Creighton, Billings, Marquette, Boston Cross Check, FEMM. How do couples know what to choose!
Well, first off, let’s dive into what NFP is and what it is not. NFP stands for Natural Family Planning, which is a Church-approved method of preventing or planning a pregnancy. Pope St. John Paul VI wrote about the depth and truth of the Catholic teaching on married love and the gift of life in his papal encyclical, Humanae vitae.
Practically speaking, NFP is a way for a man and woman to understand what is happening in their combined fertility. The beauty of this is that each month offers husband and wife a new opportunity to discern if it is prudent to potentially conceive a child. There are many factors at play when discerning God’s will and being open to life, including financial threats (for example, not being able to feed additional children, not necessarily being worried about how they’ll pay for their college education), concerns for the mother’s/father’s health and wellbeing, etc. One thing to note is that NFP should not be used with a contraceptive mindset – using NFP means that couples are still very much open to life. Each month, the husband and wife should pray and ask God to guide them towards making prudent decisions to help their families strive for sanctification.
There are several different methods of NFP that a couple can decide to follow. For simplicity sake, I will be touching on the most common methods: The Billings Ovulation Method, The Creighton Method, The Marquette Method, and the Symptothermal Method. There are certainly others out there and new developments are being made every day, but the following methods are the most popular and have the most long-term data. It goes without saying that if a woman/couple chooses to use a technique, it is important for a man and woman to determine which method works best in their season of life
It is also incredibly important to note that a couple should not try to learn these methods on their own. While a couple may be able to find the rules online, the couple needs to have a skilled instructor to help the couple walk through the path of properly understanding and implementing the method. Just like with anything, it takes time to learn and even more time to really become an expert in understanding what the woman’s body is doing. Every organization mentioned below has a list of instructors, and many dioceses will have a list of instructors in the diocese.
To help better understand the methods and to determine which may be a great fit for a couple to learn and practice, I’ll offer some stories about a woman named Stacy and her husband, Kurt. Stacy is 34 years old, has three children, the youngest of whom is 7 months old and is trying to avoid a pregnancy for another year or so to allow her body more time to heal.
The Billings Ovulation Method
If Stacy wants to learn the Billings Method, she would be focusing primarily on cervical mucus and what she feels during the day. With this method, she wouldn’t focus on what she sees every day, but she would be aware of how she is feeling. She can determine what is occurring in her body even though she is breastfeeding and her cycles have not returned. She can understand her fertility based on the absence or presence of mucus. She charts what she feels every evening and follows 4 “rules” to avoid a pregnancy. The Billings Method is great for every woman, from puberty through menopause, who wants an easy-to-use, low-cost way of helping to understand what her cycle looks like and achieve/avoid pregnancy.
The Creighton Method
If Stacy wants to learn the Creighton Method, she would focus primarily on cervical mucus and what she sees and feels every day. This method would be beneficial if Stacy is having any sort of abnormal cycles, strange bleeding patterns, inability to conceive, or recurrent miscarriages. She would chart what she sees and feels at the end of the evening. While this method is great for everyone, it is great for those who need to take their chart to a NaProTechnology doctor.
The Marquette Method
This method could be helpful for Stacy, especially postpartum, because it would allow her to have quantitative data to determine if she is in a fertile cycle. Stacy would purchase a monitor and testing sticks, and, depending on where she was in her cycle (there are different testing ‘rules’ for different times), she would test daily, weekly, monthly, etc. The monitor uses urine testing to determine hormone levels. This method is great for someone like Stacy, who is nursing and cycles haven’t returned or are inconsistent. It can also be great for someone who has cycles that are not consistent or is having health issues.
In recent years, there have been many new monitors on the market. The Marquette Method uses the Clearblue monitor, which doesn’t give users the hormone levels themselves, but gives a happy or sad face depending on what the hormone levels are. Other monitors give more data, including measured amounts of LH, PdG, FSH, and more.
The downside is the cost of the monitor and testing sticks, especially if the couple is in the postpartum phase.
Symptothermal Method
The Symptothermal Method (STM) uses body temperature to determine if and when ovulation occurred. Simply put, Stacey would take her basal body temperature (the body’s temperature during rest) every morning before she gets out of bed, eats/drinks anything, etc. This can be done with a thermometer or a digital device connected to an app. Stacey would also keep an eye on how her cervical mucus is changing.
The science behind this method is that the body’s normal temperature will increase by 0.5-1°F during ovulation and will remain high until the end of the menstrual cycle. The most fertile days are 2-3 days before the increase in temperature.
While STM is a popular method, it could be challenging for Stacy because likely to have frequent night wakings to nurse. For this method to work effectively, a solid night of sleep is needed, and she has to remember to take her temperature before getting out of bed every morning.
Natural Family Planning: The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that all methods work. In the fictitious case of Stacy and her husband, she could use any of the methods, and they would be effective. There is no right or wrong answer – instead, they need to consider what they are comfortable with, their financial situation, and what feels doable.
The same is true for a couple – all methods work. It is just a matter of figuring out which method will work the best for a couple’s situation. The great news is that if a couple tries one method and does not love it, that is okay! A couple can learn another method, and there is no loss. They have gained valuable insight about the woman’s body and what the couple is comfortable with.
How Do I Know Which NFP Method to Choose?
When initially choosing a method, ask the couple:
- What stage of life are the couple in? Is the woman getting a solid night of sleep? Is the daily schedule fairly consistent or all over the place? Are there little ones running around? Is the woman nursing?
- What are couple’s goals? With any decision, it is important to determine the couple’s goals. No matter the method, couples will be given information about her body. It’s up to the couple what they do with that information. Is the couple trying to postpone a pregnancy, achieve a pregnancy, learn more about general health and wellness, diagnose a health issue, etc.
- Which option can a couple stick with long-term?
- Which is the best financial option? Sure, couples may want to learn the Marquette Method, but if a couple doesn’t have the finances for it, that won’t help the couple. Take a look at the couple’s finances to determine what is feasible.
Image: Photo by Mockup Graphics on Unsplash
