Fertility 101 - Tracking BBT Basics

Tracking your Basal Body Temperature can give some a clear understanding of theircycle. It could potentially tell you if your cycles are "normal," when you ovulate, and a few other clues about your  health and hormones. There is a lot of skill that goes into deciphering the peaks and falls of the BBT and I am just starting to learn about this so I may not be able to help you with deciphering. What I CAN help you with is getting started.

The first thing you will need is Basal Body Thermometer. You can pick one of these up at a local drug store like CVS. It is important that you pick a BASAL body thermometer, as it has a different reading than a regular thermometer.

When you get home, open the thermometer and test to make sure it works. I think they are all digital and that is obviously the easiest to use. I keep my BB Thermometer on my night stand next to my bed.

To track your BBT by taking your temperature first thing when you wake up in the morning before you even put your feet on the ground. You are going to take your temperature every day (including on your menstrual days) for at least three months to get an accurate read. Since you are keeping track of your temperature every day, it is easy to keep track using an app on your cell phone. My favorite app for tracking BBT and fertility is called OVIA.  Ovia collects the data from each temperature and generates a fertility chart for you. How easy is that?!

Try to take your temperature every day. If you miss one day, that is okay, but your chart will NOT be accurate if you miss multiple days in a row.

At the end of one cycle, you may be able to tell where you ovulated if you have a "normal" cycle. Your temperate will be level in the first part of you cycle and when you ovulate, the BBT will spike. You will not know when you are ovulating beforehand. The BBT can only tell you after the fact, but it helps you to develop an understanding of your cycle for the future. If you need to know when you are ovulating that month, use an Ovulation Predictor Kit as well as monitoring your cervical mucus.

Below is a sample of what a BBT chart may look like: 

From fertility plus.com

In the above chart, you can see the BBT drops on CD14 and spikes on CD15. This is an indicative of when ovulation happened. After ovulation, BBT remains elevated if you are pregnant. As you can see in the graph above, the BBT drops at the end of the cycle, indicating the start of menstruation. The extent of the dips and peaks in temperature vary from person to person.

Below is a snapshot of my BBT tracked on Ovia this past month:

As you can see, mine looks different than the sample graph. I also did not track my temperature during my menstrual cycle as I just recently started tracking again. I am also not sure of the double drops and double spikes in my BBT, but the first drop/spike corresponded with my Ovulation Predictor Kit and my cervical mucus. 

I am still learning how to decode my BBT and it will take a few months for me to develop my baseline, but I love learning about my cycles this way! It is so interesting to learn about how our bodies work. 

Have you tried tracking your BBT? Did you learn anything about your cycle by tracking BBT?