By @FertilityFlower

I often receive questions about charting in the post-partum period. Very simply: The key to charting in the post-partum period is to monitor your cervical fluid. Look for changes in your everyday post-partum status. Cerivcal fluid is going to tell you when you are approaching your fertile phase – now, just like always. If you are not breastfeeding, you can expect to start cycling again soon (within a couple months of giving birth). While you are not necessarily going to be fertile soon after giving birth, you should consider any bleeding after 56 days a menstrual period as opposed to post-partum bleeding (lochia). If your first post-partum cycle is fertile (ovulatory), you will notice your cervical fluid becoming wetter and wetter as you approach ovulation, leading up to something that (in many women) is stretchy and resembles eggwhite. Your waking temperatures might be rocky during the post-partum period due to a variety of things (e.g., hormones, waking up multiple times in the night to feed the baby, etc.) but it doesn’t matter. The quality of your cervical fluid is the key to identifying approaching ovulation.

If you are breastfeeding and satisfying all of your baby’s nutritional and emotional needs at the breast (and not using pacifiers)*, you are likely to experience a long pause in your fertility – on average, 14.6 months. Your waking temperatures may be all over the place during that time but again – watch for changes in the quality of your cervical fluid. Since your body has been through several months of hormonal upheavel, your basic infertility pattern – which is your non-fertile ‘everyday’ level of wetness (which for many women is ‘dry’) – after giving birth, might be different than it was before your pregnancy. You’re looking for a change in your cervical fluid, from a drier/stickier state to wetter. Once you notice a change from drier to wetter, then standard charting rules for avoiding a pregnancy apply. You can review the temperature shift and peak day rules to avoid a pregnancy here.

The good news is that after your first post-partum menstrual period, your temperatures should return to a more discernable bi-phasic pattern (low temperatures in the follicular phase followed by high temps in the luteal phase).

*Satisfying all of your baby’s needs at the breast (both physical and emotional) is called Ecological Breastfeeding. KellyMom.com has a nice write up on Ecological Breastfeeding and post-partum fertility here.

Sources:

Consensus Statement, “Breastfeeding as a Family Planning Method,” The Lancet (November 19, 1988), 1204-1205.

You might also be interested in:

The Sympto-Thermal Method for Birth Control

Regaining Normalcy After A Baby