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What is a basal body temp and how do women use it to get pregnant?

October 31, 2009 - 12:46pm 134 reads 1 comments

My aunt told me that I should take my body temp every day and track it because it can be helpful when trying to get pregnant. How does it work ? and how am I to do this? does your body temp elevate or decrease when youre ovulating or something? Very confused!

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Susan Cody

Dear Anon,

Basal body temperature when the body's temperature when resting. So people test their basal body temperature as soon as they get up in the morning. When a woman is ovulating, her basal body temperature is often higher during ovulation - up to a degree higher (Fahrenheit) and then returns to it's regular temperature when ovulation is over. This is a tool women use to gauge ovulation.

You can buy a basal body thermometer at a drug store (they are different to the regular glass ones as they are accurate to .1% as opposed to a thermometer we use to check for fever - these are accurate to .2%.) Your best bet may be a regular digital thermometer.
Take you temp. as soon as you get up every morning on day 1 of your cycle, and it'll probably be around 98 F give or take 1 degree (with 98.6 being average but you'll figure out your own average within a week, even woman is slightly different) and you may see it go to 99 or 99.6 mid cycle as a sign of ovulation. This is when you would try for a pregnancy.
Good luck!

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