Fertility Education Trust

guidelines to charting your fertility cycle, page 26 of 26

Conclusion and Complete Example Chart

it is vital to success that you are taught by a trained sympto-thermal nfp teacher, if possible. The rules are given in full here since we are aware that many can, and have, taught themselves to use NFP successfully without personal help other than books / web sites, etc., because there were no teachers in their area. This is particularly true of people living and working abroad. In these circumstances, you can still contact the Centre by phone, fax or email and send copies of charts for analysis and discussion of problems. Further addresses and contacts are available in the Contact section of the web site. the above rules have been shown to have a high success rate, but remember, no method is 100% effective in avoiding surprise pregnancy. An example chart follows, applying the rules.

First part of the chart showing the temperature readings for a complete month. Listed also is the type of thermometer used (mercury or digital), time usually taken, the route (orally or rectally), the chart number, whether there was a temperature rise in the last cycle, plus the shortest and longest cycle in the past year (28 and 33 in this example).

double check before ovulation: Infertile nights 1-8.

double check after ovulation: Infertile from night of Day 18-30

Second part of the chart showing all of the non-temperature indicators over the month (where applicable): mucus characteristics, cervix characteristics, breast changes and others previously described.

Temperature	Cervix	Mucus
Onset of first mucus symptom = Day 10	First temp. above cover line = Day 16	First fertile change of cervix
Onset of highly fertile mucus = Day 13	3rd raised temperature = Day 18	First day reverting to infertile
PEAK Day = Day 15	Shift of 0.2 above cover line? Yes
PEAK + 3 = Day 18	If not, wait for 4th raised temp	Length of this cycle: 30 Days