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To prevent pregnancy, women can keep track of their menstrual cycles and abstain from unprotected vaginal intercourse during their peak fertile times. The methods you can use to do this are called fertility awareness-based methods.
One way that women track their fertility patterns is by combining several fertility awareness-based methods. This is sometimes called the symptothermal method.
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Some women also track their fertility patterns when trying to get pregnant to know when they should have unprotected vaginal intercourse. |
Symptothermal Method
When women use the symptothermal method, they use more than one fertility awareness method at once. These methods include:
The signs of one method can confirm those of the other. This lets you be more accurate when you predict your safe days than if you use one method alone. For example, keeping track of your mucus pattern can be useful when your temperature chart is confused by illness or emotional stress. And you may be able to identify more days when you can have unprotected vaginal intercourse than you can only using the temperature method.
Using a fertility pattern chart helps women keep track of the signs of their fertile times.
Post-Ovulation Method
Another combined method is called post-ovulation. All the days from day one until the morning of the fourth day after predicted ovulation are unsafe days. But this means that the safe days are limited to less than half of a woman's cycle. |
Effectiveness
Of 100 couples who use the symptothermal method correctly for one year, 2 will have a pregnancy.
This information is not meant as a substitute for professional advice.
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