What is the Jade Egg? What are the benefits of using a Jade Egg? Who shouldn’t use the Jade Egg? How do you use it and how do you take it out!?

These are the some of the questions we tackle in my very first CHLOE CHATS with Women's Sexuality Coach, Lisa Letwin.

A room full of pre-teens aged 7 to 11 are filling up plastic cups with cranberry juice. I’ve asked them to guess how much they think we bleed during our whole period. Some cups are full to the brim. Others are half full. But all are definitely exceeding the amount of the average period. The blood loss during an average period is 30 to 60 ml. That’s about 2 to 4 tablespoons! This is one of the reasons why I decided to facilitate the Period Positivity Workshop for parents and pre-teens. How can we expect to have a positive relationship with our periods if we don’t even know what to expect?

She knows it is normal to bleed every cycle for a few days (definitely more than one, but not more than a week!) and that it is a special time for rest and relaxation. She will also become familiar with what is normal for her body, and whether this falls into the normal range of healthy menstruation – including flow, length, colour, spotting, and other factors. She also knows that she should experience very little pain or discomfort due to her cycle.

Your cervix actually talks to you with her cervical mucus. It’s a hydrogel produced from the crypts of the cervix. Under the influence of progesterone, the cervical mucus creates a plug, preventing anything from entering the uterus. Then under the influence of estrogen, the plug is released, is visible at the vulva, and acts like a slip n’ slide straight to your cervix for sperm. It comes in all combinations of colors (cloudy, clear, pale yellow, brown, red) and consistencies (sticky, tacky, or stretchy). The presence of cervical mucus is an indication of fertility.

Observing and recording your cervical mucus every day allows you to use this information to avoid pregnancy or achieve pregnancy. It can also give you information about your hormone balance, the health of your cervix, and more!

There’s a massive transition happening where people are beginning to realize the importance of their menstrual cycle for their health and well-being. People everywhere are ditching their hormonal contraception to reunite themselves with their natural cycles and take back control of their health and fertility.

Oh, cervical mucus! That wonderful nectar of fertility! When it’s around, you can catch it hanging out at your perineum or on your toilet paper. Have you seen it before? Some people tell me they’ve noticed it but didn’t take much note while others have told me they confused their cervical mucus with a yeast infection or an STI. The truth is, cervical mucus is a normal, healthy, and essential part of the menstrual cycle.

Even though we've been socialized to think of pregnancy as something we can catch at any moment on any given day, this is simply not the case. In fact, there's a lot more going on in your cycle than you may have been told. There's the dynamic follicular phase, the grand entrance of ovulation, the butterfly luteal phase (I call it that because it has the lifespan of a butterfly - it averages 14 days!), and the reflective menstrual phase. By charting your biological signs of fertility and infertility, you can begin to demystify your menstrual cycle and unlock it's potential!

Since ditching the pill, charting my own cycle, and teaching fertility awareness all over the world, I’ve come across a few myths I’d like to set straight. And the first one is the common belief that a healthy menstrual cycle should be 28 days long. So in honour of this mythological 28-day cycle, I’m debunking for you 28 myths about the menstrual cycle, birth control pills, and fertility awareness.