Is Natural Fertility Awareness Right for You?
When used correctly, Natural Fertility Awareness Methods (FAM) can help you understand and know your body and your cycle. This gives you the ability to understand your fertility and how that impacts on your well being. We are influenced from an early age to see our fertility as an inconvenience to be controlled.
By embracing your fertility and knowing your own cycle you can work in harmony to become pregnant or delay pregnancy naturally. No need for hormone-based medication or invasive implants, no side effects like weight gain, acne or mood swings - just you, managing your fertility in a natural way.
You may well have many questions about Fertility Awareness Methods. That’s good because this is all about empowering you to make informed choices. It is very important to find out as much as you can before you decide.
I’ve gone over a few FAQs below that you will hopefully find useful:
How can Fertility Awareness Methods help me?
The main thing is getting to know your own cycle and learning to understand it and use that for your own fertility well being. Often when asking a new client the length of their cycle they say 28 days as it's considered ‘normal’. Once commencing tracking they learn they actually have a perfectly acceptable cycle of a different length and enjoy getting to know their own personal cycle. If you have irregular periods tracking can help you to be more in control and also help you detect if you need to seek further help.
Why should you consider FAM?
More and more we are looking at what we put into our bodies. We are changing how we eat, what skin care and cosmetics we use and what we expose ourselves to through cleaning products and environmental toxins. It makes sense then to look at Natural Fertility Awareness to keep your cycle natural. All our body systems have effects on each other. How we control our fertility can have knock on effects too.
Who can use FAM?
Anyone who has periods can use FAM but I’ve broken down the different ways and reasons people normally use it below:
Women trying to get pregnant
People that want to avoid pregnancy but don’t want to use hormonal medication or invasive devices
Women wanting to come off medication, device or hormone based birth control.
People who want to understand their fertility and cycle
Women who have irregular cycles who are trying to establish a pattern
People approaching or going through menopause who want to track their fertility naturally
Mothers who are breastfeeding who want to track the return of their cycles and monitor their fertility
Are Natural Fertility Awareness Methods reliable?
There are a few different methods you can use when following Natural Fertility. I teach the sympto thermal method which is up to 99% effective according to the NHS when followed correctly.*
How do I explain Natural Fertility to my partner?
If you have a regular partner it's good to discuss with them about FAM’s. It may well be that you want them with you for your early appointments to learn all about it. In the early days of tracking, we can’t be sure of fertile periods. You both need to think about how you will manage those times when you may be fertile. I can help you with these discussions. The times of fertility can raise a challenge for some couples who don't want to use barrier methods during the fertile window. However, it has been said that working together as a couple to make these decisions can really strengthen communication.
I’m trying for a baby, can FAM help?
Couples wishing to have a baby often find this helps them in a non invasive way. There’s no rush to action depending on a test stick. Let's look at what we can do to optimise chances of conception in a calmer and less forced way.
I’ve just given birth and don’t want to get pregnant again?
That 6-week check after giving birth can be overwhelming. The lack of sleep, the need to still recover and the emotions running wild can make it hard to make informed decisions about birth control. Taking time before the birth to learn about natural methods can help you make your choice and be prepared.
Can I get pregnant when breastfeeding?
Yes you can get pregnant when breastfeeding. However, by learning about how the body works at this special time you can still manage your fertility naturally. Check out my blog on breastfeeding to find out more.
Why can’t I just use an app?
There are a number of different apps available that help women track and predict their cycle. But these apps are algorithm-based and only count days, not fertility signs and are therefore only useful period trackers for women who have regular cycles and they have a 25% failure rate when used to track your fertility.
Some apps do include temperature tracking but they can’t make adjustments for mitigating factors such as stress, alcohol and lack of sleep and because of this, temperature tracking apps are only 93% effective when used correctly as a natural method of birth control.
FAM sounds complicated, I’m not sure I can do it?
Some women feel it all seems too much to take in when the option is there to just take a daily pill or get an IUD. I often think we are becoming so careful about what we eat, what skin products or cleaning products we use. We are becoming more aware of how natural ways are so much better for us. It, therefore, amazes me more women have not heard much about natural fertility awareness.
Got another question?
If you have questions or want to try FAM then the best thing to do is to seek advice from a qualified professional like me!
There are many apps and so much information around but you need to work this out tailored for you and your cycle. A trained practitioner like me can help you learn and become proficient in monitoring your own cycle and using that information to enhance your health wellbeing and to manage your fertility.
If you think you might want to use FAM, aren’t sure of the next steps or if you have any questions, you can always send me an email to mary@naturalfertilitynurse.com and I’ll reply with any advice and tips I can offer.
