Family Planning and Fertility Care
This is not your mother's rhythm method...
Fertility awareness-based methods of family planning, also known as natural family planning or fertility appreciation, enable family planning without hormones or barriers. At MyCatholicDoctor, our team of fertility awareness educators and specialized physicians teach many different methods of family planning to educate and support you.
Your body sends you many different signs and signals of the status of your fertility. By working with an instructor, you can understand what your body is trying to tell you and make adjustments as needed for your health.
The more information you have, the more knowledgeable you are about your health in general. Remember that God stewards our bodies to us. It is up to us to use the gift of health to continue to spread his goodness and word.
Fertility Awareness-based methods of family planning are also known as Natural Family Planning (NFP)
Fertility Awareness is for everyone! Single, engaged, married – it is never too late to begin to understand more about your body. Charting your cycle and understanding your fertility is the responsibility of every woman, whether you are planning for a pregnancy or not. The good news is that charting your cycle doesn’t have to be difficult. With anything new in life we learn, it takes time to understand, but once you understand the fundamentals, you will be equipped with the knowledge to take on your fertility as you move forward.
Fertility awareness methods use biomarkers such as cervical mucus, temperature, or hormonal testing (such as LH, estrogen and progesterone) to track fertile and infertile times during your menstrual cycle or to use as a tool to diagnose menstrual abnormalities. These are natural ways to monitor your cycle, have no medication side effects, and work with the woman’s body to understand her fertility.
- Cervical mucus can be charted through visual observations and a physical examination. Changes in cervical mucus reflect the hormonal changes that women experience during their menstrual cycle.
- Basal body temperature is increased when rising progesterone can be detected after ovulation.
- Short, regular, and long cycle days can be indicative of something not totally right in the cycle.
There are so many options. Where do I begin?
The most important thing is to choose a model that is right for you and fits your lifestyle. Our providers can work with you to find the right model to start with. If you find the method you chose just doesn’t work for you, don’t be discouraged. There are many different methods and we encourage you to explore another method that is right for you.
Starting by filling out our contact form and we will help you in deciding what method works best for you and your spouse.
About The Different Methods
Creighton Model
The Creighton Model (CrM) is a natural method of family planning based on a woman’s observations of her cervical fluid or mucus
FEMM
FEMM is another type of Restorative Reproductive Medicine, and stands for Fertility Education and Medical Management. It is a specific way to treat reproductive and endocrine disorders in women’s reproductive abnormalities and includes specific approaches to diagnosis and treatment of the underlying condition.
SymptoThermal Method
The Sympto-Thermal Method (STM) is a natural and healthy fertility awareness based method (FABM) of family planning that makes use of a woman’s observations of her cervical fluid, basal body temperature (waking temperature) and other biological signs (e.g., changes in the cervix) in order to identify the fertile and infertile times of her cycle.
Boston Cross Check Method
As one of the first methods of natural fertility awareness to utilize the three major signs of fertility, with a choice of at-home hormonal monitoring, cervical fluid, and temperature tracking, BCC is an ideal choice for women looking to blend the tried and true with the latest technology!
Billings Ovulation Method
The Billings Ovulation Method® (BOM) is a natural or fertility awareness based method (FABM) of family
planning, based on a woman’s observations of her cervical mucus or fluid. Research shows that this is a reliable signal because the cervical secretion is essential for a woman’s fertility. By learning to identify the mucus patterns that indicate infertility and fertility, she will know when pregnancy is possible.
Marquette Model
The Marquette Model uses an electronic fertility monitor, a device a woman uses at home to measures hormone levels in her urine to estimate the beginning and end of the fertile time in a women’s cycle. The information from the monitor can be used with observations of cervical fluid, basal body temperature, or other biological indicators of
fertility.
Mira Natural Family Planning
While signs like temperature and cervical mucus changes are recorded daily on an NFP chart, women can detect and include the identification of fertile hormones by using a digital fertility tracker such as the Mira Fertility Plus.