Natural family planning, what do you think?!
Question: Has anyone else used the natural family planning method for contraception? Would anyone reccommend using it? What are your thoughts on this method?
thanks x
Answers: Has anyone else used the natural family planning method for contraception? Would anyone reccommend using it? What are your thoughts on this method?
thanks x
Let me first disclose that I am an NFP teacher, so I am biased in that direction. But I would like to tell you a little about NFP and then give you some places where you can get some more information.
It is so sad, every time NFP comes up here on yahoo answers, you get all the people who come out and say "Oh, I got pregnant using it" or like Liz "My parents had 5 kids". Let's be serious. I personally have a nephew thanks to condom failure, my BIL was due to contraceptive foam failure, and I know of countless other children who were born after a failure of the pill, the patch, condoms, etc. So no contraceptive is 100%.
NFP is a great option for married couples who don't like the side effects from chemical birth control and don't like the interference of barrier methods. Let me tell you a little bit about the science behind how it works and why it works.
NFP is actually very effective. When people talk about their parents generation using NFP, they are talking about the old rhythm method. It was calendar based and did not take into effect the fact that not every woman has regular cycles and that things like stress, travel & illness can cause cycle changes. The rhythm method has fortunately gone away and modern NFP is scientifically based and has 35+ years of research behind it.
NFP is using a woman's natural signs of fertility to determine if she is in a fertile or infertile part of her cycle. A woman's fertile window is 5-6 days long. This is because sperm, under good circumstances, can live for up to 5 days. A woman's egg can only survive for about 12-24 hours. And once she has ovulated, she will not ovulate again in a cycle (with the rare exception of double ovulation - like for fraternal twins - and ovulation always takes place within 24 hours; all NFP rules take this into consideration).
So, how does a woman know if she is fertile? The menstrual cycle is dominated by 2 hormones: estrogen and progesterone. Before ovulation, when estrogen starts to kick in, the body starts to produce a special kind of cervical mucus that sort of resembles egg-whites. Her cervix also changes in its position, openness, and firmness. After ovulation, the body triggers a production of progesterone. This hormone makes the cervical mucus dry up, causes the cervix to lower and close, and causes a woman's temperature to rise.
A woman using NFP watches the changes in her mucus, cervix and temperature and from that knowledge knows which part of the cycle she is in. If she is fertile (close to ovulation) and doesn't want to get pregnant, then she will refrain from having sex. If it is before ovulation she can use special rules to know which days are safe for sex. After ovulation there is no chance of another ovulation so she can have sex at any time.
NFP is scientifically based and has been proven to be effective in scientific studies, up to 99% rate of effectiveness. It has the same effectiveness as the pill and is MORE effective then condoms or other barrier methods.
To do NFP correctly, you should take temperatures and also monitor cervical mucus. I highly recommend taking a class in NFP to learn the method well; it may sound complicated from my explanation, but once you start practicing it really only takes a month or two to really get the hang of it. That's why it's nice to have a teacher who can answer your questions.
There are tons of resources for learning NFP. There are a number of organizations that teach NFP. A good resource is www.omsoul.com, from there you can search for NFP teachers in your area. Go to NFP directory and then to "Doctors, teachers and centers." Some of the best groups to learn from are The Couple to Couple League, Billings Ovulation Method, Northwest Family Services, Foundation of the Americas, the Creighton Method, the Marquette method. Google any of those to learn more about them and how they teach. Some groups, like the Couple to Couple League (www.ccli.org), have homestudy classes. Other groups have online classes, like Northwest family services: http://www.nwfs.org/
You can also go to www.nfpandmore.org and they have a downloadable, free manual for learning NFP. But again, if you want to use the method with the highest level of effectiveness, please consider taking a class!
Fertility friend and other online charting sites are good if you have a hard time interpreting your charts. But once you learn the method, it is easy to use and you shouldn't need too much help. That's another reason why it's nice to have a local teacher to help answer your questions.
Toni Weschler's book "Taking Charge of your Fertility" is good, another good book is "The Art of Natural Family Planning" by John & Sheila Kippley. It is very thorough and covers just about any circumstance dealing with charting.
I have been doing NFP for almost 10 years now. My husband & I used it for over 2 years to postpone pregnancy and then used it to conceive both our children. It does require commitment and you have to be motivated to follow the rules and not take chances when you are in your fertile time, but I really like knowing what my body is doing and working with it instead of working against it. Hope this helped!!
Do you mean whipping it out and spraying it up her back?
My (Catholic) parents had 5 kids using natural family planning. What do I think? Unreliable obviously. I also think it is very bad that they go around very poor undeveloped countries teaching this to people who can't even afford to feed the kids they already have.
i used it and six months after having my daughter i was pregnant again. yes i used proper methods. i spent almost 100 on the natural contraception kits and got pregnant anyway! risk it if you want but id much rather get free reliable pills from the doctor then waste my money again. Saying that i love my son to bits and wouldnt want my life anyother way now.
its a perfect and healty way of contaception..cuz all other methods like pills,iud hv hramfull side effects..i prefer natural family planing......oly u hv to hv good knowledge abt it
i got prego not using anything.. but we had tried for 8 months ,, i think it was just about timing