Knowledge of fertility

The video clip by Prof. Paola Pellicano offers a reflection on the "Knowledge of fertility" through the use of the Billings® Ovulation Method or the Billings Method which focuses on the detection of the characteristics of the cervical mucus as a biological indicator of fertility.

The Billings® Ovulation Method is intended to be a common "language" for the woman, the couple and the specialist. It is a valid diagnostic and educational tool, through which the woman becomes aware of what is happening to her body. She is thus accompanied by the discovery of the beauty of being a woman, of her own fertility, of the value of human sexuality and human love. The Billings® Ovulation Method also represents a sort of provocation, a revolution, which began 70 years ago, to the dominant culture of pharmacological contraception for fertility control, which saw and still sees women - often - as a "guinea pig" for experimentation. In this way, the couple is offered a valuable tool for the responsible management of procreative choices, starting with the woman as the protagonist because she is given the opportunity to know and follow her own nature and physiology. The Billings® Ovulation Method was born as an answer to the question that, in 1953, Dr. John Billings asked himself and which thus began his studies: "In nature there must be an answer to the problem of fertility regulation". The answer had to lie in a quality inherent in the human organism, which everyone could read and interpret. Billings was convinced that there was no contradiction between faith and science, between the divine law, which regulates the transmission of life, and the laws that favor authentic conjugal love. And he asked science to provide a reliable scientific basis to demonstrate with facts that this contradiction does not exist. To understand the next steps, it is necessary to clarify some concepts.

What is fertility? It is the biological ability to transmit life, the ability to conceive and carry on with pregnancy. Life begins when the oocyte and sperm meet inside the female reproductive system, in the fallopian tubes. From this encounter (fertilization), a biological process of cell multiplication begins which - through various phases - reaches the uterus where physiologically the embryo nests to continue its development until birth. From the moment of fertilization, the genetic identity of the embryo is defined. It is important to remember that the cervix comes into play during the fertile phase of the cycle, i.e. during the maturation of the oocyte, i.e. when - under the stimulus of estrogen - the cervix opens and acts as a channel for the entry and passage of spermatozoa directed towards the uterine cavity. This step is made possible following the production of a secretion called "cervical mucus", which allows spermatozoa to enter, survive for several days inside the female genital tract and go up to the fallopian tubes. After ovulation, the cervical mucus takes on the task of closing the cervix and blocking the entry of other spermatozoa, because at that point either fertilization has taken place, or menstruation will occur after two weeks, i.e. the flaking and elimination of the endometrium.

The Billings® Ovulation Method focuses on the changes in cervical mucus during the different phases of the cycle: in the infertile phase of the cycle, the cervical mucus is viscous and dry, while - when it enters the fertile phase with ovulation - the cervical mucus becomes liquid and moist and its channels verticalize in order to facilitate the passage of spermatozoa. In fact, unlike male fertility, which is – in the absence of problems – acontinuum from puberty to old age, female fertility is periodic. The woman is fertile only a few days within a period called a "cycle". Ovulation determines fertility on the one hand, and the physiological length of a woman's cycle on the other. In women there is a double biological clock that says that there is a time of fertility, which begins at puberty and ends at menopause and declines in the years before the end, and a time of fertility, in which fertile and infertile periods follow one another.

This harmonious design of nature introduces us precisely to the meaning of the natural regulation of fertility. This biological clock is that answer that God had placed in the woman's body and that John Billings, with so much study and determination, sought. The answer, therefore, saw cervical mucus as a biological indicator and fertility factor, as a symptom that the woman could see and feel.

Subsequent laboratory studies confirmed that the hormonal measurements of the cycle corresponded to the changes in the cervix and thus confirmed that the symptoms experienced by the woman had the same reliability.

We can schematize a normal ovulatory cycle in this way: 1) menstruation; 2) preovulatory post-menstrual phase, non-fertile , in which hormone levels are still low and oocyte maturation has not begun. In this phase, the woman feels vaginal dryness; 3) ovulatory phase, fertile, characterized by the presence of cervical mucus as a symptom that coincides with the maturation of the oocyte and ovulation with the corresponding hormonal structure; 4) post-ovulatory luteal phase, not fertile.

Knowledge of the Billings® Ovulation Method is very important when trying to get pregnant, when you want to avoid it and as an aid to interpret biological phenomena that deviate from normality. It must be taught by specialized personnel, so that the woman can be helped in this path of self-knowledge. Starting from the awareness that sexuality must never be reduced to a physical action: it pervades the whole person. And to be "fully human", sexuality must move from the integration of all human dimensions: biological, psychological, social, moral and spiritual. It should express and develop the same conjugal love, while at the same time respecting the demands of responsible parenthood. Parents must be aware of their educational role: they must defend and exercise this primary right-duty. From this it follows that any educational intervention - also relating to education in Love - by people outside the family, must be subordinated to acceptance by the parents and must be configured not as a replacement, but as a support for their intervention. There is no recipe that indicates how to talk to children about sexuality. Rather, it is a matter of creating a climate of trust and naturalness, knowing how to adapt to their age and what they are able to understand. Parents' responsibility for sexuality education should also include respect for differences: beyond the understandable individual difficulties, it is necessary to help children accept their own body, as it was created.