There’s a common myth that you can’t get pregnant during your period but this is definitely wrong!
Chances are you won’t actually ovulate during your period – however you may start to get cervical mucus and that mucus can keep sperm alive until the egg is released and ta da! You are pregnant.
So what do you do?
For every day that you have light or very light menstrual flow, follow your observational routine and determine whether or not you are fertile based on your observations of mucus or dry days.
For heavy or medium days of flow you will fit into one of the two groups below:
(1) You are an experienced charter and you confirmed ovulation in the last cycle: heavy and medium days are infertile within the first five days of your cycle.
(2) You are a novice charter or you are perimenopausal or you have a history of short cycles/early ovulation or you’re not totally sure if you ovulated in the last cycle: you must treat heavy and medium days of flow as potentially fertile.
One caution here: if you use a menstrual cup or tampons you won’t be able to follow the observational routine. This is why I always recommend pads (especially reusable cloth ones) for the light days of your period. However, if you prefer a cup or tampons then you will have to treat the light days of your period as questionable and do a count-of-3 once you stop using the menstrual products, just in case there was any mucus there that you weren’t able to observe.
For some people it can take a few cycles to figure out what is mucus and what the tail end of their period looks like, so it can be a bit confusing in the beginning. But be assured that after several cycles you will get the hang of it.
It’s actually pretty easy! The key is to pay attention to mucus (isn’t that always the key with charting?) and you will be set. And help me with my myth busting mission by sharing this information with your friends. If they don’t want to get pregnant and they aren’t charting their mucus they should definitely treat their periods as fertile!
Are you looking for help learning how to follow the observational routine or figure out what all the mucus is telling you? Contact me or sign up to one of my programs and I can help!
