Natural Family Planning (Fertility Awareness Method)
Fertility awareness or natural family planning is a way, when followed carefully, can be up to 99.6% effective in preventing pregnancy. In other words, it's as good as the IUD or Birth Control Pill, but without the side effects. The disadvantage is obvious. If you make a mistake in following the rules, and you were wanting to avoid pregnancy, the odds of a pregnancy is very high.
Becoming familiar with your fertility cycle has two advantages: it can help you to achieve pregnancy, and it can help you to avoid pregnancy.
You will need to learn this method if you
are going to have successful preconception
health, as it takes months or years to restore the
body from the abuses caused by birth control
pills or the IUD.
FAM is not the same as the Rhythm Method but is based on sound fertility signs. It uses scientifically proven fertility signs, waking temperature, cervical fluid and cervical position.
How Fertility Awareness Works
During the monthly menstrual cycle, the egg
released remains viable for about 24 hours.
That means there needs to be seminal fluid present
at the right location within those 24 hours
for fertilization to occur. During the fertile phase
of the menstrual cycle, women produce cervical
fluid to keep the sperm alive, and to create the
right ecosystem for conception to occur.
Without the nourishing cervical fluids, the
sperm die within a few hours or even less. During
the fertile phase, cervical fluid changes, becoming
egg white-colored and very stretchy, so
you can use the cervical fluid to determine when
ovulation starts, and thus determine whether or
not you are fertile. You can monitor your waking
temperature to confirm ovulation as well,
and use both observations of cervical fluid and
the waking temperature to determine when ovulation
has ended. Women can only get pregnant
during the fertile times. Since the fertile time is
of a limited duration, if you know when you are
possibly fertile, you can use this information to
either avoid pregnancy, or to get pregnant.
Hence, FAM is an extremely effective form of
natural birth control or pregnancy achievement.
FAM works by eliminating unprotected intercourse
during the fertile times, and adding a
little extra room for safety before and after the
possibly fertile phase. In safely practicing the
guidelines, in a typical month you have about 20
days of possible unprotected sex, and generally
9-12 days of abstinence or use of a barrier
method.
Many times, women who are supposedly infertile and can’t get pregnant actually are fertile, and it’s merely that their timing of intercourse is wrong.
Below is a chart on the effectiveness of
FAM and other birth control methods. Studies
by Contraceptive Technology look at two statistics
for judging the effectiveness of contraceptive
methods. One is the user failure rate which
is when a pregnancy results from the user’s incorrect
use of the birth control method. The
other rate is a method failure, when pregnancy
results from a problem with the method that was
properly followed.
|
-
|
%
of Women Experiencing an Unintended Pregnancy within the First Year of
Use
|
|||||||
|
|
|
||||||
| No method |
85
|
85
|
||||||
| Spermicides |
29
|
18
|
||||||
| Withdrawal |
27
|
4
|
||||||
| Fertility awareness-based methods |
25 |
-
|
||||||
|
--------Standard Days method |
-
|
5
|
||||||
|
--------TwoDay method |
-
|
4
|
||||||
--------Ovulation method |
- |
3 |
||||||
| sympto-thermal | 0.4-2 |
|||||||
| Diaphragm |
16
|
6
|
||||||
| Condom |
-
|
-
|
||||||
|
--------Male |
15
|
2
|
||||||
| Combined pill and progestin-only pill |
8
|
0.3
|
||||||
| Depo-Provera |
3
|
0.3
|
||||||
| IUD |
-
|
-
|
||||||
|
--------ParaGard (copper T) |
0.8
|
0.6
|
||||||
|
--------Mirena (LNG-IUS) |
0.2
|
0.2
|
||||||
| Implanon |
0.05
|
0.05
|
||||||
(Chart is from Contraceptive Technologies Study)
Typical use represents what normally happens in the real world due to mistakes made by the user. Ideal use represents how effective the birth control method is when used properly.
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