What Can Influence Your Cervical Mucus?
Age, BMI, fertility medications like Clomid, antihistamines, recent birth control use, and hydration can all reduce the amount and quality of fertile cervical mucus you produce -- mostly by affecting the estrogen levels that drive it.
Weird to talk about in daily life, completely normal to talk about with TTC friends -- so let's talk about cervical mucus (CM).
What fertile CM should look like
If you're trying to pinpoint your fertile window, you want your cervical mucus wet for 2 or more days, ideally with a consistency close to raw egg white. But not every woman gets fertile-quality CM every single cycle. Here's what can get in the way.
Things that can reduce your fertile CM
- Age: as you get older, you'll have fewer days of fertile-quality CM, since estrogen -- the key hormone behind it -- naturally declines with age.
- BMI: both low and high BMI are linked to lower estrogen levels, which affects CM production.
- Fertility medications: Clomid in particular is often prescribed to induce ovulation, but it blocks estrogen receptors in the brain, which can reduce CM. Only about 15% of women on Clomid experience this though.
- Antihistamines: the same drying effect they have on nasal mucus can extend to cervical mucus.
- Recent birth control use: if you've just come off the pill, the first few cycles can run drier -- though this effect usually fades quickly.
- Water intake: fertile cervical mucus is almost entirely water, so dehydration directly affects it. This is the easiest one to fix -- just drink more water.
Six factors that can influence how much (and how good) your CM is each cycle -- and the good news is that at least one of them is completely within your control.
Common questions
What does fertile cervical mucus look like?
Wet for 2 or more days, with a consistency close to raw egg white -- clear, stretchy, and slippery.
What's the easiest thing I can do to improve my cervical mucus?
Drink more water. Fertile cervical mucus is almost entirely water, so dehydration is one of the simplest, most fixable causes of a dry cycle.
Does Clomid always dry up cervical mucus?
No -- only about 15% of women taking Clomid experience this side effect, even though it's a well-known one.