I keep talking about cervical mucus, so I want to make sure that it’s clear what I’m referring to.
Cervical mucus is a type of fluid that your body makes when you are fertile (close to ovulation). This is a magical fluid because it allows sperm to live up to five whole days inside the woman’s reproductive tract. This is why it’s so important to know what it is and how to interpret it, because knowing this will allow you to know when you can (or cannot) get pregnant in each menstrual cycle.
The vagina is a naturally wet environment, and you’ll usually have some kind of dampness or moisture down there (called vaginal cell slough), so that’s not what I’m talking about.
Mucus is what is often referred to as discharge and the key difference is that it has staying power. What I mean is that you can pick it up and play with it between your fingers and it won’t go anywhere. You can stretchy out multiple times and it won’t go anywhere. This is in contrast to the normal cell slough that may be damp or wet, but you can’t pick it up and you can’t play with it between your fingers.
Mucus may also be a white/cloudy or clear colour, or a combination of colours. As well, you might have times around ovulation that when you wipe your vulva you will find a super slippery and lubricative sensation. This is also considered a fertile day because the mucus gets really watery sometimes.
So how do you know when you can get pregnant? First of all, it’s important to know that any time you see mucus you can get pregnant. This is because those spermies can live up to five days inside it. Also, it’s important to know that you can still get pregnant for a few days after the mucus has dried up and gone away. Why? Because you need to give your body a few days to dry up inside and for any ovulated egg to die off. It’s not always clear cut, so when you’re fertile and when you see mucus don’t always line up.
This is why it’s essential that you get proper education and training if you want to use fertility awareness as a method of contraception. Otherwise it’s far too easy to end up pregnant when you don’t want to be. But with proper education you can learn the rules and be very successful at preventing pregnancy (rated over 99% effective in research studies). Check out my programs to see how I can help you learn to do this.
