"Natural Cycles" contraception

[Pinkorchid23]

What is this I keep seeing plastered all over my social media. The advetisement claims to be a hormonal free certified form of contraception where every morning you check your tempature and log some details in an app and it tells you if your fertile or not. I may just not be understanding the full picture here but surely this is just as bad and unreliable as the pulling out method. I think it claimed to have something like 98% success rate when done correctly.

Is someone pulling my leg here or is this actually a thing? I have been looking for a non hormonal contraception but cant seem to take this seriously. Has anyone tried this or head stories and if so does it actually work. There just seems to be alot of room for error with it.

I did tried to read comments on the advertisments and weirdly enough there was always this one woman defending the method and debunking peoples negative comments saying "it worked amazingly for her "

Thoughts?

I know a number of people who have become parents using contraception methods like this

The medical term for people who use this form of contraception over a long period of time is "mum".

They are just trying to sell you something.

It is really good and I think is the only FDA approved non-hormonal contraceptive? But I’m not sure if it’d work for people who have irregular shifts etc as you need to take your temperature at the same time each morning consistently. It relies on BBT input and an algorithm to calculate your fertile window, and over time it is highly accurate, they recommend using a barrier method too until you’ve been using the app for 2 full cycles. I used it to get a better sense of my cycle and when I ovulated when trying to conceive as we’d tried unsuccessfully for several months. I’d definitely recommend it for women who want to get to know their cycles better, would not recommend it for a uni student for example!

I’m 6 weeks pregnant after 4.5 cycles on the app, so it worked for what I was using it for!

I remember my friend telling me about this and how great it was and I was just thinking hmm yeah doesn’t sound that reliable. She is now a mum after welcoming a surprise baby 😂

It works if you have regular cycles and follow it, theres not that many days each month you can get pregnant knowing when you are ovulating and not having unprotected sex during that window will help to prevent pregnancy. I know lots of friends who use it and don't get pregnant but its only as good as the user

I’m using the flo app at the minute to help me try and get pregnant but I know there’s a lot of women who use it as a way of preventing pregnancy…. The message board is full of women pregnant because of miscalculations though!

Sounds like risky buisness. Too much room for human error. One miscalculation could result in a pregnancy. No thank you.

@Pinkorchid23

Sounds like risky buisness. Too much room for human error. One miscalculation could result in a pregnancy. No thank you.

It is actually 99% with perfect use.

Mishaps come where people don’t follow instructions properly. You need to use condoms for 3 months to set your temperature base line, and abstain or use condoms if you are ill/jet lagged or hungover. People who don’t do this will have surprises.

Natural contraception works and a great deal of women would benefit from learning how their bodies work. So many women have been on the pill since 16 and actually have no clue about ovulation, periods or pregnancy.

You know how the female body works right? We ovulate once a month and there's about a weeks window where we can get pregnant? Ok. It's literally that simple.

It also advocates that you use condoms or similar for the first 6 months while tracking your cycle and the number of red days (danger days 😂) is really high to start with and you only get green days after inputting a lot of data into the app.

If you use it carefully and pay attention to your body it's going to work. It's great if you don't want or can't have hormonal contraceptives and you're willing to put the effort in and don't take risks if you don't want a baby.

I no longer want hormonal contraception and the copper coil doesn't work for me so I'll be using something like this in future. However, if anyone asks, I have a mirena coil because I cba with judgy nonsense, as seen here.

I’ve seen two influencers advertising this on instagram. One has a baby and one is pregnant with her second… weeks after advertising the ‘brilliant contraception’ 😂

I used it the other way to work out when I was ovulating. It wasn't totally accurate as I had slightly irregular cycles but I did get pregnant. The only thing I remember is another app didn't think I was pregnant based on my temperatures during my two week wait but I very much was (baby is in my arms now!) so I'm not totally sure how accurate the temperature measurements are. I probably wouldn't use it as a contraceptive due to those inaccuracies

Yep - I know two young women who were using this as contraception who have become pregnant (though happily they are now happy to be so).

I’ve never used natural methods to avoid contraception - quite the opposite, I used them in the run up to giving in and going for IVF 🤣
You’ll generally find that those who’ve struggled to get pregnant know a bit about these!
I was using:

• basic counting of days
• BBT temperature checking
• saliva salt content analysis (licking a microscope, basically)
• cervical mucous consistency tracking
• position and feel of cervix (it’s higher / lower and harder / software) within in your cycle, and you can learn to feel that with your finger

For my irregular cycle, these things were consistent and accurate - they fitted with each other as expected, and fitted with OPKs when I used those.

I wouldn’t use it as my only method of contraception, but it’s all science based, don’t know that.

If I really didn’t want to use any other contraception and pregnancy would be the end of the world - or I was happy to abort - I’d use natural methods.

@HailAdrian i dont see any judging going on here i simply asked a question and people havr given their accounts and experience of it. If someone has happened to fallen pregnant using it then that isnt judgement that is a fact and an example of it failing as a contraception method. For me its important I know this as it is very important that I do not grt pregnant right now and my options in terms of no hormonal contraception are limited

Ah the good old Catholic method. That's true actually - the only method of family planning that the Vatican does not deem sinful.

It's been repackaged over the generations. It' was also known as the Billings method and the Rhythm method. I know a bit about it because it was the 'contraception' my parents used and the one my mother spoke recommended in the birds 'n bees talk. After finding out the method resulted in my two younger siblings (and more pregnancies that were miscarried) I sensibly took myself off to the GP and got the pill.

It can work IF your cycles are absolutely regular, and IF you insert the thermometer into your vagina before you get up (used to be the old mercury stick ones so maybe new ones are more accurate in the nethers now) and I think, at the same time every morning.

But you can't obviously just lie there every morning if you've got a toddler howling for you or worse, if they are suspiciously quiet!

Over time you build up a graph that shows the spikes where you are fertile and the idea is that you can have sex either during those times specifically to conceive, or avoid those dates if you do not want to get pregnant.

If you are open to the idea of mishap pregnancies then it's good but if you need a non-hormonal solution you'd need to be extremely diligent and really understand the method inside out for it to work effectively.

@Drinkingallthewine the thermometer goes in your mouth not your vagina 🤣🤣

Just in case anyone is actually thinking about using the Natural Cycles app and reads this comment - you use the thermometer in your mouth, at the base of your tongue, not in your vagina!

If you google it, it's banned in some countries.

I used it as contraception and my 3 year old is the result. No way of knowing if I'm just in the 2%, but I certainly wouldn't advise trying if you're adamant in not wanting a baby.

Natural family planning when followed properly to the official method (you have to go to a class to learn it) is really effective, but you can't use basal body temperature alone, you need to combine it with something like cervical fluid observation.

I wouldn't trust an app. I think that's really dicey. The whole point of the method is that it means you're in tune with your body, surely an app removes you from that.

On the other hand if the method is the same and the app just provides an easy method to record all the data and see it together then that makes sense. I think it's a crock to charge loads of money for that service though!

You can do it in your vagina, it's more accurate. Most people do it in the mouth with modern thermometers though.

Is it really only BBT for this app? No cross checking? No education on what the other signs of fertility are? That's shocking if so.

Tracked my cycle for 2 years using natural cycles with no scares/issues. Fell pregnant first month not sticking to it. Will be going back to tracking after baby is born.

@BertieBotts there is lots of education on other signs of fertility in the app. I found it well worth the money but don't use it anymore as I don't need to now I know my body.

We used Billings for a year or so between Ds2 and DS3. I had paper charts and I used to send them to my instructor for checking. It worked very well for us and we were quite fertile, longest it ever took me to get pregnant was 2 cycles. DS3 was not a surprise but very much planned. It can work really well but you have to be absolutely rigorous and never ever think ‘oh it’ll be alright just this once’