SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — More Mid-South women are tossing out their birth control pills and turning to a natural method to avoid pregnancy.
“We use it for both avoiding pregnancy and achieving pregnancy,” Rebecca Miller said.
Miller is using Natural Family Planning, or NFP, not to get pregnant.
“It is natural. It’s safe for the woman’s body. Like my husband, like all men, I don’t think very many people like the barrier method like condoms and things,” Miller, who uses NFP for health and religious reasons, said.
Miller is one of many Mid-South women refusing to take birth control pills.
“There’s been so many health risks associated with birth control pills and IUDs,” Sierra Callaher, who also uses NFP for religious and health reasons, said.
Instead, women are tracking their body’s symptoms to determine the best time of the month to get pregnant. Now technology is making it even easier.
“As I walk around during the day, I sense certain types of signals in my own body as a woman. I carry my phone around with me all day, and I just, you know, two or three times a day make notes,” Miller said.
What’s making NFP more appealing are smartphone apps. Some of the most popular apps to chart your cycle are Kindara, Glow, and Ovuline. All claim to make tracking ovulation easier and more precise.
“They certainly help. In fact, if you look at the health apps, it’s the ones geared towards women that are doing the best,” Dr. Jason Williams with Memphis Obstetrics & Gynecological Association said.
Dr. Williams tells his patients not to rely on apps and to be careful with NFP all together.
He said it’s good for getting pregnant or understanding your body’s cycle, but as a contraception, it’s pretty unreliable.
“If you look at a 100 women, for example, 24 to 25 of those women are going be pregnant at the end of the year using this method,” Dr. Williams said.
The CDC backs him up, but Mary Pat Van Epps disagrees. She trains women in the most modern, symptom-based NFP at the Catholic Diocese of Memphis.
Van Epps said there’s new ways of tracking your cycle, too. Most women aren’t using the Calendar Rhythm Method anymore.
They are new methods with decades of research to back it that require women to pay attention to their bodies each day, and track their cervical mucus and/or body’s temperatures.
When it’s done right, Van Epps said it’s consistently reliable.
“I see a lot of people wanting to chart online. I just wish they would come to class first, know the method first and know what they need to know,” said Van Epps.
Van Epps teaches the Billings Method, but there are other methods like the Sympto-Thermal Method.
One thing Van Epps and doctors agree on: more and more women are asking about hormone-free planning and turning to technology to make it happen.
As for Miller, she said it’s a growing trend, just not one women are vocal about.
“A lot more people use it that you would think. People just don’t talk about it. It’s private for them,” Miller said.
If you’re interested in taking a NFP class, click here.
