The Rules of Fertility Awareness Method for Contraception
The Rules of FAM for Contraception
Fertility awareness is an incredible tool for understanding your body. One of the most important uses for this method is to be able to make contraceptive choices based off of the information in the charts. This is a quick guide which will explain the rules of FAM for contraception.
As I've mentioned in my FAM 101 series, there are some general standards that apply to properly taking and analyzing your data. If you are just getting started I suggest starting with those blogs before taking a look at these rules.
When it comes to using FAM for contraception, you must start slowly, especially if you’re coming off of a reproductive health issue. It’s safer to start off charting for body literacy purposes than for contraception purposes. Your first charts should be about you becoming more highly educated on the fertility signs and how they work from day to day with your body. Taking that time to learn the method is important to using FAM correctly and to maximize your own autonomy. This may mean you & your partner should agree to use barrier methods until you feel comfortable that you understand your fertile window and when it begins and ends.
Don’t make assumptions about your data. Refer to the rules and follow them carefully.
Don’t see what you want to see - essentially, try remove your bias. This is where you start to take risks by bending the rules. Again, you must follow them completely.
Listen to your body & use your signs as a guide. Learn to connect them to how you feel *overall* and not just in the context of contraception. This helps build your intuition and overall awareness.
Fertility signs may very well deviate from the biphasic pattern we would like to see, but those signs mean something for your reproductive health. Don’t discount cervical fluid you observe in the post ovulatory phase. Don’t discount that you feel a lack of fluid during your fertile window. Don’t discount if you don’t see a temperature rise. Your data must be interpreted for what it is. Ask yourself what this is trying to tell you about your overall health. The pattern you see after a few cycles is a guide, and your charts will improve toward that pattern as your health does - but everyone is different.
This method is best when you utilize all your biomarkers & even your secondary fertility signs. The more you add to the chart the more you can refer back to in the future.
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The Rules of FAM for Contraception
Rules Used Before Ovulation (In the Follicular Phase)
1. First Five Days Rule - If your cycle is normally longer than 25 days, you are safe for unprotected sex the first 5 days of the menstrual cycle if you had an obvious thermal shift about 12-16 days before in the previous cycle. If your cycle is normally shorter than 25 days, you modify this rule to the first 3 days rule, where you are safe for unprotected sex the first 3 days of your menstrual cycle. This rule works because ovulation before day 10 is statistically unlikely.
2. Dry Day Rule - After menses but before ovulation, you are safe for unprotected sex the evening of every dry vulva day. When you perform cervical fluid checks, you must not have fluid at *any* point that day to be considered infertile. If you observe any fluid at all, you mark that fluid down on that day, and consider your fertile window as beginning on that day. If you have a dry vulva throughout the day, remember that the next day is considered potentially fertile. This rule works because sperm can't survive without cervical fluid present, and cervical fluid indicates high estrogen levels, which are necessary to ovulate.
Rules Used After Ovulation (In the Luteal Phase)
3. Peak Plus Four Days Rule - You are safe for unprotected sex on the evening of the 4th consecutive day after your Peak Day of cervical fluid - either egg-white or watery fluid, or a highly lubricative vaginal sensation. The following day after your Peak Day is when you should feel your fluid starting to dry up. This sign should be corroborated by a thermal shift (discussed in # 4). This rule works because 4 days beyond your peak day, the egg has already been released and is no longer viable, as well as there being no cervical fluid to nourish sperm.
4. Temp Plus Three Days Rule - You are safe for unprotected sex the evening of the 3rd consecutive high temperature past your Peak Day, as long as the 3rd temperature is at least 3/10ths above the coverline. To draw a coverline, look at your last six temperatures before you identify a thermal shift, then draw a horizontal line one-tenth above the highest of that cluster of six temperatures. If a temperature falls on or below the coverline during the 3 day count, you have to start your count over. If you are sick with a fever, you cannot consider yourself safe until your fever is gone and you have a clear 3 day count.
Which should you use first? If the temp + 3 days comes before the peak + 4 days (as it does in the above chart), you can rely on temp + 3 days as an indicator that ovulation occurred. If peak + 4 days comes first, but you do not have a thermal shift, you must wait until a thermal shift is observed. If for some reason your thermometer is not available, you can use peak + 4 to determine the end of the fertile window. However, if you observe fluid again in that cycle, consider it potentially fertile, seeing that you can't confirm ovulation with the temperatures.
General Rule of Thumb
5. If you feel doubt - don’t take the chance. If signs conflict, always wait until both primary fertility signs indicate infertility. This ensures the signs do indeed corroborate before you consider yourself infertile.