Ep.152: Do PCOS cycles work with fertility awareness methods?
Caitlin:
Welcome to the Woven Well Podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Estes. I'm a certified fertility care practitioner with a master of divinity degree. Each episode will cover a topic that helps educate and empower you and your fertility while honoring the deep connection your fertility has with your faith. Let's get started.
Caitlin:
Welcome back to the Woven Well Podcast. Can women with PCOS actually use Natural Family Planning? This is a great question and one that I get fairly frequently, maybe through an email or a text message or an Instagram dm. Lots of people are curious if it can actually work with women with PCOS. Well, PCOS diagnosis is overwhelming enough. It's hard to imagine that something like fertility awareness methods could work with cycles that are so hard to predict and hormones that are often imbalanced. I get it. Options that work for everyone else don't always work for you. So why would Natural Family Planning be an exception? But I have good news. You can naturally understand and track your cycles even with PCOS. So today we're going to look at how that's possible and even what makes it uniquely helpful for women with PCOS, whether they're avoiding pregnancy, trying to conceive, or just trying to understand the reproductive health.
Caitlin:
First, I want to clarify what I mean by natural family planning. There are lots of different terms that we can use here. Fertility awareness methods is another one that is often used interchangeably. Okay? So these are methods of family planning that use the female body's natural reproductive biomarkers to identify that window of fertility and even potentially identify health concerns. Okay? So it's a broad category, but it encourages a natural approach to all things reproductive health and prioritizes the woman and her ability to understand and navigate her own cycle. So they all have that in common right now, my particular favorite method is a fertility appreciation method called the Creighton System. I've personally used this system for over a decade and I've been teaching it for almost eight years. So I chose to become a certified fertility care practitioner of the Creighton Method because I personally find it to be the simplest, most informative and most inclusive of all the methods, and that's very important to me.
Caitlin:
You only have to track cervical mucus, and yet cervical mucus gives you the most data to work with about your reproductive system. So any woman with any cycle type, maybe healing from birth control, irregular cycles, postpartum and ovulatory, you name it, any woman can use it, even those with PCOS. So I'm going to link some previous episodes that give more information on Creighton, specifically cervical mucus and how to choose a form of natural family planning, just in case you'd like to learn more about any of those. But how does all of this apply to women with PCOS? Well, there are many symptoms of PCOS that make it feel impossible to use a natural system. For instance, irregular cycles that change from month to month or may only rarely happen. You know, ovulatory dysfunction for weak or unsuccessful ovulation, polycystic ovaries, you know, just to name a few.
Caitlin:
And back in the day, these would have been limiting factors, okay? But we're not using the ancient methods first used 100 years ago, okay? Those early, early methods back in the early 19 hundreds. We've come a long way in medicine and in women's health, and we know far more now than we did back then. So we are using modern evidence-based methods that can work with PCOS. Certainly there are some methods that are not quite as equipped as others. Basal body temperature, for instance, is excellent at showing successful ovulation, but that's not so helpful for women who may not ovulate, but every three to six months, right? That can be a little bit frustrating. Using a fertility monitor like Clear Blue or Mira may provide incredible data points about hormone levels and key shifts that you're looking for, but they require daily testing and that adds up when it takes three months to test through one full ovulatory cycle.
Caitlin:
So you see what I'm saying? This is why I personally encourage women with PCOS to consider the Creighton method. With the Creighton method. You don't have to have regular cycles, and it's okay if you don't know how to anticipate your period because you don't know what your cycles look like ahead of time, that's fine, that is totally understandable. And we expect women to come in using the Creighton system, not knowing when their next period is going to start. So Creighton is a real-time method, so you only need to chart on a day by day basis as it happens. But what if your cycles don't look a certain way? What if they don't match any of the examples that you see? You know, well, we don't go in with any expectations for your cycle at all. Your cycles do not have to look picture perfect in order for us to use them.
Caitlin:
In fact, nobody has picture perfect cycles. And so there's no way that you can fail in your ability to use it. We want to see what your cycle looks like. It's that data that's informative to us. So we don't ever want you to do anything to change how your cycle looks to make it look more "normal." We want it to look like what it's actually looking like in your life. But this is why a period app will always, always fail our women with PCOS. So I'll try not to get off on that topic, but if you've been very frustrated with your cycles because your period app is not accurately predicting it, yeah, let the period app go, okay? It's just not trustworthy and it's definitely not intended for women with irregular cycles or PCOS. So once you start gathering this data by charting your cycles with the Creighton method, we'll start gathering a lot of information.
Caitlin:
Naturally we'll see things that can give us an idea of what may be going on behind the scenes. Okay? So this is especially helpful for those who feel that their diagnosis or maybe even their doctor has left them a little bit stuck in the dark. Okay? So for instance, your charting may actually point you to a condition called insulin resistance. So this is often found with women with PCOS, and there's a whole episode on insulin resistance that I'll make sure to link in the show notes for you. You may have multiple or unsuccessful attempts at ovulation. We can actually see that in the chart. I mean, it could be that you thought that you were ovulating each month, but once we start seeing the creighton charting, the signs may suggest otherwise. So we'll be able to see that possibility on a chart. So you already have so much more information very quickly in the process.
Caitlin:
The thing is, all of us are made uniquely. I believe that God crafted each of us with beauty and purpose. So even if your cycle seems different than the standard, remember that you're not nearly as alone as you think. There is hope. There's always hope, but the answer may not be in a tiny little box that can apply to everyone. It may be unique and tailored to you because you are a unique individual. So it's sometimes hard to get this kind of dignified and compassionate care just out in the general world there, especially sometimes in the OBGYN office, but you really do deserve it. So what if you actually ovulate closer to cycle day 24 than you do cycle day 14? By the way, there is no magic to cycle day 14 in and of itself for ovulation. We celebrate a successful ovulation whenever it occurs.
Caitlin:
But being able to identify that window of fertility around that date suddenly gives you the ability to naturally avoid or conceive a pregnancy even when your cycle doesn't match the norm. Okay? And I'm using that very, very loosely here. Identifying ovulation and that fertile window is key. So if you're using apps or others' expectations, let's say that, or even just those LH strips, you're not going to get the full picture. And it can sometimes leave women feeling a little bit more confused and feeling like the situation feels impossible. More formal tracking with a fertility appreciation system like Creighton changes that for you. You have real-time data and big picture patterns to use to gain confidence and clarity. So it can also provide insight into whether or not you're actually ovulating. And if there are additional aspects of PCOS or reproductive health that could be contributing to some of those symptoms.
Caitlin:
Working with a restorative reproductive medical provider can pinpoint these things through your charting and then actually optimize them. So then your charting is also going to reveal the changes and improvements after you've started implementing that tailored individualized treatment plan for you. So that is incredibly encouraging and hopefully empowering as well, that reminder that no one is disqualified. And I want to make a special note about those trying to conceive with PCOS. It's a common assumption that if you have PCOS, it's extremely difficult to conceive, but honestly, that's not always the case. PCOS is such a wide and varied experience. Just because you have PCOS or even signs of PCOS doesn't mean that you will be infertile. But the key difference here, at least in my opinion, is working with professionals who know this and know how to address it. PCOS because it's so unique, is not a one size fits all approach.
Caitlin:
Every woman with PCOS cannot be treated with the same protocols. So instead their cycles and their hormones and their charting, they need to be looked at and a personalized treatment plan needs to be made for them. This is where I trust restorative reproductive medicine instead of just general OBGYNs who aren't given the same level of training as to that individualized approach. So the reality is PCOS that takes the form of anovulation insulin resistance and weight gain is going to need to be treated differently than a form of PCOS with regular cycles and polycystic ovaries and high androgen levels, okay? You want somebody who knows this and who wants your insight and knowledge to help you get to that conclusion as quickly as possible. So your charting provides that kind of insight in addition to your lived experience and symptoms that you may experience. So we have episodes about restorative reproductive medicine and specifically OBGYNs trained in NaPro technology.
Caitlin:
So we'll make sure to have more episodes on PCOS and lifestyle changes that can make a difference in that healing process. I'll leave several of them in the show notes for you. But remember that because every situation is different, a tailored approach really is your best route. So if you want to change your diet, maybe you work with a registered dietician experienced in PCOS. If you want to work with a medical professional, maybe you working with someone who has the knowledge and experience of restorative reproductive medicine, you're not asking too much to expect that kind of personalized care. If we can be a part of your journey, we would love to. We have an introductory session every single month, sometimes multiple times a month that you can join online, view the information, and get started together. We have free online resources at our website, wovenfertility.com, and we have all sorts of things made available to you like this free podcast. So we hope that you enjoy it, we hope it's helpful for you. And if you have a follow up question for us that you'd like to ask, you can actually submit questions to us through the text the show button. So go to the show notes, go down to the bottom, click on text the show and let us know what you're wondering about. We would love to have an episode in response. As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.