6 facts about every horrible fertility awareness article I’ve ever read

Fertility awareness is more popular than it ever has been. That’s not saying much, considering use levels are still so low, but the combination of popularity + such a small use population (and therefore not a lot of understanding) makes for some horrible media.

I’ll admit it, I’m the kind of rage-y individual who might, on occasion, want to punch things and scream while reading these articles. However, rather than uselessly letting out my steam that way, I decided to write my rage to you.

Inspired by the latest goldmine of fertility awareness information I read, here is a list of the main points that drive me batty when I read these articles (and yes, it’s almost always the same thing again and again):

 

They don’t seem to understand how constantly they contradict themselves

My very favorite contradiction includes the information that you must religiously track your fertility signs AND you have to have a regular cycle. No no no no.

The sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness (and others based on fertility signs such as the ovulation method and some temperature only methods) are unique in that they do NOT rely on you having a regular cycle to determine current fertility. It doesn’t matter if your cycle was super long and in your current cycle you all of a sudden have a short one.

It. still. works.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are fertility awareness based methods that are simply based off of tracking cycle lengths. Some of them you calculate your fertile phase based on your shortest and longest cycles you’ve had, some of them you have a standard chunk of days you consider fertile, but you can only use the method if you have cycles between X and Y number of days, etc.

The latter are more simplistic, but less reliable for obvious reasons. The former are a bit more complex (though most people consider them very easy once they get over the learning curve), but have better efficacy rates and are appropriate for a greater number of people due to their ability to be used by those with irregular cycles.

If I hear “your temperature is higher when you are ovulating” one more time…

1.) No, no it’s not. Your temperature rises after you have already ovulated in almost all cases. 2.) They like to act like you are only trying to figure out when you are ovulating and not your entire fertile phase. Your fertile phase is very important. Exactly when you ovulated isn’t (and you actually can’t know EXACTLY when you ovulated without ultrasound).

Which brings me to another point, they all tend to say something along the lines of…

BUT SPERM CAN LIVE INSIDE OF YOU FOR A WEEK, SO BE CAREFUL!!

While I totally agree that this fact is true, what I don’t understand is why they seem to think that means these methods won’t work. Any modern fertility awareness method, especially the sympto-thermal method, takes this into account and establishes a fertile phase rather than just telling you when you ovulate.

We are super lucky in the fact that cervical fluid, the substance that keeps sperm alive inside of us until the quickly-dying egg is released, is both observable in our own homes AND is only produced when estrogen levels rise to pre-ovulatory levels.

They always hammer home that it doesn’t protect against STIs.

OF COURSE it doesn’t. Honestly, it bothers me that birth control and STI prevention are even thought of as something that should come as a package deal since only one birth control method (two, if you count abstinence) helps prevent STIs: Condoms.

The reason it bothers me that this is cited is because the most popular birth control method is oral contraception (or sterilization, they tend to be very close in percentage of users and sometimes fluctuate for first place) and it doesn’t protect against STIs, either. I just hope people don’t read articles like this and think THEY are ok because they use hormonal birth control.

They act like abstinence is the only option when you are fertile.

Barrier methods, sex that doesn’t include penis-in-vagina, the oft maligned withdrawal method, and, yeah, abstinence can all be part of how you avoid unprotected sex during your fertile phase.

You can have completely unprotected intercourse during your infertile phase. If you choose to use another method during your fertile phase, it’s important to note that you are going to have only as much efficacy as the method you use (for example, withdrawal and condoms are both less effective than the sympto-thermal method, so if you use either of those you aren’t getting the perfect use efficacy of 99.6%).

They always talk about individual methods and combining methods in a really strange and inaccurate way. 

I believe this is due to the info on sites like planned parenthood. In general, those who use a FABM in the best possible way use one of the modern tested methods of fertility awareness, which have efficacy studies and instructors. When most of these articles talk about “methods” they talk about fertility signs rather than methods. Temperature, cervical fluid, cervix and calendar (the last isn’t a fertility sign, but there are calendar based calculations you make in some methods when fertility signs can not be read – such as on your period).

They mention combining methods as most effective. In truth, what they mean is that combining fertility signs (which is what is done with the sympto-thermal method) provides the most effective methods. There are many methods that vary a decent amount, so it’s important to know how they differ in order to choose one that works for you.

 

I’d love to see the media better represent fertility awareness based methods so people looking for a birth control method can make a real choice of whether these methods are something that would fit into their life well or not. There are benefits and drawbacks to ALL birth control methods, and by talking more openly about what those are with accurate information we can all make informed decisions.