Natural Family Planning
The 2 main types of natural family planning involve:
- Tracking periods to see when you’re most fertile and avoiding sex or using condoms on those days (fertility awareness method)
- Breastfeeding your baby for up to 6 months to delay ovulation (lactational amenorrhoea method or LAM)
Withdrawing the penis before ejaculation (sometimes called the withdrawal method) is not an effective way to avoid pregnancy and is not recommended.
How effective is natural family planning?
When used correctly all the time, fertility awareness methods are between 91% and 99% effective at preventing pregnancy. If you do not follow the instructions exactly, it is only 76% effective. This means 24 in 100 women will get pregnant when tracking their fertility for a year.
If you are breastfeeding and follow lactational amenorrhea method correctly all the time, it is more than 99% effective at preventing pregnancy. If you do not follow the instructions exactly, it’s 98% effective and 2 in 100 women will get pregnant again within 6 months of giving birth.
Natural Family Planning
Advantages
No side effects and can be stopped at any time.
It may be helpful if you cannot use other types of contraception because of a health condition.
Acceptable to all faiths and cultures.
Disadvantages
Natural family planning is much less effective than other methods of contraception.
It can take up to 6 months to learn, and requires mutual agreement, self-control and dedication.
Not suitable for everyone.
There are many things that can change your normal fertility signs and make natural family planning unreliable (such as irregular periods, stress, illness, certain medications, some long term conditions).
