Fertility awareness is an awesomely effective method of birth control. It’s especially cool that it’s totally natural and can be so effective.
But what does an efficacy rate tell us? It definitely tells us how effective a method can be, but that is with perfect use. What does perfect use mean, though, and what factors might make it less likely that you personally wouldn’t use it perfectly (or would)?
Perfect use of fertility awareness is all about learning the method well and sticking to the rules. Contrary to what seems to be popular opinion on the internet, perfect use is very possible (as it is with all birth control methods). This is not one of those times that you say “no one is perfect”.
That being said, it does take some work to be perfect, and also motivation.
Here are some of the important pieces to using fertility awareness perfectly (and achieving the bombass effectiveness rates):
- You are motivated (and your partner is)
- You have been taught the method well
- You have had follow-up with a teacher
- You follow all of the rules
- You interpret your charts correctly
- You record your fertility signs on the daily
That all mostly boils down to learning the method well, getting your questions answered, and actually using the method, but let’s break it down.
Motivation
Since the sympto-thermal method requires that you do things every day, follow-rules, and those rules= either abstaining or using another birth control method during some of your cycle it can be rather easy to say “meh… do I really care?” If you only half don’t want to become pregnant.
Having personal experience with going through times that I didn’t care at all if I got pregnant, I never had an issue with this myself, but hubs was always more adverse to an accidnetal pregnancy. So it kept me on the straight and narrow ;)
Learning the method well
I have said it before and I’ll say it again: You need at least ONE COMPLETE education in the sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness through a comprehensive book or class with a certified fertility awareness educator. Some people will do better with a couple different sources of information, but you always need at least one comprehensive one. Do not try to piece together info from multiple places and people or learn the method entirely from googling. You will not have a complete understanding.
Getting follow-up
This is all about getting your questions answered. All highly rate efficacy studies have included learning from an instructor and working with them to follow-up while they were learning. It’s important stuff, yo.
Following the rules
This one is kind of obvious, but if you know how to determine your potential fertile time and then decide to consciously have unprotected intercourse during a day that might be fertile based on the rules you could very well be having unprotected intercourse during a fertile day and get pregnant. Follow them rules!
Having a correct interpretation of your charts
This is half good teaching/learning and half rules. Just make sure you learn the method well :)
You record your fertility signs every day
If you aren’t always charting you have a high probability of forgetting things and you have less data to go off of with interpretations. Less data usually means more time you have to consider yourself fertile and if you don’t have high motivation you will get the “fuck it” attitude. It takes 2 seconds, just chart your data.
I like talking about all of this because I think it’s super important to have all information you can when you are thinking about different birth control methods and what will work well for your life.
Even though fertility awareness is really quite simple, there are considerations you should make when you decide to use it. It’s also important to make sure you have everything in place to succeeded when you do use it.
Do you have any barriers to using fertility awareness successfully? Let’s talk about it in the comments.
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I always look so forwardlto your posts! This was really a huge issue when I was first learning FA, the whole “no one is perfect so it doesnt work” thing. It scared me out of even trying. After my son weaned I just went for it anyway haha But with using FA, and especially Sympto-Thermal, Ive come to find out you dont have to be perfect. You DO have to be diligent though and follow the rules. It just takes ones slip up to send your life spiraling into a tail spin with an unwanted pregnancy. Communication is also something I found to be important bc guys cant read our minds and sometimes not even our charts! All in all, once the fear of failure was gone, hubs and I have really loved using Sympto-Thermal and we feel it has made a huge difference for the better in our marrried life.
Thank you :)
It’s interesting that SO many people think the same thing, that you can’t do it perfectly!
Hi Hannah! I love FAM and I am a rule follower and think it is really important to do so to practice this method effectively. Not following the rules is abandoning the method and that’s when FAM gets a bad rap. With that said, FAM gives you the flexibility to bend the rules if you’re TTW or loosely TTA. But if you’re really TTA, following the rules will save you worry.
Communication and trust is key too! If you don’t have that in your relationship, that can be a huge barrier to using FAM successfully.
I completely agree with you! It great to be able to not follow the rules if you don’t want to, but if you want that 99.6% effectiveness you’ve gotta follow the rules!
I have never used and will never use hormonal birth control, so FAM is what I use to TTA. When I learned it I was TTC and I LOVED it! Following a miscarriage that turned out to be a partially molar pregnancy, I avoided pregnancy for 7 Months because of the risks of having another pregnancy too soon after a partially molar one. I have PCOS and rarely have a dry day, so I definitely didn’t follow all the rules, but still successfully avoided pregnancy because my ovulation symptoms were very obvious and started well in advance of ovulation. I conceived the first month I stopped TTA and Now I am almost 7 Months postpartum. I haven’t had a period yet and have continual mucus, so even though I love FAM it is really stressful right now! If I followed all the rules I would literally never be able to have unprotected sex, which I feel is neither healthy nor realistic for my marriage. I know typical patterns can change at any time and especially after having a baby, but for now I avoid when I have anything approaching my typical ovulation signs based on my patterns before I got pregnant. So yes I’m TTA, but no I’m not following all the rules. I’m making my best judgment based on ALL the factors in my life at this point. I hate it when FAM gets a bad rap too, so I don’t tell people I’m TTA unless it’s someone I can talk to about following the rules vs. not following the rules and where I’m at in that continuum. As a side note, even though we are TTA and having another baby would be inconvenient and stressful right now, we also know that we would love another baby just as much whether planned or unplanned, and that plays into the level of peace we feel about practicing birth control the way we do.
I think you’re doing great and definitely know what you are doing in terms of risk. I have no problem with that! In fact, I love that you can treat FAM as loose or stringent as you feel works for you.
I just like to make sure people know where they might fall through the cracks if TTA is very important for them and they are new to FAM and not quite sure if the whole 99.6% effective holds up for them :)
I was originally terrified of using FAM because of the typical use statistics (even though I really didn’t want to use hormones), until one day I was fed up with birth control and fed up with how difficult it was to get a cervical cap/diaphragm and I realized “Hey, I am a college graduate who is terrified of getting pregnant–I have super regular cycles and easy-to-read CM–I can totally use this perfectly!” Now my husband has graduated, so a little of the fear has left pregnancy, but I am still highly motivated to use FAM right!
Right on! Love it when you realize you DO have the power to do something (not even just fertility awareness).