To think that if my friend doesn't want a baby she shouldn't use natural family planning

[ParvaFlowerindisbelief]

Friend of mine has newly discovered she is pregnant.
We've all been bombarded with emails and phone calls about "what she's going to do" and how upset she is as she doesn't want another child. She already has two dc's, ages 7 and 3.

She is considering an abortion, and don't get me wrong I'm pro choice. My main gripe is that she and her husband are quite open about the fact that they use natural methods of birth control.

Surely this is not the answer if you really don't want another child. Can she be surprised at a pregnancy? Or maybe I am just being unreasonable?

Well, I conceived ds while on the pill, so can't really comment...

Am expecting number 2 (deliberatley) now and dh booked in for the snip.

If she's considering an abortion then she clearly doesn't have particular religious convictions that prevent her from using real contraception.

I am slightly at a loss for words. Is she rather naive? Did she have trouble conceiving the first two, and so think that she couldn't possibly get pregnant if she didn't have sex on her most fertile days?

if you really really don't want another child then using natural methods is a bit daft...

Different to say you are trying to "space out" your kids but an earlier than planned pregancy wouldn't be the end of the world.

(I'm assuming it's not for religoius reasons either if she's considering abortion?)

YANBU, but I guess it's up to them to live with the choices they make.

YABU. Natural family planning is 98% effective if used correctly so on par with other contraceptive methods. I have been using it for 15 years and have 3 planned dcs and no 'suprises'. If you can't be arsed to do it right then obviously it has a higher failure rate but just in the same way as taking the pill but forgetting a few or taking antibiotics with it will lead to contraceptive failure or using condoms 'sometime' as your contraception or getting the injection but only doing it once and expecting to be covered forever. Its probably not the method that is at fault but the execution or just plain bad luck which can happen with whatever contraception you use.

The effectiveness depends what you mean by 'natural family planning'. Are we talking ovulation-detecting-pee-sticks and temperature readings, or just counting days? Plenty of women have non-standard cycles.

Also 98% effectiveness means 1 woman in 50 would get pregnant within a year.

well I have used natural family planning successfully between pregnancies and got pregnant after 4 months on the pill so its hard to say how unreasonable she was being unless you know how well she was actually following the natural family planning methods (i.e not relying on pulling out which I have heard someone describe as natural family planning!)

You are way too involved in your friend's contraception choices.

She has in the past been quite open about the fact that they use withdrawal and guessing the time of the month.

Is it really 98% effective? I find that hard to believe, but if so maybe I am being unreasonable.

From NHS GUM clinic

Combined Pill
How reliable is it?
With careful use less than 1 woman in 100 will get pregnant in a year. With less careful use 3 or more women in 100 will get pregnant in a year.

Implant
How reliable is it?
For the first year of use less than 1 woman in 100 will get pregnant.
Over the five years about 2 women in 100 will get pregnant.

Male Condom
How reliable is it?
With careful use 2 women in 100 will get pregnant in a year.
With less careful use 2 to 15 women in 100 will get pregnant in a year.

Diaphragm plus spermicide
How reliable is it?
With careful use 4 to 8 women in 100 will get pregnant in the first year of use.
With less careful use 10 to 18 women in 100 will get pregnant in the first year of use.

Natural Methods
How reliable is it?
With careful use 2 women in 100 will get pregnant in a year.
With less careful use 2 to 20 women in 100 will get pregnant in a year.

This puts Natural methods on a par with condoms. I imagine 'careful use' has quite a wide scope. I'm a bit about how rubbish a diaphragm is.

I'm not trying to claim that natural family planning is more reliable than it is but I don't think its totally crap and if your friend had used condoms or even an IUD then she wouldn't be pg. It does rather depend on what she means by natural family planning.

Regardless of how she got pregnant she's clearly very upset about now being pregnant & rather then making a post about her choice on contraception if you are her friend you should be be there for her as she obviously needs a shoulder to lean on.

YABU. Her mistake, her choice.

Withdrawal and guessing the time of the month is not accurate enough to be 98% accurate - withdrawal is pointless because there can be sperm in pre-ejaculate fluid and it only takes one! Guessing the time of the month - well it doesn't take a genius to work out that "guessing" is not as accurate as calculating, using OPKs or working out your cycle position by checking your cervical secretions.

I imagine the OP is sympathetic and concerned for her friend, but that doesn't exclude also thinking 'what did you expect you silly woman?'. Withdrawal and guessing FFS!

As long as only the sympathetic side is expressed when the friend is around I don't think it makes you a bad friend.

Spitandpolish, I can vouch for the diaphragm's rubbishness

And, um, the pill's.TBH, I think it's just me that's rubbish at reading instructions to the letter.

I don't agree with ToP as a form of contraception, personally, but I wouldn't judge out loud, iyswim.

Yes that's it exactly TrillianAstra.

Yes, it's a bloody stupid method & surely anyone using it must know the risks of getting pregnant are pretty damn high so yes I would be thinking 'what did you expect'. BUT what's done is done & clearly she's very upset about now being pregnant, it was just where you said you'd been bombarded with emails/texts it sounded a bit like you weren't interested IYKWIM? Sorry if I misunderstood that.

Ever heard this joke ??

'What do you call people who use the 'natural method' ?

Mum and dad !!!

Erm, YABU to blame it on NFP - no method of contraception is 100% effective unless you don't have sex.

Using sympto-thermal or Billings methods of Natural Family Planning is, as the figures above show, as effective as many other forms of contraception. In fact, if you only have sex in the infertile post ovualation phase of your cycle its nearly an absolute 0 failure rate. But that would be quite limiting for most couples so I guess only people who REALLY REALLY didn't want a pregnancy would go for that.

But if she was guessing then she wasn't really using NFP, so she shouldn't be suprised it didn't work and YANBU to think (privately of course) that she should have been more careful. If she did want to use NFP properly after the abortion or birth, depending on what she decides - maybe she should look into getting someone to teach her to chart properly

I'm amazed @ S&P's statistics! I thought sperm could live in the body for up to 5 days & if practising withdrawral method, pre-cum can also have sperm wiggling around in it? ergo, natural methods are hardly fool proof?

I'd feel exactly than same as Trillian if it were my friend.

YABU.
Her contraception method is her choice, as it what she chooses to do next.
Just because she chose the natural method, doesn't mean she can't have a termination, or should be made to feel bad about it.

I got pg with a Mirena coil (and was made to feel bad about terminating), nothing is 100%.

If you chart though, there are very specific rules about how many days into your cycle you can have unprotected sex without (higher than failure rate) risk of getting pregnant.

And they start off more strict for a new user; and then after 3/6/12 months of charting and a history of cycle lengths they relax a little bit - using your shortest cycle length - x days. So if you have super long cycles you don't have to wait until post ovulation to have sex.

But you do need to get to know your own cycle and fertility symptoms first or its no use. You can't just apply general rules because women have different lengths for cycles and phases within their cycles.