To confirm ovulation you are looking for two key things, at a basic level:
- A sustained temperature increase.
- A change in your cervical mucus patterns.
A sustained temperature increase:
Your BBT before ovulation and after ovulation are different. After ovulation, the hormone progesterone is produced. Progesterone has a warming influence on body temperature. This typically creates an observable temperature rise of about 0.1°C/0.2°F from before ovulation to after ovulation. And you can identify this rise by measuring your basal body temperature daily.
Depending on which fertility awareness method you follow will dictate the number of days of sustained temperature and the value of the change that you can use to validate ovulation has occurred.
We recommend you refer to the rules of your chosen fertility awareness method. You can use Tempdrop's premium feature to help automatically interpret when ovulation is confirmed when you are first starting out.
A change in your body’s cervical mucus patterns
Your cervical mucus naturally changes in appearance and texture as ovulation approaches and then when it ends. By tracking this daily you can observe a change from No mucus observed through to more fertile mucus as ovulation approaches and then back again to no (or significantly less) cervical mucus after ovulation.
Learn more in our resources section on the website.