Fertility Awareness

With only a couple of minutes a day, you can acquire abundant practical information about your fertility. You have the key to unlock the mystery of your own menstrual cycle and better understand your body.

The Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) is a scientifically proven method that can be used either for birth control or as an aid to become pregnant. With it, you can:

Feel in control when you see your health care providers.
Understand the difference between normal cervical discharge and abnormal discharge from an infection.
Identify the fertile time in each cycle
Find patterns in seemingly irregular cycles
Become more in touch with your cycles, which can give you a head start on predicting everything from pregnancy to menopause

What is the Fertility Awareness Method?

FAM is a method of birth control with no hormones, chemicals, prescriptions, fittings or side effects; it is completely user-controlled and extremely low cost. When practiced carefully and correctly, fertility awareness is almost as effective as most hormonal methods of birth control.If used perfectly and you abstain from intercourse during fertile phases, FAM has about a 2% failure rate. Many people use barrier methods combined with FAM to prevent pregnancy.

FAM is also a wonderful method for those who are trying to become pregnant. Without chemical intervention, fertility awareness can help individuals who believed they were infertile become pregnant. FAM can pinpoint the perfect time to introduce sperm, which is especially helpful for people who do not have easy access to sperm.

Key Points of the Fertility Awareness Method

There are two basic pieces to FAM charting. These are cervical mucus charting and basal body temperature charting. Cervical mucus (the discharge produced by the cervix) increases after the period, as the result of the increasing levels of estrogen. You may have already noticed that your cervical mucus changes in quality and quantity at different times in your cycle . As you get closer to ovulation, the cervical mucus becomes more water-based, slippery, and stringy. This mucus can help sperm survive the acidity of the vagina. Fresh sperm can live in this egg white-like mucus for up to 7 days! Frozen sperm could survive for up to 24 hours. If you were to introduce sperm into this mucus, you would be more likely to get pregnant. If there is no cervical mucus present you are less likely to become pregnant.

Basal Body Temperature (BBT) is the temperature of your body at rest. You need to use a more precise thermometer to check BBTs. These are usually called family planning or fertility thermometers. You should try to take your temperature at the same time each day, immediately after waking. Charting BBTs is a hindsight method. Charts indicate that ovulation has occurred and that the opportunity for pregnancy has passed.

The combination of cervical mucus charting and BBT charting offers more accurate information on your fertility than either charting method would on its own.

Ask your health worker about the fertility awareness workshops held every other month at CWHC.