| Natural family planning - includes tips on how to learn this method of birth control |
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Angela used to think she suffered from minor vaginal infections that would come and go. Then when she was trying to get pregnant, she read a book about understanding fertility and realized that she had been perfectly healthy all the time. Angela learned that the discharge she often saw on her underpants was absolutely normal. She also discovered that these secretions from her cervix, which changed in quantity and appearance throughout the month, were crucial signals of when she was most likely to conceive. Marlene and her new husband had decided that she should finish college before they started having children. But they weren't comfortable with the types of birth control they had tried. She went up a dress size while on the Pill, they didn't like interrupting their lovemaking to put on a condom or insert a diaphragm, and they felt that spermicidal jellies were too messy and unreliable. During a visit to a women's health clinic, Marlene found out about natural contraception, which involved abstaining from intercourse during the fertile phase of her menstrual cycle. This method of figuring out when you're fertile and when you're not is known as Natural Family Planning (NFP). Studies have shown that if the rules are followed diligently, NFP is approximately 98 percent effective in preventing pregnancy#about as effective as regularly (and correctly) using condoms. And if you want to have a baby, it can alert you to the best time to have sex. No, NFP is not the oldfashioned#and unreliable#rhythm method, which is simply a prediction of a woman's future fertile phase based on the lengths of her past menstrual cycles. While it is certainly important to note the lengths of past cycles, NFP also demands a close reading of the physical fertility signs our bodies give us throughout each month. "I see Natural Family Planning as something that empowers women," says Denise Sutherland, M.D., a New York physician with a family practice who uses NFP herself. "It helps a woman understand the changes in her body and not see them as things that need to be controlled by an outside force such as the Pill." The Three Main Fertility Signs The effectiveness of NFP is based on understanding three important signs from your body: your resting body temperature; the feel and position of your cervix (the entrance to the uterus, which protrudes into the upper vagina) and your cervical fluid. You must keep careful daily records of these three factors. Prior to ovulation, the waking body temperature typically ranges from 97 to 97.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Once the egg has been released (after ovulation), your temperature rises to a range between 97.6 and 98.6 degrees. This happens because when you ovulate, a heat-inducing hormone, progesterone, is also produced. If no pregnancy occurs, your temperature will drop 12 to 16 days after ovulation. When you're charting your temperature for fertility reasons, you should take it as soon as you wake up each morning, before you get out of bed, so that outside factors (such as drinking a hot or cold beverage) don't give you a false reading. Also be sure to take your temperature at the same time every morning. There are several types of thermometers, including digital or glass, which can give you an oral, rectal or vaginal reading, available at pharmacies and discount department stores. But make sure that you get a basal body thermometer, not a fever thermometer. Also, around the time of ovulation, your cervix (which normally is positioned low, is firm to the touch and maintains a closed entrance) raises and becomes soft and open, allowing for the ease of the transport of sperm into the uterus. The easiest way to feel your cervix is to squat and insert your clean finger into the vaginal opening as far as it will go. The third fertility sign to watch for, and the most obvious, is cervical discharge. Following menstruction, the cervix produces a distinct pattern of fluid: Dry, sticky, creamy, wet and slippery, then sticky and then dry again. The closer you get to ovulation (when conception can occur), the more wet and slippery "fertile" mucus you'll see and feel at your vaginal lips and on your underpants. Designed to keep sperm healthy and mobile, this mucus resembles and has a consistency similar to that of raw egg white. After ovulation, your cervix starts secreting stickier, drier mucus, in which sperm cannot survive, indicating that you're going through an infertile phase. Becoming Pregnant#Naturally Ovulation, when an egg leaves an ovary, usually happens about two weeks after day one of your cycle. Day one is the first day of menstrual bleeding. If sperm is present, the egg may be fertilized. Although the unfertilized egg lives for only up to 24 hours, sperm can survive for up to five days in fertile mucus. That means you can have intercourse on a Saturday and not become pregnant until you ovulate the following Thursday! A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that pregnancy is most likely to result if women have intercourse on the day of ovulation and at least every other day during the five days before. So if you're trying to get pregnant, you'll need to try to conceive when your cervical mucus is wet and slippery#which happens close to ovulation#and up until the day after the upward rise in your waking temperature. For best results, chart your temperature and pay attention to your cervix and mucus a few months before you attempt to conceive to cut down on the guesswork. Avoiding Pregnancy Through NFP In order for NFP to really be effective in preventing pregnancy, there are a number of strict rules you must follow. You'll need to abstain from unprotected intercourse for about ten to 14 days of your cycle. Once menstrual bleeding ends, you can have intercourse the night of any day when no cervical mucus is present. Waiting until the evening allows you to be sure it's truly a "dry day." Although the wet, slippery mucus is considered the fertile type, any mucus before ovulation (including creamy and sticky) could mean you may become pregnant. So to be safe, abstain when any type of mucus is seen or felt. You can resume intercourse four full days after your "peak day" (the last day that you see raw egg-white-like mucus), and if you also have had three consecutive days of higher temperatures. In this time the unfertilized egg will disintegrate, and you can no longer become pregnant during that cycle. Coordinating your sex life with your temperature, cervical fluid and the position and feel of your cervix may sound intimidating at first. But it's not unlike learning to drive a stick shift: All it takes is practice.
COPYRIGHT 1996 Essence Communications, Inc.             |
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