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The Billings Ovulation Method® is not just for women who are trying to conceive or for those who are wanting to avoid pregnancy. It is knowledge that every woman ought to have. Why? Because it can help you to safeguard your reproductive health.

The Billings Ovulation Method® Chart is Diagnostic

Changes in your cervical mucus are an accurate reflection of what is going on with your reproductive hormones. The chart you keep will be an accurate record of these hormonal events. Over 50 years of research and hormonal assays confirm this.

"The cervix is a precision organ as complex as the eye."

The cervix lies between the vagina and the isthmus which leads to the body of the uterus. It is 25mm long and contains several hundred crypts (glands) lined by cells which, under hormonal and neural influence, manufacture mucus, which is released into the cervical canal.

The most effective way of learning to recognise your individual pattern of fertility and infertility according to the mucus signals is to record your observations each day in a chart. The aim is to identify on any day whether intercourse could or could not result in pregnancy.

The first indication of potential fertility will be a change from the Basic Infertile Pattern (BIP). You will feel a change in the sensation that the mucus produces at the vulva. As the days pass you'll notice that the mucus becomes thinner and clearer, and the sensation becomes wet and then slippery. Women use different words to describe this changing, developing pattern, but the mucus will always have a wet, slippery quality because of its chemical structure and composition, even when there is too little to see.

Following menstruation there will often be a number of days when you feel dry and don't see any discharge. This is called the Basic Infertile Pattern (BIP). We know from the work of scientists that the hormone levels are low at this time and the cervix is blocked by a thick plug of mucus which prevents sperm entering the uterus. This means that you're infertile at this time.

We know from extensive scientific research that cervical mucus is essential for fertility. It protects and nourishes the sperm so they retain their fertilising capacity. It forms channels which help the sperm travel through your reproductive system to meet and fertilise the egg. And it acts as a filter, destroying imperfect sperm cells.