Fertility awareness methods

It depends. Because cycles can be irregular during this time, some of your signs of fertility aren’t as easy to track while you are breastfeeding. However, there is a way to use breastfeeding as a method of birth control for up to six months after your baby is born. It’s called lactational amenorrhea](https://www.bedsider.org/features/138).

Fertility awareness methods work better at preventing pregnancy if you’re dedicated to using them correctly and consistently to track your signs of fertility every day. There are lots of tools such as apps, thermometers, and cycle beads that can help with cycle tracking.

If it’s been 5 days or less since you had sex on a fertile day, you can take emergency contraception (EC) pills. If it was more than 10 days ago, you might want to take a pregnancy test.

Depending on which of your fertility signs you are tracking, having a vaginal infection can make fertility awareness methods less effective at preventing pregnancy. If you are using a method that tracks cervical mucus, you probably won’t be able to tell what’s due to your cycle and what’s due to the infection.

To use fertility awareness methods you need to know your body’s signs of fertility. If you are counting the days of your cycle to prevent pregnancy, that method won’t work as well to prevent pregnancy if you have irregular periods (that means your menstrual cycle is less than 26 days or longer than 32 days).

If you’re not 100% sure you’ll avoid sex on all of your fertile days (first, make sure you know which days you are fertile) and you want to prevent pregnancy, you should use another birth control method in addition to fertility awareness-based methods.

Amenorrhea is a medical word for when you don’t get your period. It can be totally normal when it’s caused by some birth control methods, if you’re pregnant, or just had a baby and are breastfeeding. In fact, lactational amenorrhea is a birth control method! Amenorrhea can also be a sign of problems with your hormone levels caused by stress, extremely low body weight, or other medical concerns. So, if you don’t get your period when you were expecting it, talk to a health care provider to figure out what’s going on.

Yes, but they can be tricky to track. The fertility awareness methods use different techniques for tracking your cycle—ideally, you’ll use a combination of them to help with accuracy and success to prevent pregnancy. They all involve observing changes in your body and calculating where you are in your menstrual cycle. This takes effort and commitment (and a predictable cycle), so before you decide this is the method for you, be sure you really understand what you’ll need to do. Be prepared not to have sex for at least 7 days out of every month or to use a backup method, like condoms, during your fertile days.