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Preventing (Or Facilitating) Pregnancy Through Natural Family Planning

12 January 2015 by Julia Gregory

Whether you're currently trying to avoid becoming pregnant, or wish to begin trying to conceive a child, relying on natural ways to track your fertility can help you achieve your goals without the use of drugs or artificial hormones. However, the natural family planning method still has a bit of a learning curve for most individuals. Here is how you and your partner can use this method to achieve your fertility goals. 

What is natural family planning?

Unlike other birth control methods, which generally use either a barrier to prevent sperm from reaching the egg, or hormonal manipulation to prevent the egg from being fertilized, natural family planning involves reading the female body's rhythms to determine peak fertility times. If your intent is to prevent pregnancy, you will avoid sexual intercourse or use a barrier method during these peak times. If you are trying to conceive, you should coordinate your sexual intercourse to correspond with these fertile times. 

How can you determine when a female is fertile?

Although every body is different, there are a few telltale signs that indicate when a woman is beginning to become fertile, as well as other signs that show that month's fertile period has passed. The most common ways to chart your fertility are taking your basal temperature and charting your cervical mucus.

• Basal temperature

Although you may not be aware of having a higher than normal temperature unless you have a fever, each month the female body goes through a period of fluctuating internal temperatures as it prepares to release an egg through the fallopian tubes. This process will cause your core temperature to rise for several days in a row, then drop dramatically once the egg has been released.

Even though this rise in temperature is consistent among nearly all fertile women, the actual extent to which your own temperature will rise entirely depends on your body. For this reason, it is important to chart your temperature for a month or two to determine baseline levels before relying on temperature as an indication you are entering a fertile period. 

To accurately chart your basal temperature, you should test your temperature at approximately the same time each day. Doing so just after you wake up, before you have a chance to move around, is generally most accurate.

• Cervical mucus

Checking the condition and consistency of your cervical mucus can also indicate when you're entering a fertile period. Most of the month, your cervical mucus will be clear and somewhat slippery. However, when you are becoming fertile, your mucus will take on more of an eggwhite color and have a somewhat thicker consistency. When you see this mucus, know that unprotected sex at this time could lead to pregnancy. For more information, contact an expert like Abortion Care.

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