Fertility awareness involves education about the menstrual cycle and its relationship to reproductive health. Couples are better able to understand when pregnancy is most likely to occur and how contraceptive methods affect women's menstrual cycles, and they are better prepared to recognize changes that may indicate health problems, such as sexually transmitted diseases.
In this issue
Fertility Awareness Benefits Couples
- Helping clients understand the basic reproductive process enhances quality of care.
The Menstrual Cycle
- The menstrual cycle, about 28 days, varies from woman to woman, and can vary during a woman's life.
Fertility Awareness Affects Method Use
- Couples who understand a woman's fertile cycle are likely to be better prepared to use any type of contraceptive, including modern methods.
Traditional Beliefs Part of People's Lives
- Providers can use their knowledge of local fertility practices and beliefs to promote contraception.
Contraceptive Update: Research Confirms LAM's Effectiveness
- Recent research confirms that a form of breastfeeding to achieve contraception, called the lactational amenorrhea method or LAM, is more than 98 percent effective during the six months following delivery.
Using LAM Correctly
- To use lactational amenorrhea correctly, a woman must meet three criteria.
Contraceptive Update: Withdrawal Popular in Some Cultures
- The withdrawal method of family planning is a male-controlled method that is widely used in some countries, but has not been rigorously studied by science.
Contraceptive Update: NFP Offers User-Control, But Requires Discipline
- Natural family planning (NFP) requires couples to avoid intercourse when a woman is ovulating.
NFP Techniques
- Couples who want to use natural family planning (NFP) may use one or more of several techniques to identify the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle.
Client Training Vital for NFP
- Effective use of natural family planning (NFP) requires both skill and motivation by a couple, which means adequate counseling and training must be available.
Opinion: Fertility Awareness and Natural Family Planning
- An opinion article by Virginia Lamprecht of Georgetown University Medical Center and Cecilia Pyper of Oxford University discusses the advantages of fertility awareness, with an emphasis on how this awareness relates to natural family planning.
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