Fertility Road Issue 03

She is a fertility expert who has transformed the way millions of
Americans think about their bodies. Across a generation’s span,
where science and technology has left remarkable, dazzling
imprints on fertility, Toni Weschler’s impact has been profound.
Profiled now alongside the modern greats of reproductive
communication, she gives an exclusive interview to
Fertility Road magazine...
TEACHER:
TONI
Sadly, a modern education still leaves women
in the dark about their own bodies. We now
have a generation of women in their 30s and
40s who were taught nothing whatsoever
about their fertility and have not the slightest clue
about how the female reproductive system works.
Essential facts every woman should know - for example
that it’s possible to predict your next period if you know
when you ovulated because the luteal (post-ovulation)
phase has a consistent length in each woman, while
the follicular (pre-ovulation) phase varies each cycle; or
that cervical mucus with an ‘egg white’ appearance is a
healthy sign of high fertility - were simply not included
in our school ‘sex education’ lessons.
Women today have left conceiving much later, and
when we finally stop taking the pill to get pregnant, we
suddenly realise we know nothing about our natural
cycles. Tragically, we usually only come to understand
our own biology at a late stage - when often, the time
pressures are starting to become unbearable.
In this era when women want to know as much as
possible about their bodies, the new science of fertility
awareness, made available with the advent of the
digital thermometer in the 1970s, is more popular than
ever. Our mothers are mystified to see our carefully
plotted graphs. “It was so different in the 70s,” Suzanne,
a 69-year-old writer, recalls. “We were vaguely aware
the middle of the month was fertile, but getting pregnant
just happened; we didn’t try.”
But women trying to conceive today are older than ever
before, desperate for knowledge so we can understand our
natural cycles and maximise our chances of conceiving,
fast - which is why modern women are getting hooked
on the fertility awareness movement, the bible of which
is the super-selling book Taking Charge of Your Fertility
by American Toni Weschler. Published in 1995, the book
was the first to explain - in amazing detail - how to get
pregnant by monitoring and recording on a chart the
body’s daily fertility signs, including waking temperature,
which rises after ovulation; cervical fluid (dry in infertile
times of the month, increasingly creamy and then like egg
white as you approach ovulation); and cervical position.
And although these facts are now all over the internet
and other fertility books, the fact remains that TCOYF
explains them in the most comprehensive and authoritative
detail - it’s still the biggest and the best manual for understanding
your fertility. The book is currently ranked at
number three out of the nearly 19 million published
books sold on Amazon.com when it comes to customer
ratings (trumped only by two Harry Potter novels). But
that’s not down to marketing or publicity - TCOYF remains
an underground, word-of-mouth fertility phenomenon. »
www.fertilityroad.com
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