Natural Family Planning - North Hollywood,CA

The only down side we had was that we would use condoms on fertile days. Well, condom broke and i got pregnant, but I knew I was fertile so I took that risk.

My husband and I use the rhythm method. We basically don't have sex when I'm ovulating. If you know your cycles really well, this can work for you. It's worked for us for almost 4 1/2 years. Good luck. :-)

Hi D.:
You know....You'd think after hundreds of years and all the advanced technology in today's world,they could have come up with a decent birth control for women by now. Sure,natural family planning works. About as good as a condom with a million pin holes in it. lol. You think the side effects of the pill are crummy,wait till you get a load of the side effects when somebody slips up. I'd research all the different rinky-dink contraptions they have to offer,then do a rock,paper, scissors to decide. I wish you the best. J. M

Hi D., my husband and I used the pulling out method, we have 3 children all planned, and been pulling out the past 19 years, with great sucess. There's away to do this and your husband still getting full benifits, I don't want to get graphic over the mamasource. J.

Well there are a lot of benefits from natural family planning!
1. you and your husband are involved with your body and understanding the signs of how your body works monthly
2. In my opinion are bodies are meant to be drug free!
The down sides are this:

Not everyone's body is regular! Most women do not get their periods the same time every month and don't ovulate at the same time! You have to know EXACTLY what your last period, temperature, ovulation and signs are do have NFP work! If someone say it is easy then they aren't doing it right! It will be easy eventually but not when you are starting! I had my 2nd and 3rd baby doing NFP and they were not planned! They are the best accidents in the world:) So really know what you are doing first before you start so that you don't have a baby until you are ready!
E.

When I was in nursing school, one of the lectures was on birth control methods and they discussed natural family planning. I'll never forget the lecturer's comments: "The people who use natural family planning have a special name: PARENTS." I did use natural family planning when I wanted to GET pregnant but I have a number of friends who got pregnant when they were LEAST likely to according to their charts (actually during the final phases of their period) so I am not comfortable recommending it as a form of birth control. If you are interested in giving it a try, you need to be 110% vigilant with your charting and be willing to face the possibility that it might not be successful.

What about the good ole diaphragm? Worked for me (as long as I used it) and was not uncomfortable!

I've used NFP for the past 8 years with my hubby. It's worked for us in not getting pregnant and also worked for us in trying to conceive. We got pregnant on the first try with both of our girls. It is very empowering, knowing your body so well. It makes you very aware of your self and that can help in so many other ways. But let me add that I have always been very regular. I don't even do the basal temperature checks, i basically just go off of a calendar and monitor my cervical mucus. If you are not very regular, i would use a back-up method (condom, pull-out, diaphram, etc.) I wasn't comfortable with the synethic hormones in birth control. The NFP method just feels very right to me.

I am 80 years old...had 4 children and 1 miscarriage. In those days, we didn't even know what family planning was either you did without sex if you didn't want anymore childen or used condums or diaphragms none of which was guaranteed. I think you young people miss a lot and cause yourself a lot of stress by trying to plan a family...why not just let whatever happens, happen. To me all your lives are so full of stress...being surprised was much more fun and sometimes a lot more work, but you took it in stride and prayed for strength. I started out wanting 10 children, but after number 4 my husband got snipped. Never had any bad effects on him and it is much easier on a man than a woman. All the answers I read are good and I'm sure getting to know your own body is like one of the girls said "empowering"...God Bless you and your family.

I have a friend who tried natural family planning and ended up getting pregnant 3 months before her wedding.

My sister also got pregnant during a time she supposedly wasn't ovulating and also used a condom. She wanted to have a second child, but it was sooner than she had planned.

So, I don't think natural family planning is very effective. But I suppose if you are ok with the possibility of getting pregnant again, you could use this method.

I agree that the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility is a MUST HAVE! They also have a software program that goes with it that I've used. I like it because it graphs everything and makes it a little easier for me. I just looked for trends when I was doing it, but obviously if you want it to be 100% effective you have to do it perfectly. Another resource would be homeopathic teachers. Many people do classes on natural family planning so that you can be truly informed and educated. I'm in the same boat as you for sure!!

It works very well for us; haven't been pregnant in six years and all my kids were planned. Pros are it's all natural, nothing needs to be taken or inserted or whatever. No hormones. Cons are you have to chart your basal temp. daily (first thing in the morning before you get out of bed) and watch your CM. Until you establish a pattern, wait until you know you're not fertile before having sex.

There was a book called "Making Love Makes Babies" that I used when I was doing this.There were others too, but I can't remember the titles. Oh! I just remembered, there are two, by an OBGYN called Sheldon something, one is called "How to get Pregnant" and one is called "How NOT to get pregnant." You need to get a legal size pad of tiny graph paper (10 squares to an inch), then you can fit a whole year of "period" records on one sheet. That is how I figured out I was going through menopause, looking at it after the year was over. I had spend an entire year thinking I was pregnant for a week, every other month, until I recognized the pattern.
I used to keep it under the bed. You will need a good quality basal body temp. thermomerter. It will be about $15 or so, maybe more by now. It needs to measure tenths of a degree. Then you take your BBT (basal body temp) every morning before you get out of bed, have coffee or water, or wiggle around much. I can't remember the details, (when exactly the temperature rise occurs) but with this record you can easily see when you are ovulating each month. You record the temperature each day before getting out of bed, and also record your periods. Then you just don't have sex when you are ovulating. It's as simple as that, and it's fairly foolproof. There are certain days of the month that are "absolutely safe", and certain days that are "fairly safe", you'll have to consult the books for those. We never found it hard to abstain during the dangerous times, kind of made it more exciting. Good luck!

I just wanted to chime in because I have recently started the ovulation method. It seems to be very effective if you follow the "rules" precisely. I went to a class to learn about it. If you need information about taking a class or getting informational materials, let me know and I can talk to my instructor. I'm a little nervous about this myself, but I don't want all the side effects from the pill. My husband is ready to go get snipped, but there are effects from that, too, though popularly it is believed to have no harmful results.

Good luck!

NFP is great...if you want to get pregnant or "live on the edge." Try an IUD. I had one between #2 and 3 and it worked great! No hormones, no "pulling out" (yuke!) no thinking about birth control ever! When I wanted to try for my third, my GYN just took it out at my annual visit and told me I could get pregnant the next month! I was trying for a girl and did everything I was supposed to do. We stopped having sex on the 12th day because for the previous six months I ovulated like clockwork on the 14th day. Well, one month we had sex on the morning of the 12th day. Later that day I felt myself ovulate!!! I knew right then that I would have another boy, which I did. NFP is great to learn about the rhythms of your body, but it is not a guarantee. With the IUD you can still follow your natural rhythms because there are no hormones (depending on the one you choose). Then you are prepared for when you do decided to get pregnant. After #3, though, I just got my tubes tied. Gotta quit while I am 0 for 3!

my hubby and i did natural family planning and it worked great for a few years. but we still wanted to have kids so it wouldnt have bothered us to get pregnant, we werent trying though. my period was very regular and i think that helped a lot.
but now i am very serious about no more babies after my current pregnancy (fourth one) so i am going to get non-hormone birth control, its safer for your body and work just as well as the regular kind.

I used natural family planning after my 2nd child was born. We used it for over a yr when we decided to have another baby. It worked great and also helped in planning for the 3rd. We then used it for 2 more yrs after our youngest was born and I love it. I didn't even do the whole temperature routine. I used, mymonthlycyle.com to track my cycle and it told me the most fertile times we should avoid. I also used the observation methods. We really loved NFP.