What does cm look like in early pregnancy

Cervical mucus monitoring is one of the techniques used to track your cycle and get pregnant. If you are trying to conceive, tracking the changes in your cervical mucus may help you identify your fertile window so that you can accurately time intercourse.

Changes in cervical mucus throughout your cycle and life can give insight into what’s going on inside your body. But what does cervical mucus look like after ovulation if you’re pregnant? Keep reading to find out!

Learn more about what cervical mucus looks like after ovulation if you’re pregnant!

What is cervical mucus?

Cervical mucus is a fluid produced by the glands around the cervix and plays an important role in reproduction. Its color and consistency change throughout the menstrual cycle under the influence of hormones, giving you valuable information about your fertility.

As hormone levels fluctuate in different stages of your cycle, so does the amount and thickness of your cervical fluid. Right after your period, you may experience dry or no cervical mucus

As you get closer to midway through your cycle — i.e. closer to when you should ovulate — then you may notice a gradual increase in the amount of mucus as your estrogen levels rise after your period.

As you get even closer to ovulation, you should start to observe fertile cervical mucus: more abundant, with a clear, stretchy, and slippery consistency that may remind you of egg-whites. That’s when you should have intercourse if you’re trying to get pregnant, as this type of discharge is a pretty reliable ovulation predictor.

Fertile cervical mucus creates a protective environment for the sperm, so that it can easily swim to the egg.

To make sure you are in fact approaching ovulation, you may also test your LH with the help of urine ovulation test strips, like Proov Predict. Once you ovulate, your cervical mucus will change again.

What does cervical mucus look like after ovulation?

Immediately after ovulation, your estrogen levels drop, and you may have less discharge or even some completely dry days. A few days after ovulation into the second half of your cycle, more hormonal shifts occur and may change your cervical mucus consistency in preparation for pregnancy.

After ovulation, cervical mucus is no longer clear and stretchy like a few days ago when your body was gearing up to release an egg. What you may see now is a cloudy and rather thick discharge.

If you do not get pregnant that cycle, hormone levels drop and your period begins again. Your cervical mucus cycle will begin again as well.

If you do get pregnant that cycle (congrats!), both estrogen and progesterone levels will rise to help nourish the progressing pregnancy. Along with this hormonal rise, an increase in blood volume that starts in the early stages of pregnancy may also boost the amount of discharge your body produces.

What does cervical mucus look like if I’m pregnant?

It’s important to note that cervical mucus consistency itself is not a reliable way to determine whether or not you’re pregnant. To confirm pregnancy, you really do need a reliable home pregnancy test or to get a test from your doctor.

While cervical mucus alone is not a reliable indicator of pregnancy, we can safely say that it is pretty rare to have dry cervical mucus if you conceived since both estrogen and progesterone stay elevated during the luteal phase. However, the changes may be very subtle and can easily be overlooked.

You may experience a lot of milky or pale yellow vaginal discharge during early pregnancy. Once sperm and egg meet, the volume of discharge can increase as your vagina tries to get rid of bacteria that might be harmful to the new pregnancy.

Later on, this discharge will form the mucus plug which acts as a barrier between the vagina and the uterus to protect the growing fetus from infections during pregnancy.

How do I track cervical mucus?

First of all, you may want to keep a chart so that you can actually see the progression and write down all the changes. Second, especially if you're new to cervical mucus monitoring, you’ll want to start tracking immediately after your period so that you can see how the consistency changes over time.

Tracking cervical mucus changes over time can help you understand your cycle!

Here are some steps you can take:

1. Thoroughly wash and dry your hands.
2. Find a comfortable position, either by putting one leg up on the toilet seat/bathtub or by sitting on the toilet.
3. Carefully introduce your index finger inside your vagina, taking care to not scratch your cervix, especially if you have long nails.
4. Remove your finger from your vagina and notice the amount and consistency of the mucus. Slowly press your index and your thumb together, then slowly move them apart. Is your discharge clear and stretchy? That means you are approaching ovulation.
5. Write down the results so that by the end of the month you can have a nice progression and a general picture of how your cervical mucus changed throughout the cycle. This will allow you to observe patterns of potential fertility or infertility, and will provide valuable information for your doctor.

While this approach is effective and very inexpensive, if you want help tracking cervical mucus, devices like the kegg, which is a 2-in-1 pelvic trainer + cervical mucus fertility tracker, can help.  

What if I don’t notice any changes in cervical mucus?

If at first you don’t notice any changes in cervical mucus or have a hard time telling the difference between consistencies, don’t worry! It can take a little bit of time to learn how your unique body works so don’t get discouraged.

However if you do not notice any cervical mucus at all, this could be a sign of a hormone imbalance (since changes in cycle hormones cause changes in cervical mucus consistency). If you have specific concerns about your cervical mucus or vaginal discharge, we recommend consulting your doctor.

While monitoring changes in cervical mucus can help you monitor your cycle, they may not be the best indication of whether or not you’re pregnant. But we believe having a better understanding of your body and cycle is always great information to have!

Written by: Dr. Amy Beckley, PhD, Founder and Inventor of the Proov test — the first and only FDA-cleared test to confirm successful ovulation at home.

Medically reviewed by: Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh, MD, MPH

Written on 11/13/20

Updated on 5/5/22

You’ve probably gotten pretty familiar with how your body changes during each menstrual cycle. Including noticing your vaginal discharge or cervical mucus. That’s the clear to white fluid which flows down from your cervix, often making its way out into your underwear.

But cervical mucus in early pregnancy may be a bit different to what you normally see in your cycle. Let’s find out more.

In this article: 📝

• How does the discharge look in early pregnancy?
• Stages of cervical mucus
• What does cervical mucus look like after ovulation if you’re not pregnant?
• Why does cervical mucus change in early pregnancy?
• How to check your cervical mucus

How does the discharge look in early pregnancy?

If you’ve been trying to conceive (TTC) or using fertility awareness as part of your family planning, there’s a good chance you’ve been paying attention to your cervical mucus already.

The consistency and color of the discharge can help you detect if you’re about to ovulate. And it can give you a clue that you’ve recently conceived, even before you’ve missed a period. It may change in color and consistency to become stickier, more white, or even yellow.

This is a useful early sign that you could be pregnant, but the best way to make sure is to take a home pregnancy test.

Stages of cervical mucus

Your cervical mucus changes throughout your menstrual cycle. If you’re trying to get to know your cycle better, you might find it helpful to track these changes. There are several stages you can look out for:

1. Right after your period you might have less discharge, and what is there can be thick and opaque. Or you may even experience some completely dry days.

2. In the next few days, but before ovulation, the mucus can become sticky and yellowish.

3. Then, in your fertile window (the days leading up to ovulation), the volume of discharge can increase and it can become creamy in texture.

4. Around the time that you ovulate, there can be a lot of stretchy and egg-white-like mucus. This can indicate that you’re at your most fertile, so keeping an eye out for it may help with TTC.

5. After ovulation, the way your mucus looks depends on whether or not you’ve conceived that cycle.

What does cervical mucus look like after ovulation if you’re not pregnant?

If you’re not pregnant, after ovulation your cervical mucus can be drier, more opaque, and thicker in consistency. And the mucus may remain thicker until your next period starts.

But if you’ve conceived, then the volume of cervical mucus can sometimes increase. It’s also possible that the discharge can be slightly tinged pink with blood. This could be spotting from implantation, which happens about 8–10 days after ovulation.

But not everyone has implantation discharge or bleeding, and sometimes it’s tricky to tell if your mucus has changed.

Why does cervical mucus change in early pregnancy?

Essentially, it’s all about the hormones. The pregnancy hormones estrogen, progesterone, and hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) start working hard from early after conception, potentially causing your cervical mucus to change.

But it takes time for the levels of these hormones to build up in your body. So, as a mama-to-be, you may not see any difference in your mucus or see other signs of early pregnancy until a few weeks after conception. The most reliable way to check whether you’re pregnant is to do a home pregnancy test once you’ve missed your period.

How to check your cervical mucus

If you want to check your cervical mucus, the easiest and quickest way is to check your underwear. You can usually see what the consistency and color is when you do that. But there’s a way to check more closely, too.

Before you start, give your hands a good wash with soap and water. Then:

1. Insert a finger or two into your vagina, reaching up to your cervix.

2. Sweep around the cervix to touch the mucus.

3. Pull your finger or fingers out and observe how the mucus looks and feels.

If you notice any unusual changes in your cervical mucus during your cycle, and you don’t think they’re related to pregnancy, you can always seek advice from your healthcare provider.

And if there’s no change at all in your mucus, even when you’re TTC, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not pregnant. The best way to find out is by doing a pregnancy test.

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Mucus Plug: All the Key Info
Mucus Plug vs. Discharge: How to Tell the Difference
Thirsty in Early Pregnancy? Here’s Why