For many women, determining ovulation is a difficult task, because usually this process proceeds imperceptibly, imperceptibly. At the same time, knowing the time of your ovulation is very important - it helps you plan for conception and also helps you choose the right contraception. Women who know their cycle, follow it, notice violations and malfunctions in their body more quickly and turn to a doctor earlier, which reduces the likelihood of chronic diseases of the reproductive system.
About the process
Women who are of childbearing age have their period once a month. Everyone is used to the fact that it happens that way. In fact, the female body is very complex and works in cycles. Pregnancy may not occur on any day of the cycle, and this probability is directly related to a process such as ovulation.
Biologically, it is a rupture of the follicle membrane and the release of a mature egg. If we look at the process more closely, it becomes clear how delicately all this is happening.
A new cycle in women begins on the first day of the next menstruation.... The uterus gets rid of excess endometrium, which has grown noticeably during the last cycle. But already on the days of menstruation, several antral follicles begin to ripen in the ovaries. There can be either 10 or 25 of them - it all depends on fertility and ovarian reserve of a woman: the younger and healthier she is, the more antral follicles grow. Within a few days, under the action of follicle-stimulating hormone, one larger one is released from the total mass of small antral follicles. It is called dominant - it is in it that the egg matures. The rest of the follicles undergo regression and are stored by the body for the next cycles.
On the eve of ovulation, the level of estrogen rises, the level of the hormone LH rises. These active substances lead to thinning of the membrane of the large follicle that has grown to 20-24 mm, the membrane ruptures, and the egg enters the abdominal cavity, from where it is immediately captured by the fallopian tube. This is ovulation.
But the ovulatory phase continues for some time - so much how much the oocyte is able to maintain the ability to fertilize. This is 24-26 hours maximum... If during this time the egg cell meets the male reproductive cell, then conception is possible. At the site of the follicle, a corpus luteum is formed, which produces progesterone in shock doses.
If fertilization does not happen, then after 10-12 days the corpus luteum fades away, the production of progesterone stops, menstruation occurs, and everything is repeated from the beginning. If a woman does become pregnant, then a week after ovulation, the embryo undergoes a serious test: it is implanted into the endometrium of the uterus, carefully prepared with progesterone. The synthesis of the hCG hormone begins, which supports the corpus luteum, preventing the onset of the next menstruation.
A healthy woman ovulates every month. 1-2 cycles per year without ovulation are considered acceptable.... Anovulatory cycles increase in frequency with age, and after 35 years, they can already be up to 5 per year. It is for this reason that it is more difficult for women to become pregnant after 35 years, because with regular menstruation, they do not ovulate every month.
Double ovulation can also occur when two follicles do not rupture at the same time. In this case, we can formally say that ovulation has occurred 2 times a month.
Timing of the offensive
Women in search of an answer to the question of when ovulation begins after menstruation may be faced with the statement that this process always occurs in the middle of the cycle. However, this is not quite true. The first phase of the cycle, preceding this process, is called follicular, and a variety of factors can affect the processes of follicular growth and egg maturation that occur during this period. The duration of the first half of the cycle from menstruation to ovulation may differ not only for different women, but also be different for one woman in different cycles.
For example, a woman gets tired, has had the flu or SARS, suffers from stress or lack of sleep, has traveled with a change in time and climatic zones. This can be a reason that slows down the maturation of the egg, and then ovulation will be late, or, conversely, the follicle will burst earlier, and ovulation will be early.
The second half of the cycle is considered more stable in women., the hormonal background fluctuates less, external and internal factors are not so critical, and the length of the cycle and the woman's age also do not significantly affect the duration of the luteal phase. Its length is usually 14 days (the permissible error is a day).
Determining the estimated day of ovulation is taken by subtracting 14 days from the cycle duration. Thus, with a standard classic cycle of 28 days, this important day should be expected on the 14th day of the cycle, and with a 32-day cycle, only on day 18.
Days are counted not after menstruation, but from the first day of menstruation, because this is the beginning of a new cycle, its first day.
But also these calculations are only an approximate guideline, because early and late ovulation is possible, a shift in hormonal levels, unforeseen circumstances that will affect delicate ovulatory processes in the first half of the cycle. One thing can be said with confidence: ovulation does not happen immediately after menstruation, a follicle with an egg inside takes time to mature.
The likelihood of early (before the middle of the cycle) or late ovulation (for example, a week before menstruation) is influenced by the woman's diseases, and endocrine disorders, and the psychological state, and age. But the hormonal cause is the most important and common.
Determination methods
There are many ways to calculate your ovulation and check your ovulation with more accurate and objective methods. They will be discussed below.
Calculators and calendars
Self-calculation is based on knowledge of the duration of its own cycle. Subtract 14 days from the total duration - this will give the estimated day of ovulation. With an irregular cycle, when a woman finds it difficult to name the duration of her intermenstrual interval, it is customary to preliminarily deduce the average duration of the cycle, adding up the data on the duration of the last 4-6 cycles and dividing this value by the number of months.
Modern online ovulation calculators enable a woman to quickly make all the necessary calculations, having received forecasts not only for the current month, but also for 2-3 months in advance.
The calendar method has a lot of shortcomings, the main one of which is the lack of high reliability., because the individual characteristics of the organism, age, state of health are not taken into account. For this reason the error can be about 20% with regular periods and much higher with irregular.
It is advisable to check the data obtained after calculating with a calculator or on your own using other methods for determining ovulation.
Tests
Today on sale there are a large number of test systems for determining the day of ovulation. It is simple to use them: their action is based on the determination of the luteinizing hormone LH in the urine of a woman. Microscopic tests determine the characteristic pattern of dried saliva when exposed to another hormone, estrogen.
It is very important to calculate the correct start time for testing and conduct tests daily until a positive result is obtained (two strips for LH tests and a fern leaf pattern for mini microscopes). To understand when to start testing, you should calculate the estimated day of ovulation using the calendar method or online calculator and subtract 5 days from it.... Thus, with a 30-day cycle, the first test is best done on day 11 of the cycle, and with a cycle of 28 days, on day 9.
The test gives more truthful information and can help a woman determine ovulation during the recovery of the female cycle after childbirth, with hepatitis B. It is very important to follow all the requirements of the instructions for use in order not to get an erroneous result.
Basal temperature and discharge
The method of changing the basal temperature and observing the nature of vaginal discharge are quite informative, but only on the condition that the woman will take daily measurements of BT for 3 months in order to understand the features of her own cycle. The temperature is measured in the morning, before getting out of bed. It is better to use a mercury thermometer for this.which is considered to be more accurate. The thermometer is inserted into the vagina or rectum for 5-7 minutes, after the measurement, the data is entered into a special graph. During ovulation, the temperature rises by 0.3-0.8 degrees, the release of the oocyte is first preceded by a decrease in BT, and then its sharp rise.
Allocations in the pre-ovulation period become more abundant, viscous, transparent, the cervical secretion in its consistency resembles raw chicken egg white. The amount of discharge increases. The approach of ovulation is indicated by the unique ability of the secretions of this period to stretch: if you pull them between your fingers, a stringy thread of several centimeters is formed. The fact that ovulation has taken place is indicated by discharge that loses its transparency, becomes white or yellowish - this is how the hormone progesterone affects the secretion of the cervix.
Ultrasound and blood tests
Folliculometry is considered a more reliable method. This is the name of a type of ultrasound examination. In dynamics, the state of the ovaries, the size of the follicles are assessed, and their growth will tell the doctor when to expect ovulation. Before the onset of the ovulation phase, the concentration of estradiol, a luteinizing hormone, rises in the blood. After ovulation, progesterone levels begin to rise.
A comprehensive examination for 1-2 menstrual cycles gives a detailed idea of what are the features of a woman's cycle, during what period it is possible to get pregnant in her particular case.
Symptoms
In the vast majority of cases, women do not experience ovulation. For this reason, the timing of its onset is considered so urgent. Only every fifth woman, according to medical statistics, has certain symptoms that precede ovulation and accompany the process of follicle rupture, persisting up to 1-2 days after ovulation. These symptoms are called ovulatory syndrome.
Most often it manifests itself by the occurrence of mild pain. The woman complains that she is pulling the lower abdomen, there is slight pain on the right or left side (on the side where the ovulating ovary is located). Such pains are associated with trauma to the follicle membrane and irritation of the peritoneum by the free fluid released during the rupture and a small amount of blood from the blood vessels suffering from the rupture.
Sometimes there is a short (1-2 days) pinkish or brownish daub. Many women claim that they suffer from headaches during ovulation, and doctors know the reason: when the hormonal background changes, a slight spasm of the cerebral vessels occurs.
Almost all women notice that 2-3 days before ovulation, their secretions increase, their sexual desire increases, and their mood becomes unstable. Chest pain and enlargement of the mammary glands are noted by a third of women with high sensitivity, suffering from ovulatory syndrome. Sometimes the glands remain tense until menstruation (this is the "fault" of progesterone).
Usually, close observation of her own cycle after two months allows a woman to draw up her own list of signs that arise during ovulation. But the absence of symptoms is also completely normal.
For how many days after menstruation you can get pregnant, see the next video.
