Changes To Your Body Temperature During Ovulation

It is possible to determine your most fertile days when you are ovulating by measuring your body temperature. During ovulation your body average temperature increases and this spike will indicate that you are ovulating and will also indicate your most fertility periods. Charting ovulation especially useful when you are trying to get pregnant and want to know your most fertile days to increase your chances of conceiving.

To enable you to have an accurate reading you will need to be recording your temperature each day on a chart so that your average daily temperature can be ascertained correctly.

The best time to record this is immediately on waking up in the morning, preferably at the same time each day, using a basal thermometer. Try to make it the first thing you do moving as little as possible before hand as any movement will increase your bodies temperature.

The temperature changes that indicate ovulation

Before you ovulate your body’s basal temperature (the lowest temperature in a 24 hour period) ranges from 97.0-97.5 degrees Fahrenheit or 36.1 to 36.3 Celcius. This is known as the Follicular Phase. Some women, not all, will have a temperature drop

After ovulation hormonal fluctuations cause a rise of body temperature up to and between 97.6 to 98.9 F or 36.4 to 36.6 C. (Luteal Phase)

The day after ovulation the temperature generally rises a further 0.2 degrees F or 0.11 degrees C , and temperatures remaining elevated 10-16 days returning to normal in the instance there is no pregnancy or remains elevated for 18 days and longer. In this case you should test for pregnancy.

There are other methods of fertility charting that you may also wish to investigate including the cervical mucus method and the calendar method however these are not as accurate as the temperature method described here as they do not allow for changes in your body and irregular periods.

To get started with charting ovulation purchase a basal thermometer and be sure that a ovulation chart is included in the box, you can simply photocopy this chart and use one copy for each month.