Turkish Women Able to Use Billings Ovulation Method to Determine Patterns of Fertility
Natural Family Planning

Richard J. Fehring
Reprint from Current Medical Research
Vol 15, No 1-2, Winter/Spring 2004
DDP/NFP, USCCB,
Washington, DC
Reproduced with Permission

Turkish researchers from Istanbul Medical School at Istanbul, Turkey recently conducted a small study to determine the accurate usage of cervical mucus to estimate the time of ovulation.1 The participants were 15 women who applied to the Education and Research Unit of Istanbul University to learn the Billings Ovulation Method (BOM). The 15 women were between the ages of 25 and 43 years (mean age 32) and had no known fertility problems or vaginal discharges. They were taught the BOM and how to use the Clearplan LH detection kit to measure the urinary LH surge as an estimate of ovulation. The women were able to generate 30 cycles of data.

The results showed that the average length of the cervical mucus symptoms were 10 days. The peak in cervical mucus was on average day 13.65 ± 2.62 of the cycle and the day of the LH surge in the urine was on average day 13.40 ± 2.58. The correlation between the mucus peak and the LH surge was 0.956 p ≤ 0.001. The researchers concluded that Turkish women could self-detect changes in cervical mucus and that the peak in cervical mucus correlated closely with the urinary LH surge.

Comment

The researchers also mentioned that the present study might play a role in promoting urinary LH kits as adjunctive devices in the education and use of NFP. The study findings are very similar to the numerous studies since 1977 in which the self-observed peak in cervical mucus is correlated with a serum or urinary hormonal marker of fertility. The study is old in that the "gold standard" for estimating the day of ovulation is the use of serial ultrasound to monitor the developing follicle and resulting collapse at ovulation. (RJF)

Endnote

1 Attar, E., Gokdernirel, S., Seraroglu, H., & Coskun, A. Natural contraception using the Billings ovulation method. The European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care. 2002;7:96-99. [Back]

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