with the luteal phase,” says Erin Flynn, DNP, FNP, a nurse practitioner working with reproductive delivery services company Favor. Let’s review them:
The average menstrual cycle lasts 28 days, but cycles that last anywhere between 21 to 35 days are technically considered “normal.” This range of normalcy is important for a couple reasons. First, having a regular cycle is a good indication of overall health, and second, having a predictable cycle gives you the best chance at accurately determining when you’re ovulating. In other words, having a consistent cycle helps you accurately predict the window of each month when you’re likely to get pregnantâand make decisions about sex from there .
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