Challenges of the Temperature Method

Body temperature is not just affected by ovulation and hormone patterns.  It is also affected by illness, lack of sleep, stress, smoking, and countless other things.  If you want to learn to read your BBT (basal body temperature) chart, you will need to write these items on the chart each day so that you and your health care professional can accurately asses your cycle.

What you are looking for when you chart your body temperature is the rise in temperature that occurs when an egg is released.  This rise in temperature might happen gradually or it might happen all at once. 

Once you have established your cycle with a health care professional, you will be able to chart when your safe days are.  Your safe days are from four days after your temperature rise until the first day of your period.  This averages fourteen days for most women. 

The reason you cannot have unprotected sex after your period is because although the temperature method is accurate at telling you when you have ovulated, it cannot predict ovulation. 

Sperm, on average, live in a woman’s body for four days.  They can live up to seven days, however, which is why it is important not to have unprotected sex during the week leading up to your ovulation.

You can combine the temperature method with other fertility awareness methods of birth control for a more detailed and accurate way to prevent pregnancy.

Biological methods of birth control do not prevent against sexually transmitted diseases or infections.