From "A natural approach to birth control/Madison educator helps women become more in touch with their cycles."
It is the rhythm method, I'd say. The rhythm method done competently. Yeah, here's an article from last December in The Atlantic: "Return of the Rhythm Method."
As of 2010, only about 22 percent of women used “periodic abstinence," an umbrella term that includes counting days, measuring temperature, and tracking cervical mucus to predict fertility. Women with a master’s degree or higher were far more likely to use these methods than their less-educated peers. Their ranks may grow, though, as new apps and other technologies make it easier to manage the historically error-prone task of measuring, recording, and analyzing one’s cycle in order to stay baby-free....
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"Periodic abstinence" is not really the rhythm method either or FAM. I would assume only those who are against even barrier forms of birth control practice periodic abstinence. I've done FAM. It was very accurate for me.
Rhythm method implied counting days and guessing the middle blindly.
If you monitoring hormones/cervical mucus bow can it be the rhythm method?
How (not bow) it can be the rhythm method?
It is the rhythm method, I'd say
You would also say that same sex marriage is marriage, so people could be forgiven for not taking you seriously about, well, just about anything.
Is this a way to avoid doing arithmetic?
However you want to label it ("rhythm method" or the "ovulation method" or "fertility awareness"), in my experience it is far better suited as a way to get pregnant rather than avoiding pregnancy.
In a very amusing commentary on contemporary prejudices, it turns out that the "Catholic" clinics are by far the best for treating women who want to become pregnant.
I know, because after my SIL was told she could never become pregnant or carry to term if she did, she went the Catholic route (she is Catholic), and got very promptly pregnant three times. All without medical treatments. My brother, of course, takes all the credit.
So there is very definitely something to this, but it cuts both ways. Truly understanding these things works for female empowerment across the board.
Zeb Quinn said...
However you want to label it ("rhythm method" or the "ovulation method" or "fertility awareness"), in my experience it is far better suited as a way to get pregnant rather than avoiding pregnancy.
If you don't understand that there is a fundamental difference between the "rhythm method" and "fertility awareness" than it's not surprising that you ended up with a pregnancy.
My wife and I used it for two years successfully, then decided we wanted to have a child. She was pregnant within a week.
This is one of those cases where the phrase means something other than the literal meaning of its individual words.
"Rhythm method" means, in NFP and FAM circles, blindly counting days on a calendar, and abstaining from day 7 to day 21, or whatever the rules were. That's just what it means, not "being in touch with your body's rhythms."
It's like birth control meaning something other than how one plans childbirth (whether you get an epidural, etc.).
Who's going to trust a girl who says she knows she won't get pregnant because of her mucus?
It works.
@Fritz
Yep, the relationship must have trust. But do you trust a girl to take her birth control methodically everyday continusely.....
Fritz said...
Who's going to trust a girl who says she knows she won't get pregnant because of her mucus?
Her husband.
@Fritz,
TMI if a made studies NFP with his female sexual partner, he can easily tell the position of her cervix in the act of intercourse.
Temperature tracking is exactly what the Catholics have been recommending for years.
"...he can easily tell the position of her cervix in the act of intercourse."
What's its position on Greek austerity?
Our family doctor (Catholic) told my mother (also Catholic) that 'women who practice the rhythm method are called "Mom"'. My mother had seven children (and two miscarriages).
So there is very definitely something to this, but it cuts both ways. Truly understanding these things works for female empowerment across the board.
Yep. It usually works wonders for those cases of, "we have no idea why you're infertile..."
Doug -- that's why NFP and FAM circles are so insistent that "rhythm method" means blindly using a calendar, with no personal observations other than the length of one's cycle.
I don't know why any woman would want to be on hormones in all honesty. I haven't been on hormones for 10 of the 12 years I've been married. Much, much better.
As one of my friends put it, "Yeah, when I'm on the pill it counts as two forms of birth control: the hormones and the reaction when my spouse touches me, "Ack. Did you really just touch me?"
The problem with "abstinence while fertile" (even if done exactly) is that it ignores the overwhelming human drive to have raw crazy sex while fertile.
I know an amazingly brilliant couple with three kids. Super smart engineers, both. The husband tells me he has only had unprotected sex three times in his life. It is amazing what happens when you are on a beach vacation with your wife and she is fertile and you're both drinking wine...
Its the new model of the Smart Body.
The reproductive system could be wired with temperature sensors, cameras, microphones, humidity sensors, vibration sensors, and more in order to provide people with information about what's going on down there.
Students could determine whether their professors were on the rag, or see what friends were available for a hook up.
+1 for the raw crazy sex. My wife is on the pill, but it still seems like she goes through similar cycles. I know what days she should be fertile, and sure enough . . .
The symptoms-based version of natural family planning is over 99% effective, according to one study published in the Oxford Journal of Human Reproduction.
And the Catholic Church approves of Natural Family Planning! As Pope John Paul II wrote, "the natural regulation of fertility can be correctly understood and authentically lived as the proper expression of a real and mutual communion of love and life."
@Mark
Yeah.
I rather be fertile and be frustrated with desire to be with my husband, then chemically neutralize and render my sex drive as DOA and have no desire to have sex despite being on contraception.
Trade offs.
To say it's not the rhythm method is to choose to define the term narrowly. I choose the broader definition because it makes sense when talking about relying on the woman's natural cycle rather than any device or pill or spermicide.
@ Coupe???
Oh please explain... I'm curious.
You may "choose the broader definition," but you are choosing to be inaccurate.
I never understood why the Catholic Church forbade birth control and then encouraged the rhythm method, which is simply another form of birth control.
To say it's not the rhythm method is to choose to define the term narrowly. I choose the broader definition because it makes sense when talking about relying on the woman's natural cycle rather than any device or pill or spermicide.
It is not a matter of narrow or broad definition. They are different methods, with different definitions. The term you are looking for is natural family planning. Both the rhythm method and fertility awareness are types of NFP.
It makes no sense to refer to fertility awareness as the rhythm method just because it relies on the woman's natural cycle. Rhythm refers not just to the cycling, but to the predictable timing of the cycle. The rhythm method does depend on this, fertility awareness does not.
Because it isn't a restriction on "being open to life." Declining to participate in sex at a time of fertility is not the same thing as participating in sex while fertile and artificially preventing the consummation of that sexual act, i.e. pregnancy.
Not participating =/= to participating and preventing the logical consequence of participation.
This isn't a hard thing to understand.
One is taking chemicals to affect your sexuality, and the other is keeping your sexuality in good health. And if a condom is going to fail, it will fail in the fertile phase.
Yes, the pill is "poison" not medicine. Women are suppose to ovulate.
And no I won't put a foriegn object in my body. (IUD/Implants). I lose complete control. At least I can stop the Pill, at will, without being dependant on the doctor.
NFP is work, and in fact, despite my love of it, it might not be right for all women
But if we could halve the # of woman using contraception, by having girls chart from the start it would KILL the pharmaceutical companies.
NFP would KILL the market.
Calling this the "rhythm method" is inaccurate because there was a counting method that was used and promoted for decades which was not very effective (apropos of the remarks by the physician in Doug's anecdote.)
So there's the specific meaning, or branding, that went along with that method, and a need to differentiate this more efficacious method.
There's also the fact that some women's cycles don't follow any discernible rhythm- either throughout their lives or at certain stages. So in those cases, there is no pattern, just symptoms that can be noted to correlate with ovulation.
And yes, it works. I was thinking of it when I read that thread about vaginal odors the other day, with respect to the comments about what is taught in sex ed. It's unconscionable that girls are not taught that there is a natural way to avoid pregnancy, or even that there is a way to monitor their body's changes in order to achieve pregnancy when it is desired.
Really Coupe? Where does it say that?
"Really Coupe? Where does it say that?"
You have to be able to hear the dog whistles.
@Ignorance,
Who's going to trust a girl who says she knows she won't get pregnant because of her mucus?
Her future husband.
FIFY.
Lol. Well played, Hagar
Pulling out works. Sperm presence in pre-ejaculate fluid is low, and the fluid volume is quite low. Many men lack the self control to do so, but those who have that control find it highly effective.
It can be unsatisfying though. The feeling of ejaculation in a warm place is indescribable.
If one's wife is willing to develop gag control, one can pull out but still end up with that indescribable feeling.
One's wife may need good abs to be able to sit up so fast. This can also be developed, over time,and (good) sex can help with that.
I am not Laslo.
In high school, we were forced to march if we wanted to participate in any of the other musical organisations, aside from chorus. We were so half-hearted about it that we'd often place last in various competitions, though on one occasion we did come in second-last place because another band didn't show up. I just remember our director, in frustration, yelling at us to never try using the Rhythm Method, as we'd all end up having a half dozen kids each (guys included, we were that bad).
Though Cath-o-lic, never learned the mechanics of this method of birth control / fertility management until being placed with a Hippie Catholic family living on the side of an Alp my junior year of college. It seemed to work well for Mme Josette, who spaced the production of three very smart and handsome boys with surprising precision.
I've used it as a method to conceive, though not as a way to avoid pregnancy. It's probably close to 100% accurate if you do it properly. And for the record I own no patchouli.
Rhythm method ineffective??
White people can't dance either.
It's said that the term "rhythm and blues" for mournful music involving lost love derives from black women who failed at the Rhythm Method, only to see their men flee taking responsibility.
(that's my story, and etc.)
Insisting on calling the calendar method and the sympto-thermal method by the same name is like insisting that taking garlic is the same as taking prescribed amoxicillin because they both have antibiotic properties. Both practices fall under the same umbrella, but are not at all the same thing.
The Marquette Method - - http://nfp.marquette.edu
We have been using this method since 2002. We have a 12 year old, our youngest. We are very happy to be parents. "Sometimes moderation is turned on" in this comments section. It is possible to use 'moderation' and 'turned on' in the same sentence. BTW I don't care what you call it, it works.
Coupe - you are wrong. The Catholic Church is all for sex all the time between a married man and woman. They are just against artificial birth control and abortion.
Renee and Birches - for the record, I never had an issue with sex drive on the pill. In fact, my drive was sky high. I have friends who never used anything but barrier methods and were not interested in sex after kids (they just have sex out of obligation to their husbands). I have always wondered if that was because their husbands were lousy in bed/lack of orgasm.
Also, the pill helped me with some other issues. I was no longer throwing up a few times a day and passing out (runs in the family) if I got up too fast when I got my period. That went away in my 30s and I didn't go back on it, but whew I was grateful. Now I use a weekly a patch with .015 a day of estrogen (much lower hormones than the pill) because the 4 times an hour all day all night hot flashes had me exhausted to the point I worried about falling a sleep behind the wheel. 3 days in I had my first full nights sleep in 6months. A miracle.
Just FYI.
A friend went through IVF with her second husband, with whom she discovered she was infertile.
I asked what kind of birth control she had used with her first husband.
"Rhythm," she said.
"You used rhythm for six years, never got pregnant, and never thought there was a problem?" I asked.
She laughed. "We thought we were really good at it."
Sixteen and a half years married. Nothing but NFP. Zero unplanned pregnancies. Five planned pregnancies, all within 2 cycles.
Count me a satisfied customer.
The issue is more with the headline from The Atlantic. A "return" does not imply a development so much as something coming back in more or less the same form. I can see why Annis wouldn't want to use the term rhythm method, since it probably implies to the less-informed the less-effective method as it was decades ago.
It's also easy to see why the pharmaceutical industry would like to pan this method, since it would love people to believe that preventing childbirth requires buying billions of dollars a year of their products, which curiously enough fail at significant enough rates as to lead to millions of abortions a year, profiting the abortion providers and leading to more R&D funding for the elusive better contraceptive - which itself seems often enough to end up in a class action lawsuit.
All things considered, assuming this method is effective, isn't this the ideal means? A method that doesn't cost anything beside some doctor visits, doesn't require any pills or alterations to body chemistry, nor implanting any devices.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/science/colorados-push-against-teenage-pregnancies-is-a-startling-success.html
"I never understood...simply..." and me neither.
The morality must be met with equal proportions of concern for victims and prevention of future such.
In addition peehaps the most moral of all, concerning this shit world we inhabit: allowing free men to decide their own fate.
That we are failures nearly complete, like something I just read at NRO by Williamson (I think) enunciates somewhat clearly, doesn't mean doom (fuck off Hardin) but precisely the opposite: Catholic appreciation for our Capitalism and many, many "God bless their hearts" for the Leftists Catholic or not.
The greatest deficit spender in the history of the world, Republican Speaker of The House Representative John Boehner (OH) will claim complete impotence.
He had no control over anything: that darn media and Obama.
Hence proving Obama correct for four decades henceforth that the GOP is racist and treated Obama differently than they (the racist GOP) would have treated a white POTUS.
Your GOP brought you these budgets with all their impotence.
Like handing Teddy Kennedy educational indoctrination on scales brains can't comprehend no matter the data presented, given the White House in 2016 the GOP would run to Chuck Schumer to know what they need to focus on and deliver for those who matter.
"But if we could halve the # of woman using contraception, by having girls chart from the start it would KILL the pharmaceutical companies. "
Now there are apps for that, to automate the charting on your smartphone. For example:
http://tinyurl.com/d8rgwdw
That makes it easier for women on travel to continue charting wherever they go.
Thirty years ago, the watching of one's mucus was called The Billings Method. It was taught in places where access to chemical birth control was unavailable. It is 100% effective if followed. My ob/gyn told me about when I mentioned not wanting to ingest chemicals.
I've used it to get pregnant and to avoid getting pregnant. I discovered many of my friends used it too. Though one friend went on the pill because her husband was too much of a dick to do without for several days and refused to wear a condom. She then had to go off the pill because she developed blood clots.
It is not the rythym method. Anyone familiar with NFP knows the one is not like the other.
Ignorance is Bliss @12:18
In other words, you were luckier than shit. Assuming you were using any of this as birth control to avoid pregnancy.
Why are this thread and the one on Oregon's misguided gender reassignment nonsense so 'feast of reason, flow of soul'-like compared to so many others, that seem to resolve themselves into bickering and name-calling? or is this just my imagination?
No, in other words my experience was well in line with expectations for a couple carefully practicing fertility awareness.
Where exactly are you getting your (mis)information about the efficacy of fertility awareness?
NFP is fine, as long as the girl is willing to take it in the ass or suck dick on those critical days. Just saying....Or, of course, polygamy!
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