Mandy O'Reilly asked on Friday:
>Okay so the women mentioned have resumed menses. I wonder if they have
>actually started ovulating? Possibly this is the difference. An interesting
>adjunct to this is the Billings method of cervical mucous assessment to detect
>fertility. Does the return of menses imply full fertility in the breastfeeding
>women?

I teach the sympto-thermal method of natural family planning, so I can't speak
conclusively about the Billings method.  But here's a little information, at
least:  a normal mucus patch is highly suggestive of ovulation but does not
confirm it.  But a basal body temperature chart which shows a sustained upward
thermal shift of at least four-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit indicates that
ovulation has occurred.

Some women's bodies seem to go full steam ahead into normal fertility after a
time of lactational amenorrhea; for many, though, there's a transition time.
There may be one or more anovulatory cycles, followed by one or more cycles
with infertile ovulations (ovulation followed by a luteal phase of five days or
less allows for conception but almost certainly not implantation), followed by
cycles with a gradually diminishing proliferative phase and a gradually
lengthening luteal phase, until the pattern returns to normal.

So the answer, unhelpfully, is yes and no.  Couples who wish to avoid pregnancy
must assume that the presence of mucus means fertility has returned; couples
who wish to become pregnant again need to keep in mind that it may take some
time.

Jamie Smith
LLLL and NFP teacher in Edinburgh

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