An Overview of Fertility Awareness

It can be difficult to concisely describe fertility awareness. Not because it’s a crazy complicated topic that’s impossible to learn and understand, but because fertility awareness is SO many different things. Fertility awareness is something different to everyone, and it can truly be anything that you need it to be. Confused yet??

At a basic level, fertility awareness helps you understand what’s happening with your hormones and your cycle. More specifically, it helps you collect data about your body that you can then use to prevent pregnancy naturally (and super effectively), get pregnant quickly and (in most cases) without intervention, predict your next period with accuracy that will blow your mind, and gain a solid understanding of your body’s shenanigans.

For you, fertility awareness may be a way to prevent pregnancy, but for someone else, it may be a way to better understand irregular cycles. Fertility awareness is whatever your beautiful self desires!

Fertility awareness is an umbrella term

There are numerous methods that fall into the category of “fertility awareness”, including the Billings Method, the Standard Days Method, and even the outdated Rhythm Method. But the method we’re discussing here — the one with all of those ridiculously awesome benefits like pregnancy prevention that I mentioned above — is called the sympto-thermal method. And make no mistake: the sympto-thermal method and the rhythm method are about as similar as a caterpillar and a walrus.

Despite being quite the mouthful, the sympto-thermal method is the only method under the “fertility awareness” umbrella that gives you an accurate and comprehensive picture of what’s happening with your body on a day-to-day basis. It’s firmly grounded in science and rivals the pill in its ability to prevent pregnancy (true story).

Practicing the sympto-thermal method yields a live data stream that has some serious benefits…it’s pretty much like Google Analytics for your vagina.

But what IS the sympto-thermal method?

Okay, okay. So fertility awareness is an umbrella term and the sympto-thermal method is the most effective form of fertility awareness, but you’re probably ready for me to tell you exactly what it entails.

The sympto-thermal method necessitates the observation of two things every day: basal body temperature and cervical fluid (or cervical mucus). Both of these fluctuate predictably throughout your menstrual cycle and each one is super easy to measure and examine. If you want to use the sympto-thermal method as birth control, you also need to learn and follow a simple set of rules.

If you’re ready to dive in and start learning the sympto-thermal method, read through the free educational info on our website.