What is Natural Family Planning?
Natural Family Planning is a natural way to postpone or achieve pregnancy. It
has been proven to be 99% effective in postponing pregnancy... a method also
used with considerable success by couples trying to conceive—even when they’ve
previously had difficulty achieving a pregnancy.
Advantages of NFP
Because NFP is 100% natural, it is 100% safe and has no health risks. It
involves no potentially harmful birth control drugs or devices.
Because NFP teaches you to become aware of your normal fertility pattern,
changes in this pattern can alert you to possible medical problems.
It’s 99% effective in postponing pregnancy—the same effectiveness range as the
Pill or Norplant and more effective than devices, creams, and other unnatural
methods.
NFP costs significantly less than other forms of birth control. Once you learn
it, there are no continuing costs.
You just change your timing. There’s no waiting period. And there’s been no
damage to your fertility—as can happen with the use of some unnatural methods.
Most couples report that NFP has a positive effect on their marriages. They find
that periodic abstinence helps keep their relationship fresh, improves their
communication, and gives them a deeper respect for each other. Couples also like
having a morally consistent message to give their children about sexuality.
All major religious bodies including the Catholic Church accept the use of NFP
by married couples when there is a sufficiently serious reason to postpone
pregnancy. The Catholic Church clearly teaches that it is wrong to use unnatural
methods of birth control. In addition, birth control drugs (Pill, implants,
shots) and the IUD can cause very early abortions.
Modern NFP is not the rhythm method. The Calendar Rhythm Method was developed in
1930 and was based on some biological averages, but it did not work well for
women who had irregular cycles. Calendar Rhythm was the 1930s model of NFP;
tremendous progress has been made since then.
Modern NFP assumes that every woman is irregular at least some of the time.
Therefore, NFP can still be used effectively if you have irregular cycles. In
general, if your fertile time comes earlier or later than usual, you will know
it because your fertility signs will come earlier or later.
After learning NFP you will become aware of the most fertile days in your cycle,
allowing you to maximize your mutual fertility. In addition, your charted cycles
may reveal cetain patterns that can reduce fertility and that you can sometimes
correct simply by better health practices. NFP helps many low-fertility couples
to achieve pregnancy. If you do need medical assistance, your charts can provide
valuable information to a knowledgeable physician.
The world’s oldest form of birth regulation is breastfeeding, and it does space
babies when it follows the norms of nature. We call this “ecological”
breastfeeding to distinguish it from “cultural” breastfeeding (that has almost
no effect on fertility). With ecological breastfeeding, your baby stays close,
and you nurse frequently. You eliminate the need for pacifiers, supplemental
formulas, and early solids. You nurse your baby without a rigid schedule.
Studies show that with ecological breastfeeding, women commonly experience
between 9 and 20 months of postpartum infertility, with the average being 14 ½
months without menstruation. For mothers doing cultural nursing and
bottlefeeding mothers, fertility often returns by the third month after
childbirth.
You probably are not looking into NFP out of a desire to improve your marital
relationship. However, if you are going to practice NFP harmoniously, you’ll
soon find that you need to communicate more fully and creatively with each
other. You’ll learn not to ignore each other at times when you choose to
postpone the marriage act. Rather, you’ll develop other ways of expressing your
love and affection.
Sexual self-mastery helps build the marital relationship, and therefore you’re
likely to find that NFP has a positive effect on your marriage. You’ll find that
periodic abstinence helps keep your sexual relationship fresh, improves your
communication, and deepens your respect for each other.
Through self-mastery, you control your sexual drives (instead of just being
driven by them). With self-mastery,you can more freely give yourself in the
marriage act. Thus it becomes more the renewal of your marriage covenant that
you and God want it to be.
For inner peace and for family happiness, you should let God reign in your heart
and in your marriage. That’s what chaste and generous NFP is all
about—respecting God’s order of creation, letting God be God in our personal
lives.
NFP couples have an extremely low divorce rate. No wonder. The practice of NFP
helps to develop the strength of character necessary for marital fidelity and
lifelong marriage. Couples who respect God’s order of creation will enjoy His
blessings.
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