Birth Control Options for Women - Natural Family Planning Methods

Fertility Awareness Methods

Fertility awareness methods, also called natural family planning, do not use drugs, physical devices, or surgery to prevent pregnancy. Instead, these cycle-based methods rely on tracking the changes in the body that signal fertility. A woman is only fertile during part of her menstrual cycle. By monitoring certain changes in her body, a woman can more or less predict the fertile phase and abstain from sexual intercourse during that time. She can also use barrier methods if they are not prohibited by religious beliefs.

Fertility awareness methods include:

• Temperature
• Cervical mucus (ovulation)
• Calendar
• Symptothermal

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Temperature Method. To determine the most likely time of ovulation and therefore the time of fertility, a woman is instructed to take her body temperature, called her basal body temperature. This is the body's temperature as it rises and falls in accord with hormonal fluctuations.

• Each morning before rising, the woman takes her temperature with a specialized basal body thermometer and marks the result on a graph-paper chart.
• She also notes the days of menstruation and sexual activity.
• The so-called "fertile window" is 6 days long. It starts 5 days before ovulation and ends the day of ovulation.
• The chances for fertility are considered to be highest between days 10 - 17 in the menstrual cycle (with day 1 being the first day of the period and ovulation occurring about 2 weeks later). However, not all women are fertile within that period of time. Women who have a longer or shorter menstrual cycle may have different time periods of fertility.
• Immediately after ovulation, the body temperature increases sharply in about 80% of cases. (Some women can be ovulating normally yet not show this temperature pattern.)

By studying the temperature patterns over a few months, couples can begin to anticipate ovulation and plan their sexual activity accordingly. To avoid losing spontaneity, couples should try to avoid becoming fixated on the chart in scheduling their sexual activity.