By Abayomi Ajayi

EVERY woman with a problem of infertility has tendency to wonder why some couples are lucky enough to get pregnant almost as soon as they start trying.

Accepted that it often takes longer for some couples to achieve pregnancy than others, there are still ways that you as a woman, can increase your odds of achieving conception.

There are indeed many approaches towards the target of boosting your fertility as a woman, but today I’ll be discussing a few of the most common. These are charting your fertility cycle, monitoring your basal body temperature, checking your cervical mucus, and locating position of your cervix.

Let’s begin with the charting your fertility cycle. I have often been asked how a woman can chart her fertility cycle. Why bother charting at all, others have asked. I always say to them, charting your fertility cycle is just as it sounds — creating a “chart” of your fertility cycle to enable you better understand when you have the best chance of becoming pregnant.

As you go through your cycle, your body gives you all sorts of clues to indicate when it is going into ovulation. You just need to know how to look for these clues.

In several ways , charting may seem like a hassle. Obviously, people have managed to get pregnant without the assistance of charts and graphs for most of human history. But by keeping track of a few different things every day, you can improve the odds of becoming pregnant.

Essentially, charting involves taking your basal body temperature, examining your cervical mucus, noting when your menstrual period began and when you had sexual intercourse. You may not know it, but this information can make all the difference.

We know that the average couple conceives after about five or six months of trying, people who know how to determine when the woman ovulates and who have sex regularly during that time can conceive in less than three or four months.

The point here is that charting can make you more in touch with your body. It’s also helpful if you have questions for your doctor, since he or she can see what you’ve been doing.

Next is the monitoring your basal body temperature — or BBT. This technique has been a time-honored way of charting and predicting ovulation, and it hss certainly helped many women become pregnant.

However, latest research show that it may not be as effective as previously thought.

The reason is simple. Before ovulation, a woman’s basal body temperature is usually about 97.0 to 97.5 degrees Fahrenheit, although those numbers can vary from person to person.

During ovulation, your body releases the hormone progesterone, which results in a slightly raised temperature a day or two after ovulation — usually by 0.1 or 0.2 degrees. Your temperature will probably stay elevated until your next cycle begins. If you become pregnant during that cycle, your temperature will stay elevated beyond that.