NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING METHOD

NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING

It refers to methods for planning or preventing pregnancies by observation of naturally occurring signs and symptoms of fertile and unfertile phases of the menstrual cycles.

NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING

ADVANTAGES:

It is SAFE. It is INEXPENSIVE. It INSTRUCTS USER about their BODILY FUNCTIONS and their SEXUALITY. It improves MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP. It allows SEXUAL INTIMACY. It allows couples to remain FAITHFUL to their religions and beliefs.

STANDARD DAYS METHOD

This method was developed by the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University. Its users avoid unprotected intercourse during cycle days 8 through 19. For successful use, women must have regular monthly cycles of 26 to 32 days. Those who use the standard days method can use CycleBeads to keep track of their days.

STANDARD DAYS METHOD

Effectiveness of the Standard Days Method If this method is used perfectly, it is considered to be about 95% effective for family planning technique. If this method of birth control is used normally, its effectiveness is about 88%. The main issue, which can influence the success or failure rate, is the proper marking of the days and whether both partners equally desire to avoid having sexual intercourse while a woman is in her fertile phase.

STANDARD DAY METHOD

ADVANTAGE:

This method is quite an easy one to learn and apply; There are no side effects and health risks, involved in people, who use the Standard Days Method; This method is considered to be the cost effective one; It is 100% reversible; There are no calculations required, as everything is possible to be done with the help of a special Cycle Beads set; This method of Natural Family Planning does not require any charts to be applied.

STANDARD DAYS METHOD

DISADVANTAGE:

This method is not possible to be used by women, who suffer from irregular menstrual periods In case if a womans cycle gets suddenly disrupted by some illness, stress, fatigue, or any other external factor, the Standard Days Method becomes much less effective, as it is considered to be in normal conditions, because the length of the menstrual cycle changes; If a woman is a young mother, who feeds her baby with her breast milk, or in case if she has used some contraceptive injection, there is a necessity for her to wait a few menstrual cycles before starting to apply this method of Natural Family Planning.

CALENDAR RHYTHM METHOD

This method requires counting the number of days in the shortest and longest menstrual cycle during a 6- to 12-month span. From the shortest cycle, 18 days are subtracted to calculate the first fertile day. From the longest cycle, 11 days are subtracted to identify the last fertile day.

CALENDAR RHYTHM METHOD

This is problematic because ovulation most often occurs 14 days before the onset of the next menses. Because this is not necessarily 14 days after the onset of the last menses, the calendar rhythm method is not reliable.

EFFECTIVENESS AND RELIABILITY OF THE CALENDAR RHYTHM METHOD

In case if this method of birth control is not used perfectly, or if a woman has unprotected sexual relations during her most fertile days, this can lead to a relative increase in the failure rate of Calendar Rhythm Method. In accordance with the statistics, from 100 women, who use this method, about 25 may become pregnant accidentally. However, even if this method is used correctly and perfectly, its effectiveness is 87%. In addition, there exist a lot of factors, which can make the Rhythm Method not very reliable method of Natural Family Planning. Besides some usual mistakes, which can be made by every woman, such as tracking her menstrual cycles incorrectly, using some wrong formula to find the fertile or infertile phase of the cycle, having unprotected sexual relations during the fertile period, unwillingness of a womans partner, there are some certain flaws in this method as well.

The formula, which is used to determine the womans fertile days is based only on the assumption that every woman ovulates exactly in the middle of her menstrual cycle. Of no doubt, many women do so, however, others experience ovulation earlier, and there are even women, who do not have ovulation up until their menstruation. In addition, some women may have mid cycle bleeding, which they may consider as a normal menstrual cycle, and this will result in a wrong calculation of cycle days. In any of these cases it is extremely difficult to predict the time of ovulation correctly, which may cause a woman to unknowingly have an unprotected sexual contact during her fertile phase.

There is another reason for the increased failure rate of the Calendar Rhythm Method it is that a woman has to use her past cycles in order to predict her future cycles. As a rule past patterns may be sufficient to provide a woman with a guideline for her future cycle, however, any minor change in her lifestyle: taking some medications, illness, breastfeeding, dealing with stress, etc, and there is a risk that the menstrual cycle gets changed. Even if none of these factors would be taken into consideration, still the reality that all women have a slightly different cycle every next month, which influences the ovulation time as well as the fertility phase. As a rule Calendar Rhythm Method is applied only as some additional safety measure, and only

ADVANTAGES OF THE CALENDAR RHYTHM METHOD

This method of birth control is considered to be rather simple, in comparison with other methods, such as applying a contraceptive patch or receiving hormone injections; Calendar Rhythm Method can be used by every healthy woman; There are no devices required in order to be able to apply this method of Fertility Awareness; This method of birth control interferes neither with foreplay nor with the very intercourse; The Calendar Rhythm Method is 100% reversible

DISADVANTAGES OF THE CALENDAR RHYTHM METHOD

A woman has to spend a lot of time tracking her monthly cycles, before she can start using this method. It is not possible to start applying the Calendar Rhythm Method right away, as at there is a need to keep the track of womans menstrual cycles for at least half a year period. A womans husband may not be willing to cooperate, which may lead to complete failure of this method of Fertility Awareness. The number-one drawback is that many women are not all that regular, and even those who are regular sometimes have irregular months. When that happens, an unintended pregnancy can result.

TEMPERATURE RHYTHM METHOD

This method relies on slight changes sustained 0.4 degree Fahrenheit or 0.5 degree Celcius increasesin the basal body temperature that usually occur just before ovulation. This method is much more likely to be successful if, during each menstrual cycle, intercourse is avoided until well after the ovulatory temperature rise.

TEMPERATURE RHYTHM METHOD

For this method to be most effective, the woman must abstain from intercourse from the first day of menses through the third day after the increase in temperature. For obvious reasons, this is not a popular method! With excellent compliance, however, the unwanted pregnancy is approximately 2 percent the first year.

BASAL BODY TEMPERATURE

EFFECTIVITY:
The BBT is recorded for several months in a row, is considered to be quite an accurate one if it goes about detecting when the ovulation occurs, however, it is not able to predict when it is about to happen. This is why the effectiveness rate is only about 80%. Moreover, the reliability of the Basal Body Temperature Method can be influenced by the following factors: Illness; Interrupted Sleep Cycles; Smoking Tobacco and / or Drinking Alcohol; Emotional Distress; Using an Electric Blanket.

BASAL BODY TEMPERATURE

ADVANTAGES:

There is no need to spend any money; The Basal Body Temperature Method can prove to be very effective, if used correctly and consistently; With the help of this method any woman can get to know how to read her bodys signals; This method of Natural Family Planning may be used by women, who have irregular menstrual cycles

BASAL BODY TEMPERATURE

DISADVANTAGES:

The Basal Body Temperature Method is considered to be inconvenient, as it is necessary to check the temperature the first thing in the morning; This Fertility Awareness Method can be very messy; Any unusual event, such as illness, emotional stress, bad sleep, extra moving can disrupt the womans menstrual cycle, which will lead to skewing her pattern for that month; A woman may need practice from her physician, nurse, gynecologist or any other trained person; The Basal Body Temperature Method does not pinpoint exactly when the ovulation is about to occur, and it can take two or three months for a pattern to emerge.

CERVICAL MUCUS RHYTHM METHOD

This so-called Billings method depends on awareness of vaginal "dryness" and "wetness." These are the consequences of changes in the amount and quality of cervical mucus at different times in the menstrual cycle.

CERVICAL MUCUS RHYTHM METHOD

Abstinence is required from the beginning of menses until 4 days after slippery mucus is identified. Although this method has not achieved popularity, when it is used accurately, the first-year failure rate is approximately 3 percent.

CERVICAL MUCUS RHYTHM METHOD

DRY DAYS After menstruation, the cervical mucus or discharge is characteristically opaque, thick and sticky,

CERVICAL MUCUS RHYTHM METHOD

WET DAYS Close to imminent ovulation, the thick discharge is transformed into a slippery, lubricative, transparent, watery discharge and the peak of this occurence resembles raw egg white signifying the peak of ovulation.

CERVICAL MUCUS RHYTHM METHOD

THREE TYPES OF MUCUS:
1.

2.

3.

G type made up of purely of protein and fibers, and quite hostile to the sperms. L Type it forms a thick, clumpy texture and when examined under the microscope will show a Flower-like arrangement of perpendicularly branched crystals. S Type Aids in the transport of sperm.

CERVICAL MUCUS RHYTHM METHOD

ADVANTAGE:
The ovulation-mucus method is easy to use and costs nothing. It is a good adjunct to other natural methods as it provides a crosscheck for signs of fertility. Used alone it is not as effective as other methods of fertility awareness, which is why is it often paired with the symptothermal method.

CERVICAL MUCUS RHYTHM METHOD

EFFECTIVENESS:
Of 100 couples who use the cervical mucus method correctly for one year, 3 will have a pregnancy. Its effectiveness if used properly is 96%.

SYMPTOTHERMAL METHOD
This method combines the use of changes in cervical mucusonset of fertile period, changes in basal body temperatureend of fertile period, and calculations to estimate the time of ovulation. Although this method is more complex to learn and apply, it does not appreciably improve reliability. The use of home kits to detect LH increases in the urine on the day prior to ovulation may improve the accuracy of periodic abstinence methods (Hatcher and associates, 2007).

SYMPTOTHERMAL METHOD
EFFECTIVENESS:
This method of Natural Family Planning is considered to be much effective, however, only on condition, that it is applied correctly and constantly. Generally it proved to be about 99 % effective in preventing from unplanned pregnancy. Therefore, this up to 1% - 10% failure rate is mostly because of the womans male partner, in case if he does not cooperate with her, or because of some incorrect application. However, if the Symptothermal Method of Fertility Awareness is used under strict supervision and constantly and the male partner helps the woman in it, then the failure rate is no more than 3%.

SYMPTOTHERMAL METHOD
ADVANTAGES:

This Method of Natural Family Planning does not include any side effects, as neither drugs, chemicals, nor any devices, and no surgical intervention is required; The Symptothermal Method is very economical; The method improves marital relationship, because the cooperation of both partners is involved; In case if the woman desires to get pregnant, she can simply stop applying the Symptothermal method and begin to make attempts of conceiving; If the woman learns to apply this method of Fertility Awareness in a proper way, then there will not be any need in additional contraception.

SYMPTOTHERMAL METHOD
DISADVANTAGES:

This method can be quite messy and inconvenient, because the woman, who applies has to keep in mind checking her basal body temperature, her cervical mucus as well as track the calendar days; The Symptothermal Method is messy to apply In case if the womans partner does not want to cooperate with her, this method of Natural Family Planning may be not effective at all; Any woman, who desires to try the Symptothermal Method will have to receive previous training from a well experienced professional; Any unusual event, such as illness, emotional stress, bad sleep, extra moving can disrupt the womans menstrual cycle, which will lead to skewing her pattern for that month.

COITUS INTERRUPTUS
Interruptus, also known as the rejected sexual intercourse, withdrawal or pull-out method, is a method of birth-control in which a man, during intercourse withdraws his penis from a woman's vagina prior to ejaculation. The man then directs his ejaculate (semen) away from his partner's vagina in an effort to avoid insemination. Coitus

COITUS INTERRUPTUS
ADVANTAGE:
The advantage of Coitus Interruptus is that it can be used by people who have objections to or do not have access to other forms of contraception. Some men prefer it so they can avoid possible adverse effects of hormonal contraceptives on their partners or so that they can have a full experience and really be able to "feel" their partner. Some women also prefer this method over hormonal contraception to avoid adverse effects such as depression, mood swings, vaginal dryness, decreased libido, weight gain, and headaches, among others. It has no direct monetary cost, requires no artificial devices, has no physical side effects, can be practiced without a prescription or medical consultation, and provides no barriers to stimulation.

COITUS INTERRUPTUS
DISADVANTAGES: Compared to the other common reversible methods of contraception such as IUDs, hormonal contraceptives and male condoms, coitus interruptus is less effective at preventing pregnancy. As a result, it is also less cost-effective than many more effective methods: although the method itself has no direct cost, users have a greater chance of incurring the risks and expenses of either pregnancy and child-birth or abortion. Only models that assume all couples practice perfect use of the method find cost savings associated with the choice of withdrawal as a birth control method.

COITUS INTERRUPTUS
DISADVANTAGES:

The method is largely ineffective in the prevention of STDs, like HIV, since pre-ejaculate may carry viral particles or bacteria which may infect the partner if this fluid comes in contact with mucous membranes. However, a reduction in the volume of bodily fluids exchanged during intercourse may reduce the likelihood of disease transmission compared to using no method due to the smaller number of pathogens present. The method may be difficult for some couples to use. The interruption of intercourse may leave some couples sexually frustrated or dissatisfied.[ Masters and Johnson considered withdrawal as a means to developing sexual problems, e.g. premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction.

COITUS INTERRUPTUS
Effectiveness depends largely on the man's capability to withdraw prior to ejaculation. The failure rate is estimated to be approximately 4% in the first year of perfect use. In typical use, the rate is approximately 19% during the first year of use. Withdrawal is 82% to 96% effective.

COITUS INTERRUPTUS
CONTRAINDICATIONS:
Men

who ejaculate prematurely Men who are not experienced enough to know when to pull out Couples that do not have a high level of trust, self-control and experience