Natural family planning

This afternoon we took a walk out in the sunshine and crossed the highway to pick up a local Saturday paper.  It included a section from The New York Times.  One of the headline articles talked about the struggles of Venezuelan women to access family planning, set against a backdrop of struggling to feed the children they already have.  It talked about the prohibitive cost of birth control, which could be several times that of a month’s wages.  While it may not be the answer in all circumstances, much of the suffering these women face could be relieved with training in the methods of natural family planning.

It frustrates me that there is a lack of education and promotion of natural family planning methods.  So much suffering could be relieved with some basic healthcare training and inexpensive equipment.  There are different methods of natural family planning and it is not my intention to discuss them all in this post, but the sympto-thermal method is one that, when used correctly, is as effective as the birth control pill at preventing pregnancy.  The cost, however, is much lower than pills.  The article I read stated that birth control pills in Venezuela cost roughly $11 a month.  To compare, my lifetime cost – about thirty years – for natural family planning was about $50, total.  That fifty dollars included an initial cost of $25 for a basal body thermometer and a stack of photocopied charts, and then an additional thermometer several years later when the first one gave up the ghost.  It did not include the cost of the free healthcare training I received from a qualified professional courtesy of my provincial OHIP plan, but training can also be provided by experienced volunteers.  Probably the reason that natural family planning isn’t more widespread is that there is a lack of financial incentive to promote it. 

People struggling on the brink of poverty and desolation could definitely benefit from some free training and donated supplies.  Perhaps there are organizations out there that could organize efforts to teach natural family planning methods to those most desperate for help, and it wouldn’t take much to procure basal body thermometers for distribution.  As for the photocopied charts, it’s basically paper and ink, but even traditional record keeping systems such as quipus could be used by women to track their monthly cycles.  The sympto-thermal method of natural family planning is empowering in that it helps a woman understand her own body and control her fertility herself.  It does not use chemicals that cause water pollution like birth control pills, and it therefore also has fewer side effects on a woman’s body.  It is easily reversible and indeed, can even be used to achieve pregnancy when that is the desired outcome.  My husband was amazed at how accurate this method could be.  One day I told him that according to my records, I should be ovulating within the next twelve to twenty-four hours.  We then went to a fertility clinic where they used high-tech methods such as blood tests and ultrasound to assess me.  They were slightly more accurate than me and said I should be ovulating within the next eight hours.  For all practical purposes, my own observations and predictions were sufficient, but it was nice to have these confirmed by high-tech science.

I am reaching the end of my reproductive life.  The symptom-thermal method of natural family planning has been the main way in which I have avoided and achieved pregnancy for about thirty years.  I hope that my experience and expertise can be used to help other women around the globe have control over their own bodies to reach their own desired outcomes for their reproductive health.