Chapter 8: Charting Continuous Discharges

This chapter describes how the CrMS is applied when a woman's chart shows a continuous mucus pattern, using yellow stamps in place of green stamps to distinguish the days of infertility from the days of fertility. Hilgers explains that post-Peak use of yellow stamps rests on confident identification of the Peak Day, while pre-Peak use depends on an essential sameness pattern (ESP) in the mucus and the identification of a point of change (POC). The chapter limits pre-Peak yellow stamps to regular length cycles with a mucus cycle greater than eight days, long cycles greater than 38 days, and breast feeding before the first menstrual period. Hilgers cites a study by Cvetkovich in which, in a composite of ten menstrual cycles, the point of change coincided with the break in the estrogen curve toward active follicular growth, with a slope of 1.34 from the day before the point of change and 4.46 from the point of change to the day after.