The Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) is a sympto-thermal method of charting your menstrual cycles that allows you to know when you are fertile. It can be used as an effective method of natural contraception, or as an aid in getting pregnant because it allows you to identify the best days for conception.
But did you know that FAM can also be used as a diagnostic tool?
There are 3 primary fertility signs that are charted on a daily basis in this method:
- basal body temperature / BBT (temperature taken first thing in the morning before getting up)
- cervical fluid (mucous)
- changes in the cervix (texture, height, and opening)
Additional symptoms that are charted include, but are not limited to: cramps, sex drive, emotional state, sleep patterns, and energy levels. I generally tell women to chart anything they might feel is relevant, especially if it is something they experience every cycle.
FAM helps you gather this information in a comprehensive manner and suddenly, patterns emerge. These patterns help you understand what is going on inside your body. The patterns on the charts help you to decipher the information your body is sharing with you. Some signs you may be ignoring or completely unaware of until you have charted for several cycles.
You can glean an incredible amount of information about your hormonal and gynecological health, which develops what I like to call womb wisdom – a deep connection and understanding of your womb! This self-knowledge can benefit all cycling women, but it is especially helpful for women who are experiencing problems with their cycles and would like to find answers.
I highly recommend using charting as a diagnostic tool for women who:
- Have unexplained irregular cycles
- Get severe menstrual and/or ovulatory cramps
- Have PMS or PMDD
- Have very heavy or long bleeding times
- Are struggling with infertility and/or repeat miscarriages
Enhance Self-Awareness Through Fertility Charting
Women are complex, layered beings. We can be quite sensitive, intuitive, and emotional – these are gifts, not curses! Sometimes we sense something isn’t right, but we can’t quite put our finger on it. All too often we ignore those gut feelings. Through the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), you will learn to listen to these feelings, becoming more attuned to what may be causing disharmony in the body. It may be emotional, spiritual, or even physical. It is a gift to be able to use self-awareness to help regain a sense in balance in your life!
I have heard some women share that they always felt something was wrong with their cycles, things just didn’t feel right. Fertility charting helped them to discovered how perfectly their bodies were working month after month, which shifted their whole attitude about their menstrual cycles. Learning to understand and appreciate their cycles was all the healing that needed to happen.
The greater understanding of what is going on within our bodies will help us to see what our bodies need. Too often we look to others for answers about our health concerns when so many of the answers can be found within us. I am not implying that we may never need outside help, first though, let’s start by connecting to our womb wisdom with Fertility Awareness Method.
3 Important Benefits of Fertility Awareness Method:
- It allows us an opportunity to know what questions to ask a healthcare provider. In turn, this helps us to make informed decisions about our treatments.
- It can help guide our decision regarding which kind of healer to work with, based on our actual needs.
- It can help us to feel empowered about our fertility and well-being, which is vital to maintain health and promote healing within our bodies.
What Does a Healthy Cycle Look Like?
Before looking for things that may be wrong on your charts, you need to know what a healthy chart looks like. It is important to understand that most women do not have textbook charts every cycle, and that cycles do tend to differ from one month to the next. That is perfectly normal. Using FAM to chart is a great way to get to know your cycles really well, and be able to gauge what variations may be normal for you.
There are certain specific things you can expect to see cycle after cycle during the follicular phase (the phase of the cycle leading up to ovulation), and others during the luteal phase (the phase between ovulation and menstruation). Here is a brief outline of what you would expect to see on the chart of a woman’s healthy cycle:
- Menstruation lasts between 3 to 7 days with bright red blood flow that is clot-free
- No noticeable cervical fluid for several days following the end of bleeding
- Cervical fluid builds up from a “tacky” or creamy texture to fertile slippery and stretchy fluid at ovulation, then transitions back to dryer fluid after ovulation
- Lower BBT before ovulation, and higher BBT afterwards (at least two tenths of a degree higher)
- A clear thermal shift that confirms ovulation and takes less than 3 days
- BBT stays elevated throughout the luteal phase
Fertility charting is not generally meant to be a final answer when it comes to diagnosing health conditions, but it can be a powerful tool to have under your belt. Below you will find brief outlines of common female health concerns and how they might be reflected on FAM charts.
Thyroid Imbalances
The most visual aspect of charting with FAM is the graph produced by the basal body temperatures (BBT) recorded daily. For women who are ovulating, BBT will be lower during the follicular phase, averaging between 97.0 and 97.7 degrees Fahrenheit. There will be a thermal shift following ovulation and temperatures will remain higher during the luteal phase. The normal range of temperatures for the second half of the cycle is about 97.8 and up into the 98s.
Studies have shown that BBT is an accurate indicator of thyroid health. Certain patterns of very high or very low temperatures are almost always linked to hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism, respectively. There are many medical professionals who feel that BBT can be a better indicator of thyroid health than a TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) blood test. The range of TSH that is considered healthy and normal can vary quite a bit from one individual to another and different labs use different ranges when analyzing results. Very low temperatures almost always mean the thyroid is not functioning as well as it should.
Here is how thyroid dysfunction might show up on charts:
Hypothyroidism
- (low thyroid function): generally low waking temperatures, staying below 97.2 degrees Fahrenheit during the follicular phase, sometimes even dipping as low as the 95s. BBT rarely ever going into the 98 degree range.
Other possible symptoms include: long cycles, heavy menses, anovulatory cycles (with no thermal shift), prolonged phases of fertile cervical fluid, recurrent miscarriages, or infertility.
Hyperthyroidism
- (excessively high thyroid function): generally high waking temperatures above 98 degrees Fahrenheit, even going into the 99 degrees range during the luteal phase.
Other possible symptoms include: long cycles, scant cervical fluid, light menstruation, and infertility.
Luteal Phase Defect (low progesterone)
Progesterone is the hormone that is dominant in the second half of the menstrual cycle. Low progesterone can cause what is termed luteal phase defect. This can be caused by the corpus luteum in the ovary not producing enough progesterone, or the lining of the uterus not responding properly to progesterone. Low progesterone can interfere with implantation, success of a pregnancy and can be implicated in a host of issues such as estrogen-dominance, PMS, menstrual cramps, endometriosis, thyroid disorders, recurrent miscarriages and infertility.
A woman may have a cycle of average length, say 29 days and so assumes she is having normal, healthy cycles. But with charting, she might realize that she is ovulating slightly later than average, on day 19 and has a luteal phase of only 10 days. A healthy luteal phase is generally between 12 and 16 days long. So this would indicate that she likely has low progesterone.
Here is how low progesterone can manifest on charts:
- Luteal phase shorter than 11 days
- BBT zigzags up and down around ovulation
- BBT not consistently high during the luteal phase
- BBT dropping to pre-ovulatory levels several days before menstruation, or throughout the luteal phase
- Spotting (light bleeding) for several days leading up to actual menstrual flow
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
PCOS is a common hormonal disorder that causes developing follicles that are normally ovulated each month to remain trapped inside the ovary, which eventually causes them to turn into cysts. This may prevent future ovulation and cause very irregular cycles.
In women with PCOS there is generally an excessive production of testosterone, luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH). PCOS is also linked to insulin resistance. Some women have very long cycles and can experience pain caused by the cysts, while other women may be unaware that they are suffering from PCOS.
Here are some of the ways this condition might manifest on charts:
- Long & irregular cycles, often 40+ days long
- Several anovulatory cycles in a row, where no clear thermal shift is noted
- Several patches of fertile quality cervical fluid spread out throughout long cycles
- Continuous production of fertile cervical fluid
- Excessive or very heavy menstrual flow
Recurrent Miscarriages
It might come as a surprise for you to hear that it is possible and even common for women to be unaware that they had an early miscarriage, also sometimes called a chemical pregnancy. Women who have irregular cycles are more likely to be unaware that they have experienced a chemical pregnancy. Being able to identify these losses is important because repeat miscarriages can point to a number of health conditions.
For someone struggling with infertility, not being able to get pregnant and having repeat miscarriages are two very different ball games and will likely require different treatments.
To understand this issue, it is important to know that the length of the luteal phase generally does not vary much from cycle to cycle. It is more likely for the day of ovulation to vary a little bit.
➞ If a woman’s menstruation comes a few days late, it can be easy to dismiss – it could indeed mean that ovulation occurred a few days later than usual, which caused the entire cycle to lengthen. This is not that unusual.
➞ If ovulation took place on the same day as usual, but the luteal phase was suddenly several days longer than normal, with sustained high temperatures before bleeding began, it is possible that this was in fact a chemical pregnancy.
Important: If a woman was experiencing a longer than average luteal phase while charting, she would know to take a pregnancy test and would be able to confirm her pregnancy. Without charting, this pregnancy could be entirely missed.
The Power of Charting
As you can see, charting your cycles can hold the key to an amazing amount of knowledge – what I have shared in this article is only the tip of the iceberg. Charting is powerful and there is nothing else that can bring you such a profound self-awareness and empower you to take your health into your own hands. Click here if you would like to learn how to begin charting your menstrual cycle!
This article was first published on Natural-Fertility-Info.com