Gettin Pregnant with Temperature Method
What can be done to get pregnant with the temperature method? All information for measuring the temperature and determining the fertile days.
As a fertility consultant, I am repeatedly asked by women if the temperature method is worthwhile when they wish to have children? What good is it to measure your temperature and document it and evaluate the basal temperature curve? I would like to anticipate the answer. You can use the temperature method to tell if you have had an ovulation without ultrasound or hormone measurement. It is also possible to tell by the temperature curve whether you have become pregnant WITHOUT a pregnancy test! The most important thing, however, is that you can limit the fertile days with the temperature method and thus become more easily pregnant through sex at the right time. You can find out how it all works in this article, at the end of the article I have a little surprise for you – so off you go;)
How does the temperature method work?
The operating principle of the temperature method is very easy to explain. Firstly, every morning before getting up and waking up, you measure your basal body temperature for three minutes with a digital basal thermometer with two decimal places under the tongue. The second step is to enter the temperature value rounded up to half a degree in a Cycle sheet.
Example rounding: 36.54°C = 36.55°C and 36.52°C = 36,50°C
In Fahrenheit you should round commercial like 96.57°F= 96.6°F or 96.53°F=96.5°F
You repeat this process from the first day of the cycle (first day of menstruation) to the last cycle day (one day before the next menstruation). In the third step, you connect the measuring points and select your basal temperature curve according to certain rules. At the temperature curve, you can then see if you’ve had ovulation and when you’re fertile and if you’ve gotten pregnant.
Evaluate basal temperature curve – but how?
If you’ve had an ovulation, your basal temperature curve will increase as the cycle progresses. Your basal temperature curve is divided into a low level and a high level. Just before the rise, most women ovulate.
3 over 6 rule
To determine an increase in temperature really beyond doubt, the temperature method uses the 3 over 6 rule. A clear rise in temperature occurred when the basal temperature curve has THREE higher measured values, each at least 0.2°C (= two boxes in the cycle sheet), higher than the SIX preceding lower temperature values. The first elevated temperature reading is called the first higher measurement. From the evening of the third higher measurement, until one day before the next menstruation, the woman is very certainly infertile. If you observed such an increase in your cycle, then an ovulation took place and the highly fertile period was just before that increase. So with the temperature method, you can’t say anything about the fertile days in advance in the first cycle, as you don’t yet know when the increase is coming
Minus 7 rule
From the second cycle, you always document the first higher measurement. For example, if you have documented your first higher measurement for several cycles on the 15,16,17 Cycle Days.
Then you choose the earliest first higher measurement of the basal temperature, the 15th cycle day. From the earliest first higher measurement, you count 7 days back(15-7 = 8). So the 8th Day of the Cycle is the last infertile day before the high fertile period. So the highly fertile period begins 6 days before the earliest first measurement until the current first higher measurement of the basal temperature in the current cycle.
Pregnancy cycle – An example
temperature method cycle 1
Our example woman is in the 4th cycle, so has already recorded 3 cycles with the basal temperature curve. Her earliest first higher measurement from the 3 cycles is the 14th Cycle Day. So the 7th Cycle Day is the last infertile day in the current cycle. Since her first higher measurement is the 16th Cycle Day of the current cycle, she had an ovulation and she was fertile from the 8th to the 16th day of the cycle. The woman had unprotected sexual intercourse on the 12th Cycle Day, which marks her with an X. Since her basal temperature curve remains elevated over 18 days after the first higher measurement on the 16th cycle day, the fertilization of the egg was successful. We congratulate her example for the desired child. If the temperature had dropped again and menstruation had started, the fertilization would not have been successful and she would have had to try again in the new cycle.
The small print of the temperature curve
Unfortunately, it is not as nice as it sounds, because the rules for the rise in temperature are very strict. For this reason, only about 55 percent of cycles can be evaluated. This means that, in the worst case scenario, in half of your cycles, you can’t narrow down your fertile days and ovulation. But that’s not enough – the temperature measurement can be disturbed by illness, medication and special events. These values must be excluded so that they do not enter the evaluations.
Source: German Book by Elisabeth Raith-Paula et. al. „NFP today” – Study by Rosmus T 1992
Sometimes, however, you have to exclude so much that it is no longer possible to evaluate the fertile days with the 3 over 6 rule. Wouldn’t it be much nicer if there was a method that works well in the first cycle and where you can evaluate almost all cycles? Yes, of course, that would be a lot better! As indeed it is. I myself, together with Anne, have fulfilled our desire to have children. With the Symptothermal Method, Anne has get pregnant very quickly two times.
Symptothermal method compared to the Temperature method
The Symptothermal Method not only relies on temperature but also involves the change in cervical mucus (or cervix). From the evaluation of temperature and mucus, the highly fertile days can be determined safely and reliably in over 94.5 percent of the cycle. I would like to present to you below a cycle that would not be evaluable with the temperature method but can be evaluated with the Symptothermal Method completely normal.
temperature method cycle 2
The woman recorded the first cycle. The cycle begins with the first day of menstruation and ends after 26 days – one day before the next menstruation. According to the temperature method, no temperature increase can be found, likewise, the minus-7 rule is not applicable in the first cycle since one does not yet have any information about the first higher measurement.
However, the Symptothermal Method is applicable from the first cycle. The highly fertile days begin with the first day the woman sees cervical mucus (6th Cycle Day) and ends on the day of the first higher measurement (13th Cycle Day). The temperature analysis rules are not as strict as with the temperature method since the Symptothermal Method also uses the mucus in double checking with the temperature to evaluate the fertile days. In the case of the Symptothermal Method, only the third higher measurement must be 0.2°C higher than the previous six lower temperature values. In addition, there are two exceptions that make even more cycles evaluable.
My (Temperature-) conclusion
As a fertility consultant, I can only recommend to all women with a desire to have children to learn the Symptothermal Method instead of the temperature method. I hope I have made the reasons clear, you can start immediately, the cycles are almost always evaluable and the information you get from the cycles is much more meaningful. By the way, Dr. Döring, the inventor of the temperature method, helped spread the Symptothermal Method shortly before his death, because he saw in it the future. If you are really interested in getting pregnant and learning the Symptothermal Method, I recommend you the Get Pregnant Starter Set. There you get all the information and products you need to get started right away. It is a real concern of my heart that more and more people can fulfill their desire to have children naturally. I wish you every success on the way to the desired child.
Your
Marcus
