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Getting Started With FAM
What is fertility awareness method?
The Fertility Awareness Method is an umbrella term for many secular, scientific systems for determining the small window in which a person is fertile each menstrual cycle. It involves charting daily changes to the body on a graph, giving us a window into our overall health.
There are many types of fertility awareness methods.
The most reliable fertility awareness methods are those which use corroborating fertility signs like the Sympto-thermal method. These are signs that we observe and are placed on an overlapping graph to determine the fertile window, which changes from cycle to cycle.
Sympto-thermal methods (99.4% effective) rival the effectiveness of hormonal birth control when trained to use the method properly. Real use effectiveness varies because this method relies on informed users and behavior changes during the fertile window. It does not disrupt ovulation.
The fertility window and ovulation cannot be predicted, only observed & confirmed. The method creates buffers around the fertile window using the observable fertility signs in order to determine when pregnancy is possible.
The Three Primary Fertility Signs
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Cervical Fluid
In a typical menstrual cycle after menstruation ends, estrogen begins to rise. This estrogen sends instructions to the ovary to finish maturing an egg, and to the cervix, to make cervical fluid.
Cervical fluid is our most reliable diagnostic fertility sign. When we feel cervical fluid and vaginal sensation, we have a good indication that we are currently fertile. The fertility window with cervical fluid is typically around 6 days.
Many of us have been taught about 'vaginal discharge' and have never been told that we have a cycling of cervical fluid that is a major indicator of our fertility status.
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Waking Body Temperature
The menstrual cycle follows a two-phase temperature pattern: pre-ovulatory temperatures, and post-ovulatory temperatures. Ovulation is likely to occur on the last day before the temperature rises to form these two distinct phases. The temperatures rise because of the presence of progesterone after ovulation. When you see your temp rise, ovulation has already occurred, hence the "retroactive" nature of this sign.
Temperatures are useful for those with long, irregular cycles, because they can easily identify when ovulation is delayed. Everyone using basal body temperature can identify if they are ovulating or not. Once you see a temperature shift, about two weeks later menstruation will occur (if the egg is not fertilized)
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Cervical Position
Cervical position changes are also directed by estrogen. The cervix baseline during infertile phases is low, hard to the touch, and closed to protect the uterus. The cervix during the fertile window rises higher in the vaginal canal, is soft to the touch, & opens to allow for cervical fluid to flow and for sperm to enter the uterus.
In the fertility awareness method, we learn to touch our cervixes and utilize this fertility sign in concert with cervical fluid to determine when the fertility window is currently occurring. This time is when you must avoid ejaculation in the vaginal canal to prevent pregnancy.
Cervical position is an optional but corroborating third primary fertility sign.
Charting Your Data Properly
We chart fertility awareness on a graph
When we practice fertility awareness, we try to remove as many variables as possible, and we try to keep bias from tampering with our results. Fertility awareness is a scientific method, and so to achieve your goals and to obtain body literacy, you have to make an effort to remain objective.
The fertility awareness method has parameters, and rules that you must follow which are meant to account for hormonal changes within the individual user, as well as to account for a degree of human error. The more rigorously you chart, the more accurate your results will be, but there's no need to worry. As you grow to learn your charts more intimately they will become much easier to understand, and charting will take up less & less of your actual time.
