This week I met someone new that I chatted with for a while.
When she asked me what I did, I explained to her what I do, which generally involves me saying “I teach something called fertility awareness, which means I teach women how to chart their cycles and determine exactly when they are fertile so they can use it as a natural birth control method or to help them get pregnant.”
That’s pretty much as simple as it gets!
But two things were striking about this conversation. One was that she said she uses an app to chart her cycles, pulling out her phone and showing me one of the various period tracking apps (P.S. If you want to use this method as natural birth control don’t use a period tracking app, please).
The other thing that was striking was that she said “It’s really weird that we are talking about this.”
Of course I get it, in fact, I would have said the same thing at one point in my life. The mention of periods and birth control is pretty much taboo except for with your very closest girlfriends, and even then we don’t really spend a whole lot of time on the topics (unless you are like me, in which case: Why’d we stop talking about birth control, periods, and sex ed after only 5 hours?).
You may be thinking: So, Hannah, what’s your freaking point?
Well, for as long as we have the inability to talk about birth control and periods we don’t really have a complete understanding of what we are doing, how it works, how well it works, what other people are doing, or even how people got pregnant.
The last one is particularly interesting.
Most women have incomplete knowledge of their options and poor knowledge of the actual efficacy of different birth control methods.
Obviously, when you hear about a friend or acquaintance having an unexpected pregnancy, you don’t want to ask them the specifics of what birth control they were on and how well they were using it, especially the last part.
Can you imagine how accusatory that would sound?
“You’re pregnant?! Wow, awesome/scary(/whatever). How did that happen? Oh you were on the pill? Well did you actually take your pill every day at the same time, or what?”
Not very inviting or supportive, yeah?
But without that info we end up making assumptions that aren’t true (you know what they say about assumptions ;)). Especially when it comes to two different birth control methods: withdrawal and fertility awareness.
Withdrawal happens to be somewhat popular and probably always will be, but there are a few ways that we communicate about it that makes it a problem.
First, we tend to think of it as “not a birth control method.” I have had countless people tell me they don’t use birth control at all, only to find out they use withdrawal.
I also hear that withdrawal worked perfectly, until they got pregnant. Upon further questioning it’s frequently that withdrawal didn’t happen, not that it happened but they got pregnant anyway.
With fertility awareness, it’s often that someone “used it” but didn’t learn it well or that they did learn it well but purposely took a risk on a fertile day and had unprotected intercourse anyway since they didn’t actually care that much about an unplanned pregnancy.
I’m not saying that people who use birth control methods correctly don’t get pregnant, because that certainly isn’t true, but the incidence is actually very low. You can see in this chart by the Guttmacher Institute the difference in unplanned pregnancies from those not using birth control, using it but not using it well, and using it perfectly.
We can also have a false sense of security when using a less effective form of birth control or using it incorrectly. Again, withdrawal is a common method being paired with other methods and I often see people saying they are not using condoms well or all of the time yet they haven’t gotten pregnant. Most of the time this is because they are using withdrawal all of the time.
Or using herbal birth control and saying that is why they haven’t gotten pregnant, even though they are also using withdrawal all of the time.
The real problem
If you try to have a real conversation about birth control with your doctor that generally doesn’t go well.
Most people have no idea how to read a scientific study, unless you happened to study something in the science realm in college (rare), and even then the ability to read them is often lacking.
A lot of info online and in books is outdated or unreliable (bias is a real thing).
And if you listen to your friends, chances are you don’t actually know what was going on, nor if they have good information themselves.
You can see the huge gap in knowledge in the findings of a survey by the American College of Nurse Midwives. Of all of the “birth control methods” the one that had the most women says they knew a lot about it was abstinence. That high percentage of women who knew a lot about it? 70%. It only goes down from there.
Because of all of that, it’s really important to do massive research, questioning, talking, and demanding (from your stubborn-ass doctor, who else?) to get the info you need.
Obviously you are here soaking up some of this information. Where else do you go for women’s health and birth control information? Have you found any other great sources? Let me know in the comments.
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Thank you for writing this blog. I totally agree that we all should gain fertility awareness especially women so we women can better learn how we can protect ourselves as a method of birth controls or to achieve pregnancy. So important yet many of us women are not aware of it. I felt we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about it because it is healthy for us and better for our being. I’m hoping in the future that more of us women will gain knowlegde of fertility awareness so they will know the option they can use for birthcontrol methods especially young women to prevent the risk of pregnancy. I’ll definitely recommend all women/girls to read Cycle Savvy and/or Taking control of Your Fertility or any good informative but pleasurable to read about our fertility and especially about women health. I’m deeply disappointed that the most doctors is not fully aware of women health but thanks to those who empower women and educate them about women body and health that most doctors can’t explain. Thank you.
Thanks for the comment, Lateefah. It would definitely be AMAZING to have much more knowledge available to girls as they are going through puberty. It’d be so empowering.
Interesting insights, I am curious why you don’t think women should use an app to track their periods? I do, it’s easy and great! Before I got my smart phone I couldn’t tell you when my last period was, now I have a whole database to look back on. It came in handy when I found out I was was pregnant because I new the exact day my last cycle started. I think an app is a very handy tool for women to help keep them in tune with their cycle.
I agree it’s important to discuss birth control, sex, and fertility though. We tend to shy away from these subjects as a society and they are really very important and a part of what makes us human. I love that you’re drawing attention to this.
It’s not bad to track your periods, it’s bad to try to determine when you are fertile with them.
The problem is that most period trackers also say something like “probable ovulation dates” and a lot of people try to use that as birth control. No bueno :) (well, not if you want something effective, anyway). I wrote more about it here: https://holistichormonalhealth.com/dont-make-this-mistake-when-you-choose-natural-birth-control/
I understand, I misread what you meant. I completely agree, I would never use the tracker as a form of birth control.
Now that I practice this awareness I am in awe of nature’s design. Before I practiced it, I was aware of my cycle in only three ways:
1) PMS, which snuck up on me always.
2) Oh my god, I don’t want to get pregnant right now.
3) Period.
Now I see the subtleties of the mind and body and all its moving parts. Why we aren’t encouraged to talk about this or learn about this is beyond me.
Yes, I kept track of my periods on a calendar for a long time, but I really didn’t have awareness of what was going on in my body. And really I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about all of the different birth control methods until I was in my early 20s. Even then I couldn’t have told you how half of them worked. Most people have no idea.
Fertility awareness is incredibly useful! Even for me, at 47 and going through perimenopause. I have the many years of knowledge about my cervical fluid and temp charting that helped me understand my body throughout my reproductive years. It was through cervical mucus observation and temp charting that I was able to finally conceive my now 15 year old son.
I’d been trying for many, many months and decided to do a simple IUI (intrauterine insemination) at my GYN’s office. Between mittleschmirtz, temp charting and cervical mucus, I was able to pinpoint my impending ovulation (to the best of my knowledge) and got pregnant during this 1-time IUI. My GYN told me that the chances were only about 1 in 100 of achieving a pregnancy in this one cycle so we were both so pleased at this success.
I tell this story because it was through the experience of fertility awareness that I was able to fully and actively participate in this process and not just be a bystander of my own reproductive cycle – just ‘waiting.’
Now that my reproductive years are almost over, fertility awareness is helping me navigate the sometimes confusing waters of the perimenopausal experience. I’m so grateful for the familiarity with my body and cycle that I’ve gained through this method. I wish all young women would/could learn this and have this personal knowledge!
I learned fertility awareness through “Taking Charge of Your Fertility”. A great resource that still stands to this day, as a book I reference from time to time. No doctor or health care practitioner spoke to me about this method – I sought it out on my own,
Fertility awareness is definitely awesome for understanding your hormones as well as your fertility (it’s actually my favorite part). I’m glad to here that it’s made some of the menopausal transition easier. Awesome!
Your new design looks great. :)
I think education is soooo important. I grew up in a time and area of California when/where I got “comprehensive sex ed” in school. However, I was also throughly freaked out about pregnancy and thought pregnancy could occur anytime with a faulty condom. Now I’m learning that pregnancy is quite a miracle because of all the things that must actually happen. So I’m comfortable with the Fertility Awareness method as my means of family planning. I know it works and has science to back it up. I also am comfortable with my body and am aware about what is normal for my own reproductive health.
I work with high school students and think they should have comprehensive sex ed in school. I think that was the first step for me to learn about my health and my future family. I don’t think teens should be scared about pregnancy like I was, but see it as a respected part of the life cycle that they can choose and plan- but in the future as adults. I also agree with the above comments about girls learning about their cycles. It would be very empowering.
Oh, and I’ve recently shared TCOYF with 3 friends. I got to show them my book and explain things that were so crazy to them like: cervical fluid and how to reach the cervix and what to feel for. Two of them have an IUD and have never tried/been successful in feeling for the little string. I hope they’ve checked since our little talk.
We also talked about how nice it is to have “lady friends.” It’s nice to talk about periods with people who actually have experienced periods. :)
Yes! I shared FAM and TCOYF with many friends when I was first starting out (before I became a teacher myself). Some were less impressed, but it’s not for everyone :)
That’s great that you had good sex ed and really good point about it being more fear based in teaching. That’s a good thing to think about for educating the youngsters. I do think that we have a lot that needs to change in that arena, and am doing some of my own work in that arena.
You advise your readers not to use apps with this method. From what I’ve seen, the free Kindara app includes everything you do. That app is what got me researching FAM. Kindara includes a place to record daily waking temp, cervical fluid consistency, and monthly period. Can you tell me why I shouldn’t use it?
Kindara is a great app to use! I believe that apps are a good charting tool, but not a good education in the method, as explained in this post: https://holistichormonalhealth.com/dont-make-this-mistake-when-you-choose-natural-birth-control/
I even had a post about good apps to use a few weeks ago. The app just comes after learning the method. Does that make sense? Hope this helps!