 | Natural Family Planning Resources |
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Last updated on June 29, 2008
Quality varies and listing here does not mean endorsement. The parts in this color are somebody's opinion (mostly ours). If you need help or want a more frank opinion, or have an addition, correction or "book report", hit the Contact button up at the top. Listings are alphabetical within the three categories above.
We (the Central NY CCL Chapter) will NOT ship you any of this stuff; please contact the vendors directly. You can order books from stores or on-line by their ISBN number. Oh yes, a lot of these links get moved frequently, so go to their home page and search around on their site.
Books, media, and gadgets
The
hearts point out those
products which are particularly useful, in our opinion
"The Billings Method" by Dr. Evelyn Billings
The Billingses got in on the ground floor of NFP in 1953 with the Ovulation Method, which is the most widely practiced form of systematic NFP in the world today, especially in the Third World. You can also learn via on-line correspondence course, but you really need a book handy. There's no moral or theological "stuff" in the book, which is either a crucial failing or a welcome relief, depending on your point of view.
If you're trying to GET pregnant and would like to download an audio tutorial on timing with the OM, go to The GIFT Foundation.
 | The Art
of
Breastfeeding (2008) by the Couple to Couple
League $16. This book replaces "Breastfeeding and
Natural Child Spacing" in the CCL library. Your assignment is
to write us a book report. Yes, breastfeeding DOES space babies (IF you do it right), and you can go right into practicing NFP, after a time of infertility. How long? See our NFP Primer and Breastfeeding page for basic Lactation Amenorrhea info and real-life experiences. |
This is the new (2008) edition of the encyclopedia of Sympto-Thermal NFP. It's been completely rewritten, with new, easier to use rules. Slimmed down, colorized, and simplified, yet everything is still in there. (Not everything pertains to you NOW, but you'll be glad it's in here when it DOES.) Covers most everything from the basics to helps for infertility and PMS, except for the really dysfunctional cases (see FC&N below), including the moral, spiritual and social dimension. This is the manual used in CCL classes, but you can learn NFP just with this book or in conjunction with the Home Study Course which includes everything you need to practice NFP. If you have the old book, don't worry, it will still "work", and most teachers will still remember the old rules. |  |
Aware!
Charting software for
Ovulation Method, $15 download. from
FitchFertility Center in San Diego. This doesn't
interpret your chart, just lets you record and compare 6 cycles.
Has places to record other symptoms, too.
|
Two simple to use, computerized temperature recording gadgets. However, they apparently use only the temperature sign, so it seems that long periods of abstinence in phase 1 would be required for effective pregnancy postponement. The failure rate is claimed to be better than 1%, typical of temp only NFP. For pregnancy achievement, the temperature just tells you that you're too late, so this would seem pointless and frustrating, although previous cycle history helps (that's Calendar Rhythm). Other problems with them are the cost: $781 for the Lady, $1,148 for the Baby. That would buy a lot of thermometers and chart paper (or a laptop and some good NFP software). A smaller version (Pearly) is available for $524. You have to send them back in 3 years for battery replacement. |
The
Bible and Birth Control
by Charles D. Provan
published by Zimmer Printing, 410 West Main Street, Monongahela, PA
15063. Available from CCL
. Why the Protestants were against
contraception, and
passed laws against it. Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and dozens more quoted
here. See our Theology Page
for a similar short article under "The Christian Tradition".
"
Breastfeeding
and Natural Child Spacing " 4th edition (1999) by
Sheila
Matgen Kippley, 212 pages (CCL) ISBN 0-926412-20-5
Sheila
got a
La Leche League award for this book, which covered the topic most
thoroughly. Out of print, and CCL has replaced it with "The Art Of
Breastfeeding", above. Less than 7 bucks from Amazon.
Catholic
Sexual Ethics: A
Summmary, Explanation and Defense . Updated by
Rev.
Ronald
Lawler O.F.M. Cap., Joseph Boyle Jr., & William E. May.
Our
Sunday Visitor ,
2nd edition, 1998.
"EXCELLENT...it
is coherent and
extremely thoughful and only costs $9.95." ----Jean Gaes
"By the way the Catholic ethics book is really great....was
very
impressed with the explanation of the teachings" --Online NFP student
CCL
Home Study Course , $150 plus shipping.
Yes,
you can learn
it at home, easily. The content is the same as the CCL classes, and you
can go at your own pace and convenient time & place, but you
have
to mail in your questions and charts. You can also go to any local
class sessions for free, and write/FAX/e-mail/phone any Teaching Couple
(or CCL) with questions. This is a good option even if classes are
nearby, but at a bad time. It includes
all you need to learn & practice NFP:
charts, electronic basal
thermometer, book,
a whole library of stuff on CD, and other goodies; plus a
year's
membership in CCL and their magazine.
Clear Plan Easy $179 & up (plus replacement indicator strips, about $18/month). Available in many local drug stores. A pee-on-a-stick hormone tester for identifying fertile times, In the USA, it's not approved for avoiding pregnancy (probably because it doesn't work so well by itself), but a similar unit in Europe is sold for that purpose. It doesn't confirm ovulation, and false readings could be a problem, but it's easy to use.
Recent
medical
work has shown that this and other hormone testers (like Persona) can
be of use in helping NFP users identify the fertile time. Some Clinical
data from Dr. Michael Zinaman (Loyola University -
Chicago) on the Clearplan Easy Fertility Monitor:
1.
It provides a 99% accurate detection of the LH surge
2.
It will give the majority of women 1-5 days warning of their Peak
Fertility through monitoring of E3G
3.
It will typically detect 6 days of High and Peak Fertility
4.
From cycle 2 onwards, 80% of users only needed to do 10 tests
per
cycle
If you want to learn more about the use of the Clearplan monitor with
NFP go to http://www.marquette.edu/nursing/nfp/ .
CyclePRO is CCL's first Sympto-Thermal charting tool. $40. Works on XP, Vista, and Mac.
It's not meant to replace learning the method from a book or class, but it does the record-keeping for you and applies the rules. You can also e-mail charts to teachers.
Cyclewatch is a shareware Sympto-Thermal charting app which got 4 stars from ZDnet. It is sold for avoiding pregnancy also, but no guarantees or claims of accuracy are made. From Wimoweh Software. $30. For Windows, up to XP.
Der
persönliche Zyklus der Frau ("A
woman's
personal cycle") in German
Von der
Vorpubertät bis
in die Wechseljahre. Josef Rötzer, MD.
Preis: DM 36,00 EUR 18,41
Taschenbuch - 256 Seiten (1999)
Herder, Freibg.; ISBN: 345126885X
Versandfertig in 2 bis 3 Werktagen.
Dr. Roetzer in Austria is one of the
pioneers of
the Sympto-Thermal Method and founded INER, which teaches NFP
in
Germany.
"Fertility, Cycles
and Nutrition"
by Marilyn M. Shannon
Third Edition, 204 pp.,
2001 (CCL Press) $12.95 from the CCL
Bookstore
Dewey 612.32
ISBN 0-926412-09-4
An
excellent book
for self-treatment of irregular or problem cycles, PMS, infertility,
etc. Based on medical studies and successful treatments. This is the
most popular book in our Chapter's lending library. Some of this
information
has been included in "The Art of NFP", but this continues where the
other book leaves off. If you have anything funny going on, you need
this. The third
edition has a new
appendix but it's more useful than your appendix. The cover is
Pepto-Bismol/Barbie pink, so you can find it when you need it.
Fertility
Friend is a place where you can get chart
interpretations
and post charts on-line for others to see. Although mainly for those
trying to conceive, it has a lot of good info on fertility awareness,
such as this
page telling you how to observe symptoms in great detail.
"
Fertility Monitor"
$95 from NFP Software, Inc. in Clarks Summit, PA.
A DOS-based Sympto-Thermal Method
interpreter.
According to their data, it conforms well to CCL and LifeCycle
interpretation. Includes a mercury thermometer and your choice of
3-1/2 or 5-1/4 inch floppy disks, which somebody somewhere still
uses.
Good
News about Sex
& Marriage , Answers to
Your Honest Questions
about Catholic Teaching
Christopher West,
Servant
Publications, Ann Arbor, Michigan : (marriage@archden.org)
Available
from CCL
among
other places, a highly
regarded, easy reading book. Chris is also available for talks and
seminars on the book, based on Pope JP II's Theology of the
Body.
If he's in town don't miss him! The Gift Foundation
has his CD's, mostly pretty cheap.
"Above
all it has an incredibly POSITIVE spin on it -- not a bunch of "don'ts"
but an explanation that, if taken to heart, would yield great joy, I
think." --Erin
"I
was so excited when I listened to the tape, the message is positive and
exciting....I feel that I have much more joy in following the Church's
teaching now that I understand it more fully. Everyone,
listen to
this tape and read the book!! --Dawn.
Hormone Heresy: Estrogen's Deadly Truth Interested in how hormones work, and why you should not fool with them? The drug companies do not want you to read this long article from Nexus Magazine, which came out before the recent panic about HRT. Still, millions of women are on stronger doses of the same hormones for contraception!
Kuhar Konsultants is another on-line vitamin & mineral shop, but this one caters especially to the infertile, carrying Optivite and other similar formulations for optimizing fertility and stimulating ovulation. They also have a lot of good nutrition information on-line.
Love
and Fertility,
by Mercedes Wilson.
Fourth edition, 2008, paperback, About $30 from FAF
See "Nature's Method" CD below.
About the 2nd edition, Donna in Livonia* said: " This is an
excellent book to learn the foundation of "The Ovulation
Method" (AKA Billings). Very good illustrations. The beginning student
definitely needs to supplement this basic information with other
resources (classes, other books, etc.) to apply this knowledge to her
specific situation. This book is written is very simple language (even
a junior high student could comprehend it, IMO)" *( Livonia
isn't a country, it's west of Detroit)
Love
One Another
, John Marshall. London: Sheed & Ward, 1995, £8.95. A British book from an early BBT pioneer
which
explores the psychological effects of NFP in an unbiased way (says the
blurb). Sounds like a good read for the unchurched. He was a
member of the 1963 papal commission that voted for the Catholic Church
to change its teaching on contraception.
The Missing
Cornerstone:
Reasons why couples choose NFP
"In
a society where instant gratification and materialism are idolized,
love is often misconceived as merely getting what you want when you
want it. The contraceptive mentality transfers that
misconception
into married love, betraying the true meaning of sexuality and
poisoning the heart of the family. In recent years, many
married
couples who used contraception have been waking up to this, and finding
a healthy, effective alternative to responsible parenthood in Natural
Family Planning. This volume gathers the testimonies of 44 such
couples. Each couple has traveled a unique path, but they
have
all discovered the same wonderful reality: true joy in
marriage
and family life comes not from getting, but from giving, from
undertaking the adventure of authentic, generous love. "
$12
from
Circle Press, USA or Canada 888-881-0729
or
203-230-0729,
cif@familink.com
My Fertility Cycle is a website for tracking NFP cycles. Free. Seems to use the Ovulation Method, and makes their money on Google ads. There's a bunch of forums to discuss all things gynecological. Here's an example.
 | "Nature's
Method" interactive CD-ROM on Ovulation Method, with Charting
Coach
software, $10 from Family
of the Americas Foundation. For Windows or Mac. Sounds like a pretty cheap way of learning the OM, and getting charting software besides. |
"The
New No Pill, No-Risk
Birth Control." by Nona Aguilar. NY: Rawson
Associates, 1986.
ISBN#
0-89256-299-4 and 0-89256-300-1 $17 (pbk)
This book teaches a
simple STM. Nona got interested in NFP after doing
research on
the marriage building effect of NFP. She's a fascinating
speaker
on this topic, too. The book, well, it was new 20 years ago, but there
are better ones now.
NFP for Palm OS 3.1 Chad up in Toronto figured you can practice NFP for free so he wrote this FREEWARE so you can keep your chart on your Palm. It does Sympto-Thermal using Toni Weschler rules. The website has a comparison chart of inferior NFP software, Palm and PC, most of which costs money.
Open
Embrace: A
Protestant Couple Rethinks
Contraception by Sam and Bethany Torodes, Wm.
Eerdmans
Publishing. 2002, 148 pages. When you can find it, about $15. Check
out this long excerpt
which they let us have,
that's really the meat of the whole book (the rest is potatoes). The book's not
too long, yet packs a whole lot
of good explanation of how to make a great Christian marriage.
"The Protestant Reformers...were fierce foes of contraception. But over the last seven decades, many of their spiritual descendants succumbed to modernist sexual heresies. The Torodes chart a path back to faithfulness, trust, and the fullness of Christian love."--Allan Carlson
"....wisdom from the Bible and the Christian past to challenge conventional views on contraception. Sweetly written and solidly argued, this is a head-clearing, heart-warming read." —J.I. Packer
Optivite is a vitamin supplement tailored to maximizing fertility and treating PMS, luteal phase problems, and some other cycle problems (NOT all of them). Recommended by Marilyn Shannon (read FC&N ) and other nutritional experts, and gets lots of good buzz in the infertility and NFP news/chat groups. This isn't for everyone (the formulation is different from vitamins for the average population), but for those suffering from PMS or infertility due to certain deficiencies or imbalances, it can be a big help.
Read
about it and get some from the manufacturer, Optimox.
Also, from Kuhar
, CVS, Amazon, AnyOTC.com,
your local discount drug store (maybe).
180's for around $20.
Persona Fertility tester, a gadget for measuring hormone levels and thus detecting ovulation. No other symptoms are measured. Not approved by US's FDA. In the UK, costs £65 plus £10 a month for detector sticks. They aren't real open about how this thing really works, but they claim a 94% method effectiveness, which is a lot worse than the STM (they've been sued in the UK), but it's a no-brainer.
A
Preachable Message from BOMA. Pastors!
Get this book if you don't know what to say (or why) about NFP and
contraception. Testimonies from 32 priests, sample homilies, a list of
scripture citations over the liturgical year, lots of ideas. Flocks,
get this for your shepherd,
maybe you'll hear that most rare of all locutions, a sermon on
improving marriage through NFP.
$9.95 from BOMA USA
or CCL
Natural Progesterone: sorry, our sources of good, cheap cream dried up, so to speak. If you have any suggestions let us know.
Prophet and Priests, The
Hidden Face of the Birth Control Movement by Ann
Farmer, $17 from
Amazon. The description says, "This
compelling
study of the origins, development and activities of the birth control
movement will prove an eye-opener to those who think of it as a force
for good." In case you're wondering, NFP is not contraception and is
way different from the goals of the "Birth Control Movement".
"Sex
and the Marriage
Covenant" by John Kippley of NFP International. Second edition, 2005. Ignatius Press, $12.
Theology and
morality in depth. GREAT depth. A must for every serious theologian. John's been working on this for 35 years.
"Sexual Wisdom" by
Richard Wetzel, MD;
Ann
Arbor: Proctor Publications, 333 pages,1998 is a non-denominational
chastity and
ethics book that received praise from Catholic,
Protestant,
Jewish, Mormon, and other community leaders.
It's
available from One More Soul for FREE with a small shipping charge. No, really, FREE!
Sophia
Fertility Computer
saves 210 temp recordings and predicts fertility. $60; PC interface
$55. A proprietary algorithm uses low temps to compute
hormones,
ignoring disturbed high spikes. This
is popular in Japan with a million sold, but the developer doesn't want
to pay for an effectiveness study. Whether this is less hassle than
putting temps on a chart daily is up to you. You can put in other
symptoms (even biorhythms, FWIW) with the PC interface. Available at Craig Medical or CatholicMind.
"Taking
Charge
of Your
Fertility" by Toni Weschler, MPH. Quill, 2001
0060937645 ,
496 pages, $23.95.
" .....it really gives you a good understanding of WHY a womans body does what it does. It is not judgmental or agenda based, other than promoting the methods as extremely safe and effective. There isn't much moral/sociological stuff but it does have a chapter on FAM in the age of AIDS. It is an easy read and has an appropriate level of information for the average reader.... I personally found this book to be very comprehensive and engrossing." --- Cathy C.
Toni Weschler's rules under FAM (Fertility Awareness Method) are the same as her NFP rules, except that a barrier method such as condoms or diaphram is used instead of abstaining during potentially fertile times. Obviously, this would not be as reliable as NFP, nor would it be acceptable to those who use NFP for religious reasons.
FAM is marginally better than contraceptives so it appeals to a wide range of folks to which NFP would be a total shock. A safe gift for that friend of yours who's mortally allergic to any whiff of "religion" and couldn't abide the CCL book.
TCOYF Fertility
Software Win 95
& up: $39.95. info@lifecyclesoft.com
You input all your
observations and it does the work for you. This follows Toni Weschler's
rules. We've heard from folks who have used LifeCycle's
previous app and think it's helped
them learn NFP faster. And some who think it's overly complicated and
time-consuming to keep all your charts on a computer. It does
work, and is approved by the FDA. Runs on Windows 98 -XP; don't know about Vista.
Vitex,a
herbal treatment for PMS, excessive bleeding and short luteal phases.
There are several articles at this site, just search for Vitex.
" At NWFS, where we teach the sympto-thermal
method,
we've been referring some women to a natural alternative popular and
well documented in Europe, it's called Vitex (from the "chaste tree")
and it works at the level of the pituitary. Dr. Josef Roetzer [NFP
pioneer] informed us of this approach. It works slowly, but
in
many women reduced PMS, promotes a stronger luteal phase, and reduces
excesses bleeding. It is available at many health food stores."
You may find it referred to as Chasteberry extract, its
common
name. It also may take 6 months or more to work, according to
people we know who have used it. Available at many drug stores; a nice
selection of liquid and tablets is at Emerson Ecologics.
The pills are only 8 cents apiece and you start off with
three a day, tapering down to one.
The
Way Home by
Mary Pride, Crossway Books, Westchester, IL 60153 is a 1985 book on contraception, anti-feminism, and homeschooling from an
Evangelical/Quiverfull
point of view. Her story is kind of interesting.
Women's Health
after
Abortion by
Elizabeth
Ring-Cassidy & Ian
Gentles
Even the on-line bulletized summary
of this book
is an eye-opener.
Do you get into debates with so-called "Pro-Choice" people? Write
letters to newspaper editors? If you have a
friend who is convinced Planned
Parenthood tells the truth, get this book. $20, CDN$25 from the Deveber
Institute .
"Your
Fertility
Signals" by Merryl Winstein. 1995. Smooth Stone Press, P.O. Box
19875, St.
Louis MO 63144. $15. ISBN 0-9619401-0-7 (also available in
German)
A
short, simple to
understand book on the STM; not overly thorough. Cute line drawings.
NFP Teaching Organizations
There are several different organizations of trained NFP teachers. The methods taught, depth of class material, moral principles, and teacher training may vary, so ask first. There is no USA national "accreditation" for NFP teachers, so check credentials. There are area programs (e.g., Catholic Dioceses) and many solo teachers, but these below are the larger organizations, mostly worldwide, with a few regional programs listed later.Individual teacher directory
NFP Only and Pro-Life doctors
Local programs
American Academy of Fertility Care Professionals Creighton Method organization which trains teachers.
BOMA
is the American branch
of the Billings (Ovulation)
organization. WOOMB (listed below) is the world headquarters
in
Australia. To look up instructors, go here
.
Couple
to Couple League (CCL)
PO Box 111184
Cincinnati OH 45211
(513) 471-2000 Orders ONLY: (800)
745-8252 ccli@ccli.org
This
is the largest
US NFP organization, with over 1000 CCL volunteer
Teaching Couples, mostly in the
USA. The TC
Finder has most of them arranged by state, country, or area
code.
Membership
($3521/yr) gets you their big magazine (here's
some
sample articles)
full of the latest biological,
moral, and
political info and personal views. CCL also supports
mother-baby and family bonding, and pro-life, Catholic, Christian,
religious, and general moral values. Plus short pamphlets to
books and videos
on marriage, chastity, and family.
Creighton:
see Pope Paul VI Institute below, or AAFCP above
Family
of the Americas Foundation 
Box 1170 Dunkirk MD 20754
familyplanning@yahoo.com
(800) 443-3395 or (301)
627-3346
They
have NFP books
in 21 languages that teach the Ovulation Method, and a nice OM
effectiveness table listing a number of studies. And the nice Nature's
Method CD with Charting Coach software, listed above.
FertilityCare Centres of America has Creighton model teachers worldwide.
This is at heart a right to life organization, and staunchly Catholic and anti-contraception (because it leads to abortion). Has some good pamphlets on NFP, but doesn't teach it.
The Institute for Reproductive Health of Georgetown University Medical Center has info on the Standard Days Method and Two Day Method. These are simplified methods mainly intended for third world countries. The SDM is based on Calendar Rhythm but requires regularity (26-32 days) and 12 days of abstinence. It's counted on beads so you don't have to have a calendar. The TDM is like the OM but cuts a day off the dryup.
Maternal
Life
International hopes to teach
third-worlders NFP
through a patented bead system of counting similar to the Standard Day
Method.
These are the actual beads, which they sent us and we scanned in.
326 S. Jackson St.
Butte
MT 59701
406-782-1719
6214 Rose Lake Ave.
San Diego CA 92119 (800) 40-FITCH
Natural Family Planning International is Catholic theology based, but aims to bring the STM to the world. There are a lot of good essays on morality here, and a free, downloadable 85 page, fairly comprehensive manual on how to practice NFP.
Northwest
Family Services
4805 NE Glisan
Portland, OR 97213
nfs@nwfs.org 503-215-6377
Sympto-Thermal
Method
client and educator program. Portland, OR, on-line and correspondence
courses, $86.
One More Soul directory of NFP teachers and NFP-only doctors; there's a Pro-Life Ob-GYN directory at the AAPLOG
Pope
Paul VI Institute 
6901
Mercy Road
Omaha, NE
68106-2604 402-390-9175
This
is the accrediting
agent for practitioners (teachers) of the Creighton Model of the
Ovulation (Billings) method. Find a local
Creighton teacher here
.
Dr. Tom Hilgers, the Director, wrote a lot of good theological stuff to browse on their website. Their NaProTech system incorporates NFP into reproductive medical practice.
Serena
151 Holland Ave.
Ottawa ONT K1Y0Y2
(613)
728-6536 (également
en français: "Planification Naturelle des Naissances" )
A
large NFP provider in
Canada, where they have been teaching the SymptoThermal Method since
the fifties. Check the phone book, or call 888-3SERENA
(888-373-7362) in Canada.
WOOMB
(World Organization Ovulation Method Billings) is the Australia-based
worldwide HQ for the Billings Ovulation Method, probably the world's
largest and oldest (1953) provider of NFP instruction. You can learn
over the internet for $100. Check out the animations of cycle
variations, cervix and others.
Some Local Organizations
AMERICAS
Your one-stop NFP center in the City of Brotherly Love. Has info on local teachers (your choice of methods ) and class dates.
4945 East Thomas Rd.
Phoenix, AZ 85108
(602) 381-1884
THE EAST
Catholic Family Centre (Ovulation Method)
Sarayama 4-27, Minami-ku
Fumuoka City 815
EUROPE
Institut fuer Ehe und Familie
Spiegelgasse 3/8
A-1010 Wien (Vienna)
Oesterreich
Natürliche
Familienplanung Diozese Augsburg
NFP, Kappelberg 1
86150 Augsburg
Tel. 0821/3152-282
E-Mail: nfp-augsburg@gmx.de
Institute
for Natural Family Planning a large German NFP organization. You can download STM charts
in different formats. They're in Celsius and German, which
will
confuse your kids or parents if they see them on the dresser.
England
CCL
of the United Kingdom has
a big website
near Sherwood Forest
Fertility Awareness
& NFP
Service UK
An
STM provider in
the British Isles, they have a bunch of info on NFP, including titles
of research, and downloadable STM charts (under
"miscellaneous").
België, Vlaanderen, Nederland: NFP Europe Informatie over natuurlijke familie planning in het Nederlands.
Poland There are hundreds of NFP teachers in Poland. Call any Catholic church.
Not-So-Good Stuff
The items here are of questionable utility in practicing NFP, but people ask about them, so here they are. They might work OK for getting pregnant, but a lot of things can help you get pregnant. (As the late poet Ogden Nash observed, "Candy's Dandy, but Liquor's Quicker.")Some have real possibilities for future NFP use, but much work and many effectiveness studies remain to be done.
Bioself Fertility Tester $217 in the USA . A Swiss gadget, does calendar-temperature indications of fertile times. It records a years' worth of temps, then predicts when you're fertile. It doesn't test hormones or mucus, so it should be used with the usual symptom chart. So, why not just use a ten dollar thermometer instead? It's pretty big (3 AA batteries), but the built-in speaker is pretty cool: you can download temps to your local Bioself Center (which is in Switzerland).
Cue
Electrolyte Tester, $385
A gadget that
measures the resistivity (electrical conductivity) of saliva and/or
cervical mucus, which changes near ovulation. Like the other
mucus-sampling gadgets, this is probably better for achieving
conception than avoiding it effectively (research is continuing). Seems
expensive, but it does have stainless steel probes. OvaCue
($375)
is a similar gadget.
Femta
is an Ogino-Knaus
Calendar Rhythm application. $28; free demo works for two months. Don't expect high effectiveness from this
or any Rhythm method, but they are simple. And, you need a good 6
cycles of data to use O-K Rhythm.
Microscopes
for viewing ferning patterns in saliva or cervical mucus have been sold
for a number of years. Changes in electrolytes (salts) during
your cycle cause crystallization patterns in your fluids. Studies
by NFP organizations and medical
researchers have not shown them to be consistent enough to be
used
to avoid conception. See
our NFP Primer
for some info on them. If you have a 35 - 100X
microscope hanging around, try it out to see if it works for you. Brands include: Cycle Check ($70) ; Donna Fertility Tester, $60 ; PC-2000; the Lady-free Biotester; OVU-TRAC; The LENS $29.95 800-723-0400 or 800-345-3371; Maybe?Mom (pictured) is $150 ; Ovu-Tec ($45); ( Dr. John Lee sells the same gadget but calls it Ovu-Tech ). The Woman's Window website has the best theory and pictures about the ferning phenomenon, and Ovu-Test's ($30) website is pretty good too.
Natural Conception Control, promoted by Dr. Eugen Jonas long ago, is mentioned in our primer. But not favorably.
Ovarian Monitor
Using a urine sample, it
checks
estrogen and progesterone levels so you can determine ovulation.
Needs recalibration and refill of the reagents occasionally. This
may be the future of NFP....if Dr. Len Blackwell in New Zealand can get
it productized better. Or, maybe not.
Rhythm Calendars:
Two places
to get an estimate of ovulation, based on your previous cycles (which
are assumed to be regular). Ovulation
Calendar.com is an
ovulation prediction program that uses menstrual cycle information to
generate your personal fertility calendar, and lets you choose the
gender of your baby and her zodiac sign (no guarantees) . You can set it to give you a
pop-up that tells you when to get busy. Downloadable for €29.
Our advice: save your money. Ovulation Calendar.net does the same thing for free, on-line. Plus there's short descriptions of "real" NFP methods, and a downloadable .PDF chart which can be used to record all symptoms. Wesley is thinking of improving the calculator to do other methods to avoid pregnancy effectively. When he does, we'll move this program up to the "useful" categories above.
About.com has one but it crashes. That should give you a hint.
If you really want to try Rhythm use the Standard Days method instead. It's just as simple but much more accurate.
ZappyBaby "A German company is offering a new service for the modern professional woman with little time to spend trying to get pregnant -- regular mobile phone calls telling her when she is most fertile, for example, 'Achtung! The five best days for love are starting,' zappybaby Deutschland GmbH said in a statement. 'We live in hectic times and there is so little free time for people who want to have some nice hours together and want to have children.' " If you don't have time to conceive, will you have time to raise that kid? Well, ZappyBaby got zapped around 2005. Ananova ran a similar text-messaging service in Poland, using Calendar Rhythm. Also defunct. Unfortunately, desparate infertile couples will continue to be a "fertile" ground for entrepreneurs to sell them silly things like this.
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