Baby Steps

I was very excited to see the article "Natural Methods Offer Pill Alternative" in Sunday's Salt Lake Tribune. I'm a big fan of Natural Family Planning (NFP) and it's always exciting to see something positive about it in print. However, after reading the article I was disappointed with the information presented.

The insert "Natural Family Planning: How it works" presents CycleBeads as THE method of NFP. Actually, this is probably the least effective method of NFP available, being only slightly better than the old "rhythm method". And though the other, more effective methods are mentioned in the article, no details are given on how they work or where to find more info about them.

I am glad that, at least in Utah, health care professionals are beginning to take more notice of NFP, even if they are still woefully uninformed. At least they are willing to re-examine their ideas about why women don't use hormonal birth control and are willing to offer alternatives. As mentioned in the article, NFP isn't a good sell for pharmaceutical companies! The companies who do support NFP don't have the commercial clout of pharmaceutical companies, so they get drowned out by ads for hormonal birth control.

I hope that the trend started here will continue, and hopefully grow to embrace more effective methods of NFP as well. Though a small step, it is a step in the right direction!

For more information on other methods of NFP see these websites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_awareness
http://www.creightonmodel.com/
http://ccli.org/
http://www.woomb.org/

Naturally,
Alberta