Can you practice Fertility Awareness with irregular cycles?
Got irregular cycles? Whether you know your cycles are irregular (or missing) due to a condition such as PCOS or Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, or if you’re not sure why your cycles are long, cycle charting can be a huge gift. Personally, I can’t understate how much my fertility awareness practice has improved my life with irregular cycles. I like to describe it as if I had been wandering around in the dark and my practice was like finding a flashlight. The reasons I listed below are just a few of the many reasons that I chose to become a Fertility Awareness Educator, because I would love to be able to share these gifts with others!
Cycle charting can help you to better understand what your body is doing in that long time between periods. Are you ovulating? Is your body producing a healthy balance of estrogen and progesterone? Are symptoms you’re experiencing correlated with a particular phase of your cycle? Since the fertile signs that we track are directly related to the levels of sex hormones present in our bodies, practicing fertility awareness and working with someone trained in interpreting charts can begin to answer questions about your cycles. Unfortunately, so many women only try to answer these questions if they are trying to get pregnant. However there are so many health benefits to having a healthy cycle that knowing this information can profoundly impact how you’re feeling on a day to day basis.
It can also help you predict your period. As long as you’re having ovulatory cycles, or cycles where ovulation is occurring, then you can know when your period is coming using the fertility awareness method. This is because the luteal phase, or second part of our menstrual cycles are typically the same length every cycle you can know when you are going to bleed based on when you ovulate. If you have ever been surprised by the arrival of your period or wondering why it was “late,” you know how valuable this one is. Personally, I will make sure to clear as much time as I can as soon as I know when my period is coming. I might also take that time to schedule self care such as acupuncture or massage during my luteal phase.
It can help you track your progress. If you are concerned about your irregular cycles, the fertility awareness method can help you track how any lifestyle changes may be impacting your health. While you don’t need a full fertility awareness method to track the length of your cycle, you will be able to identify other more subtle shifts in your fertile signs that indicate improvement to your health. Examples of these changes are an increase in cervical fluid, lengthening a short luteal phase, or feeling less PMS symptoms prior to your period. Working with a provider who can read charts or who is willing to collaborate with your Fertility Awareness Educator can help give that valuable information in a non invasive and much less costly way.
You can effectively prevent pregnancy, or use it to become pregnant. The fertility awareness method is based on the idea that on average, women can only get pregnant six days out of each cycle. This is because cervical fluid can keep sperm alive for about five to six days in order to maximize the chances of sperm and egg meeting after ovulation. However, if you are having cycles that are unpredictable in length and months long, then periods on their own will not give you much information. Learning to identify when ovulation may potentially happen and how to confirm after it has will give you the information you need to meet whatever goals you may have for your fertility. Especially if you are trying to avoid pregnancy, make sure that you work with an instructor who is familiar with irregular cycles to ensure that you have a thorough understanding of how to make decisions with tricky patterns.
If you are looking to learn how to chart your irregular cycles, check out my upcoming classes or schedule a 1:1 session with me! I'd love to support you in your journey to better understand your body and help you reach whatever fertility goals you may have.
