Discharge during ovulation: when is it normal and when is it a sign of disease?
Discharge is one of the signs that ovulation has taken place and the ovum has matured for fertilization.
A woman who wants to become pregnant knows that the ovulation period is the most suitable time for this purpose because it is the time when the ripened ovum leaves the follicle. During this period, the female body starts issuing signals of a possible pregnancy. One of such signals is a change in the nature of discharge from the cervical canal.
However, not every woman knows when her ovulation discharge is normal and often regards a normal cervical mucus as a pathology. In this case, there could be hyper diagnostics of nonexistent diseases and even their treatment.
Causes of vaginal discharge during ovulation
There are two main causes of ovulation discharge.
The first cause of ovulation discharge may be the release of an egg from the follicle. In this case, the ovulation process takes place in several stages.
Oocyte maturation begins after the start of the menstrual cycle in the follicles formed earlier during fetal maturation of the female fetus. With the onset of menstruation, a dominant follicle in which a fertilizable egg develops starts forming in the ovary. After the egg has matured, the follicle bursts and the egg travels down the fallopian tube, where it may meet a sperm and get fertilized.
The follicle ruptures as the egg bursts from it. This is why some women may notice brown spotting. Such discharge typically occurs in the middle of the menstrual cycle and its color differs from that of menstruation. During menstruation, the discharge has a scarlet color.
Hormonal changes in women during the menstrual cycle is the second cause of discharge during ovulation.
After the last menstruation and before ovulation, the female body produces more estrogen, which enables the endometrium of the uterus to grow and the egg to mature. The luteinizing hormone (LH) stimulates the mature egg to burst from its follicle. The egg is released sharply because of high levels of estrogen. It is this high estrogen level that is considered to be one of the causes of inter-menstrual ovulation discharge from the genital tract.
Before, brown discharge during ovulation was mistakenly thought to occur during implantation of a fertilized egg. However, implantation bleeding occurs a week after ovulation, and so these two concepts are not identical.
Characteristic signs of discharge during ovulation
The following are considered the most likely signs of ovulation:
1. Change in the nature of vaginal discharge during the menstrual cycle:
- after menstruation, there is no external discharge because it is thick and forms a mucous plug in the cervical canal;
- the vaginal discharge takes the form of a sticky liquid 2 to 3 days before ovulation;
- at the time of ovulation, the vaginal discharge is by consistency similar to egg white;
- after ovulation, the discharge again becomes sticky and can be stretched between the fingers;
- before the onset of the next menstruation, the discharge becomes more liquid.
Moreover, it should be noted that vaginal discharge becomes more liquid at the time of ovulation.
2. The cervical mucus may thin out hours before ovulation, continuing up to two days after ovulation;
3. Appearance of bloody or brown discharge in a small amount. Such a discharge is often smearing in nature and may sometimes look like a bleeding. However, the color does not always have a shade because the admixture of blood may be very small that it may look like a white slime or with pink impurity.
Diagnosis of ovulation based on vaginal discharge
In order to determine that ovulation has occurred in a woman, cervical mucus needs to be analyzed carefully in at least three menstrual cycles. This figure is not accidental: in one cycle you can only assume ovulation has occurred, in two cycles, the time of its occurrence can be specified, while in three or more cycles, the exact time of the most probable fertilization can be established. However, any of the menstrual cycles can be completely uninformative since a woman may have an anovulatory cycle, when the egg does not mature and does not come out of the follicle.
In order to determine that ovulation has occurred, the discharge from the genital tract needs to be analyzed every day and recorded in a menstrual calendar. By this way, one can calculate the days of which conception is most probable.
Examining vaginal discharge during ovulation can be used as a physiological method of contraception. Of course, this approach does not give an absolute guarantee that pregnancy will not occur.
In order to achieve a contraceptive effect from this method, it is better to use the method in combination with other methods of contraception.
Spotting during ovulation is not a contraindication or an obstacle to pregnancy. It poses no danger to pregnant women if the amount is very small and short-lived. However, you should immediately see a gynecologist if the bloody discharge occurs in each menstrual cycle and lasts for more than two days since this condition might indicate an abnormality in the second phase of the menstrual cycle. In this case, progesterone deficiency can be a serious obstacle to pregnancy or child bearing in the future.