Learn to interpret the cervical mucus correctly to get pregnant and determine your fertile days in the cycle. I’ll give you my top tips in this paper!
What is the Cervical Mucus?
Cervical mucus is the secretion that is formed in your cervix and then passes through your Vagina to the outside. The more Estrogens are in your body, the more the amount and water content of your cervical mucus increases. The Estrogens, and thus the water content of the mucus, increase until ovulation. For this reason, cervical mucus is one of the most important ovulation signs to determine the fertile days in the cycle. However, the cervical mucus is not only a marker for the fertile days, but it also feeds the sperm. Without this super mucus, sperm can only survive for a few hours in the woman‘s body. With the cervical mucus, they can remain fertile in the woman‘s body for up to 3 to 5 days. Thus, the cervical mucus is especially important when the sperm of the man in the woman‘s body has to wait for the woman‘s ovulation.
When are the fertile days?
On days with very good cervical mucus quality and just before your rise in temperature, are a rough explanation of the fertile days. The quality of the Mucus is determined by observation in cycle progression and categorized by appearance and feel with symbols (e.g. f, S, S+) entered into a cycle sheet or an app. Whether the quality of the mucus is good or the best for each woman varies individually from woman to woman and cycle to cycle. For this reason, the mucus must be re-observed every cycle. The mucus alone is very distinctive for determining the fertile days, but not sufficient. The best way to determine your fertile days is by carefully monitoring your cervical mucus in combination with your basal body temperature. If you want to know exactly, in my eBook “When am I fertile?” you will find a detailed step-by-step guide to observing and determining your individual fertile days in the cycle. So you know exactly when your chances of getting pregnant are greatest.
Cervical Mucus before Ovulation
Just before ovulation, the cervical mucus can be seen and felt in its best quality. You can tell from the fact that you usually feel very wet during the day in the area of your vulva. If you want to look at your cervical mucus then you can go to the toilet and take a closer look at it. Then you may find that you can stretch your cervical mucus between two fingers, it is very transparent or even so fluid that you can‘t even see it. However, these descriptions of the “best“ cervical mucus do not automatically apply to all women, nor do they apply to every cycle. You can only always interpret the cervical mucus in the individual and current cycle progression to find out when your most fertile time is.
Cervical Mucus on Ovulation day
No one can predict or know exactly what your personal cervical mucus looks like on the day of your ovulation. With a lot of women, the maximum cervical mucus quality is reached on this day and things get worse the following day. In the following pictures you can see for example how the cervical mucus can look like on the day of your ovulation.
Cervical Mucus after fertilization
Shortly after fertilization, many women think they can Sence it, Feel it or Smell whether or not the particular sex has led to pregnancy. Some women have already told me that the cervical mucus secretion mixed with the sperm, which ultimately really led to pregnancy, had a very special smell of its own right after sex. From a scientific point of view, there are no studies on this yet. However, I am not aware of any special feature that can be observed on the cervical mucus after fertilization. As a result, you cannot clearly see from the cervical mucus whether or not it has apparently let to the union of your egg with a sperm.
Get pregnant with the help of cervical mucus
If your cervical mucus has the best quality, it is best to get pregnant. You can use your cervical mucus very well to get pregnant. However, this only works optimally if you observe a second ovulation sign – your Basal Body Temperature. This is called “the Symptothermal Method,“ with which you can find out your fertile and most fertile days very precisely. By learning the method, you can interpret your cervical mucus correctly and become a professional in no time to the cycle:). After all, if you only observe the cervical mucus, you will never know exactly whether you had ovulation or not. Other cycle specifics can only be determined by basal body temperature.
Cervical Mucus Observation at the beginning of pregnancy
With an initial pregnancy, of course, you can also observe your cervical mucus. What this mucus looks like is very different individually. Either you don‘t see anything at all or you observe a longer mucus phase, which always stays at roughly the same consistency and colour. The pregnancy begins with the implantation – unfortunately this cannot be clearly determined on the basis of cervical mucus observation. Some women notice a light spotting or slightly reddish, brownish cervical mucus during the implantation phase. However, it can never be quite clear whether this is an implantation bleeding or not, as an intermenstrual bleeding can have different causes. Again, I have to make the recommendation for temperature measurement clearly, because by evaluating the basal temperature curve you can determine even in the beginning of pregnancy 99.9% whether you are pregnant or not.
Cervical Mucus before Period
In case you haven’t got pregnant, you may also be able to observe cervical mucus just before your next period. Often this is even hormonally conditioned again in a similar good quality as during the ovulation phase. In order not to fall into deception, I also recommend at this point simply to measure and document the temperature. So you get a very clear overall picture of your cycle.
Symptothermal Method Insider Tip – Cervical Mucus observation alone is not enough!
Cervical mucus is unfortunately not enough on its own to reliably determine the fertile days. Unfortunately, I experience it again and again that many women, for various reasons, only observe the mucus if they wish to have children. Clearly, the cervical mucus is an important ovulation sign. However, the cervical mucus cannot reveal whether ovulation has occurred. For this purpose, it is necessary to measure the basal body temperature over the course of the cycle and, in combination with documented cervical mucus, to determine the fertile days in the cycle. You can also use the temperature curve to tell if you are pregnant without a pregnancy test. How this works, I explain to you in my eBook “WHEN AM I PREGNANT?”, in which I give you a step-by-step guide to the Symptothermal Method (NFP) including exercise cycles and solutions. The Symptothermal Method uses both basal body temperature and cervical mucus or cervix to determine the fertile days. This combination allows the fertile days to be determined in 94.5% of cycles. Even with shift work or cycle features such as PCOS or after discontinuation of contraceptive pills, the Symptothermal Method works reliably and is therefore suitable for almost every woman with a menstrual cycle to determine the fertile days.
Conclusion – Interpreting Cervical Mucus
If you want to interpret your cervical mucus in order to get pregnant, I recommend you use the Symptothermal Method (NFP) and, if possible, have sex if you can see cervical mucus in your individual best quality. With these two essential tips, you have a great chance of getting pregnant. Statistically, 81 percent become pregnant after half a year of Fertility Awareness application using the Symptothermal Method. After a year, the figure was as high as 92 percent in the 2003 Study. In comparison, without the use of a specific method, only 60% of women become pregnant after 6 months. So there is no doubt that it is possible to determine your fertile days using the Symptothermal Method i.e. to document your cervical mucus and temperature in the course of the cycle.
I wish you every success in getting pregnant with your cervical mucus!
Anne