Effectiveness of Natural Family Planning/Maggie Gallagher

For all methods of preventing pregnancy, a. motivation of the user is the best predictor of efficacy and b. actual use rate failures are much higher than theoretical effectiveness rates. With a little push I can tell you how many 20 year olds using diaphragms get pregnant in the first year of contraceptive use. It isn't small.

Personally, (although anecdote is not data) I used NFP for 8 years without a failure. Of course I wasn't a love struck teenager. Maggie

This is from the Georgetown Institute for Reproductive Health:

"Couples who use natural methods correctly to prevent pregnancy have only a 1% to 9% chance of becoming pregnant during one year of use, depending on which method they use.

Couples who do not use their method correctly—that is, they have intercourse on days when the method's guidelines tell them that the woman is fertile—-have a much greater chance of unintended pregnancy.

The following is the probability of pregnancy for women using natural methods:

Standard Days Method
During the first year of use, the probability of pregnancy is about 5%. During typical use, i.e., using the method correctly during some cycles but having unprotected intercourse during the woman's fertile time in other cycles, the probability of pregnancy is about 12%

BBT Method
Among perfect users, the first-year probability of pregnancy is only about 2%. During typical use the probability of pregnancy is about 20%.

The Ovulation Method
The first-year probability of pregnancy for methods based on using only cervical secretions to identify the beginning and end of the fertile time is about 3% among perfect users and 20% among typical users.

Symptothermal Method
The first-year probability of pregnancy among couples who use two or more fertility indicators are about 2% to 3% among perfect users and as high as 13% to 20 % among typical users. . ."
posted by maggie at 4:11 PM | link

1 Comments:

At 4/27/2006 8:36 PM,  Chairm said...

These methods have other benefits that artificial contraceptives do not.

1. Greater integration of the sexes as they must cooperate to achieve their common purpose. They must daily encounter their differences, embraces those differences, and behave as a united pair. The sexes are not so much in opposition as in cahoots together.

Granted, some people might see that as THE biggest negative, a threat to individual autonomy, instead of as THE biggest positive, a boost to the community of family.

2. The health of the woman (and in related means the health of the man) is monitored closely for other things. This is helpful throughout a lifetime of physical maturation.

3. It provides for true family planning because it also helps the man and woman to plan for children. Not just to avoid childbearing. It can be used in a more complete approach to fertility problems, as well.

And third benefit, at the societal level, is the demystifying of what is discernible in our human physiology and basic biology.

These 3 points about these methods demonstrate the centrality of the marriage idea, as per Maggie's formulation. The way I put it, however, is that the purpose of marriage -- at the societal level of recognizing the social institution and supporting that institution -- is the integration of man and woman combined with the promotion of responsible parenthood.

 

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