Five Ways to Track your Menstrual Cycle

There is power in knowing where you are in relation to the stages of your menstrual cycle (menstruation, follicular, ovulation, luteal). The more you know, the better you'll be able to understand and navigate possible changes in mood, physical symptoms, and energy. You will be able to not only adapt behaviors and habits, but give yourself more grace as you enter the four different phases. As a fertility specialist, I can also assure you that monitoring your cycle is extremely beneficial when trying to get pregnant. 

So whether you are eager to learn more about your cycle with the goal of understanding how your body shifts with your hormones OR trying to conceive, here are 5 ways to track your menstrual cycle. 

• Ovulation Predictor Kits - Ovulation Predictor Kits (OPKs) are an easy and accurate way of tracking ovulation at home because they are good at detecting a rise in Lutinizing Hormone (LH) . The kit includes test strips you’ll submerge in your urine during your fertility window to track when LH rises, indicating you’re heading towards peak ovulation (aka, the optimal time to conceive).

• BBT Charting - Basal Body Temperature (BBT) Charting is a tried and true method for tracking your menstrual cycle. BBT is a woman's temperature when she first wakes in the morning that varies depending on where she is in her monthly cycles. Temperatures tend to be lower in our follicular phase (before ovulation) and higher in our luteal phase (post ovulation). Before ovulation there is a small drop followed by a rapid rise in BBT. We track this with a BBT thermometer and chart. 

• Cervix height - This method takes some getting used to. On a regular basis, place your fingers inside your vagina and feel the top of your cervix. With time, you’ll start to tell when it’s low and hard (less fertile) or high and soft (near, during ovulation). It will also feel more wet around ovulation. 

• Cervical Mucus (CM) - Vaginas create more cervical mucus around ovulation. The increase makes the vagina a more hospitable environment for sperm to live and improves its ability to swim up the cervix to fertilize an egg when it drops. You monitor CM by looking for wetness in your underwear, feeling for slipperiness when wiping (tip: fold the toilet paper and wipe from front to back) or by placing your fingers into your vagina to feel for wetness. CM should have an egg white consistency and a sticky, stretchy quality.

• Fintech Device - Fertility tracking for modern women has brought us the ability to measure BBT from rings on our fingers, and devices that can be inserted into the vagina. There are also companies with devices similar to OPKs that give exact numbers of LH in addition to the ability to track changes in estrogen and progesterone.

*Please note that there is no need to do all five for each cycle. Pick the two to three that work best for you in order to avoid tracking burnout!