Up Your Odds of Getting Pregnant! By Pinpointing Your Peak Fertility Days
When you’re trying not to get pregnant it may seem like every day is a risky one to have sex. When you’re trying to get pregnant it may seem like nothing works! When are the best days in your menstrual cycle to have intercourse or artificial insemination if you want to have a baby?There are a number of different ways to calculate your peak fertility days. Let’s look at the science behind your most fertile days.
It’s All About Ovulation
To get pregnant, you need to have intercourse or artificial insemination on the days before you ovulate or the day of ovulation. Your peak days for fertility are the day of ovulation and the five days right before you ovulate. For the average woman, these are days 10 to 17 of her 28-day cycle, with day 1 being the day your period starts. You may have heard that ovulation happens on day 14 of your cycle. But women can ovulate as early as day 10 or as late as day 20. The problem is, many women’s cycles are not average. They may be longer or shorter than 28 days, or the cycles may be irregular. Ovulation doesn’t necessarily happen like clockwork.For many years people used the rhythm method to avoid pregnancy, but it can likewise be used to determine when you’re most likely to ovulate. The rhythm method involves tracking your menstrual periods for six to 12 cycles, recording the day your period starts and the day it ends. Subtract 18 from the total number of days in your shortest cycle. This represents the first fertile day of your cycle. Then subtract 11 from the total number of days in your longest cycle. This will be the last fertile day of your cycle. Got that? This method is less likely to work if your periods are irregular. And it is not reliable at preventing pregnancy, as many women can tell you, so its accuracy is suspect.
There are several online tools for calculating your peak fertility period using the first day, last day, and length of your period. Here is one from the March of Dimes: Ovulation Predictor Kits
Many kits are available over the counter at your local drugstore to predict when you are ovulating. These kits all measure the presence of luteinizing hormone (LH) in your urine, which is present when the egg is ripening, 24 to 48 hours before ovulation. The ovulation predictor kits require you to urinate on a stick for the week before you expect to ovulate. You know you are in a fertile period for one to three days when LH is detected.
