Natural Family Planning: Birth Control Without Putting Medicine in Your Body

Natural Family Planning (NFP), also known as Fertility Awareness, is a natural birth control method. Often used by Catholic families to allow for spacing of children, it is the only contraception sanctioned by the Catholic Church.

Who can use NFP?

Natural Family Planning works best for married couples seeking a natural birth control method, whether bound by necessity or religious doctrine. Since no barriers are used, the couple should be monogamous and disease free.

How does it work?

I must confess, much of the onus is on the woman. Using Natural Family Planning as a birth control method requires the woman to be aware and chart her fertility signs. Natural Family Planning is NOT the rhythm method where one would X off a set amount of dates per month on her calendar and abstain. Not all women have 28 day cycles and things such as illness and stress can cause a woman to ovulate either earlier or later than she normally would. Natural Family Planning is tuned into your fertility signs. After all, you can only get pregnant if you are ovulating! When a woman observes and interprets the signs of impending ovulation, the couple then abstains from intercourse until it is clear that intercourse is safe to resume without fear of pregnancy.

What are the signs of fertility?