Rules for Preventing Prengancy

You need to consider yourself potentially fertile until you can prove otherwise.

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First 5 Day Rule (First 3 Day rule if charting lethan 1 year)

If you’re in your first year of charting, you are generally considered infertile the first 3 days of your menstrual cycle.

If in one year, you have never had a cycle that was less than 25 days long, you are generally considered infertile the first 5 days of your menstrual cycle.

Two things to note here:

– This rule applies only if you observed a clear BBT shift 12 to 16 days prior to the start of your cycle. This confirms that the bleeding you experience is your period and not abnormal bleeding or ovulation spotting.

– For pre-menopausal women, the rule is the first 3 day rule regardless because hormonal flucuations during the years appraching menopaus can result in early ovulation.

Dry Day Rule

You are generally considered infertile the evening of any day you observed that you had no cervical fluid.

Dry – nothing is felt or seen

or

Unchanging Pattern – slight discharge (sometimes sticky or clumpy) remains the same day after day, cycle after cycle.

If you do have sex, practice Kegels exercises afterwoods to expel the semen — so that it doesn’t obscure your cervical fluid readings on the following day. If you do this, you are safe to have intercourse on every dry or unchanging day. If you only experience one or two consecutive days of sticky cervical fluid and then revert back to dry days, you are considered safe again the evenings of each dry day. But note that this means if you ever observe creamy or egg white cervical fluid, you should NOT consider yourself safe even if you have a dry day afterwards.

Temp+3 Rule

You are considered infertile in the evening of your 3rd high temperature above your coverline.

You need to wait for three consecutive high temperatures above your coverline because you might not ovulate until 24 hours after the rise. Then, 10 percent of the time, women release two eggs at ovulation — requiring a total of three days of high temperatures to confirm that
you’re not fertile.

Peak +4 Rule

You are considered infertile the evening of the 4th day after your most fertile cervical fluid (your peak day) once your cervical fluid has become infertile again, for the remainder of your cycle.

It’s possible that you won’t begin to ovulate until two days after your Peak Day. At ovulation, it’s possible to release two eggs within 24 hours of each other (this is how fraternal twins are conceived), and since each egg can live a maximum of 24 hours, this adds up to 4 days after the Peak Day.

Important To Note

Cervical fluid and BBT patterns don’t always line up exactly. If yours doesn’t, postpone intercourse or use a barrier method until you’ve confirmed ovulation has passed by both fertility signals; rule temp +3 & peak +4.

Safe Days After Periods

The only rule for determining whether you’re fertile while on your period is based on the previous cycle.

Did you have a clear temperature shift that confirms ovulation?
If you did, then you know the bleeding is your period (not spotting or breakthrough bleeding) and you can implement the first 5 days rule (first 3 days rule if charting less than 1 year).

If you didn’t have a clear temperature shift in the previous cycle, then you cannot confirm ovulation occurred. In this instant, there are no safe days as your body may try again to ovulate.

Postpartum

There are additional rules and nuances for practicing the sympto-thermal method postpartum which this course does not cover.

Premenopausal Women

Hormonal changes during the years approaching menopause can result in early ovulation, therefore they’ll need to revert back to the first 3 day rules.

Anovulatory Cycles

In an ideal cycle, ovulation will happen every time, somewhere in the middle of the cycle. But it’s possible that the hormone LH (luteinizing hormone) may not be strong enough to cause ovulation.

So instead of getting your period when you think it should come, you may experience a longer cycle than usual as your body makes multiple attempts to ovulate (with or without success.)

Don’t be hard on yourself if you experience this as you start charting. Roughly around 25% of women in their 20s and 30s do not ovulate regularly. You may find as you chart that you have the motivation to improve your cycle (and your health) and become conscious of ways to do that.

If you are not ovulating regularly, using the sympto thermal method to prevent pregnancy can be frustrating because you may not get many safe days!

Therefore, you might like to use anovulatory rules from the cervical mucus only method:
You are considered infertile in the evening (6pm onwards) of each day you experience a sticky discharge and/or a dry sensation. If you experience a change in cervical fluid; apply the peak +4 rule.