Implantation Bleeding

Let’s start at the beginning. The three most important points to ponder are the timing of the spotting, the color and the amount.

Timing of the spotting; early and implantation spotting:
Assuming you know your cycle we will know if you have ovulated and at what time that approximately occurred. Around seven days after you ovulate, if the egg and sperm have successfully joined forces to produce a fetus, then your growing baby will need to nest into a puffed up, blood filled endometrium. In other words, the fertilized egg needs to implant in order to grow.

Implantation simply put is the baby burrowing into the tissue of the uterus and starting the whole process of growing the placenta, from which it will feed and grow. At the time that the sac implants itself into the uterus there is a small amount of blood that will naturally come from this “puncture”.

Many women, I might say even most, if they are watching and waiting, will notice implantation spotting about 7 – 10 days after this implant occurs. 6 – 7 days better represents normal contractions of the fallopian tubes and uterus and 10 days on the other end with possibly a less contracting uterus; sluggish perhaps.

Color of spotting; brown and pink:
The faster the spotting travels from the uterus, the pinker the blood should be. The slower, likewise, will produce brown spotting; old blood and a small amount. Light brown with a few drops is nothing to worry about. Remember this brown or pink spotting will be around 7 – 10 days after implantation.

If you are charting your temperatures, you should have seen a new plateau of temps starting about 7 days after ovulations. This is a second rise, the first is tied to the rise in progesterone levels from the ovulation. The second is when implantation occurs and your body is signaled to produce more progesterone from the hCG of the growing baby. There would have most likely been a small dip, just as it does before ovulation and then the rise. At that dip, the egg has “burrowed” and estrogen has quickly spiked but is then overshadowed by the rise in progesterone.

As I said, brown spotting is old blood. It means that it has been a little time before reaching “the toilet paper”. More than likely this is just implantation spotting because a tiny amount of blood was released from the endometrium when implantation occurred. The slower the blood is able to make the journey to the “paper” the more sluggish your uterus. It is contractions that actually move the blood along. The sooner the blood make the journey, the more affected by oxygen it will be and thus the color difference.

Should you find that you are bleeding / spotting more than the small drops mentioned or that the color of the blood turns darker, going from pink spotting to darker pink, to red spotting, make a few notes.  See our article Early Pregnancy Spotting and Spotting in Early Pregnancyfor more information when implantation is not an option.