I don't understand how NFP can help you achieve pregnancy

  • Thread starter Thread starter sdeco
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

sdeco

Guest
I’ve heard it often said that NFP can help couples achieve pregnancy in addition to avoid pregnancy. This has always puzzled me, even as someone who has been married 3 1/2 years and has used NFP the whole time.

At first glance it makes sense - since NFP helps you figure out when you’re fertile, you can have intercourse during the fertile time to achieve pregnancy. But couldn’t you just have intercourse every day of your cycle, and not worry about figuring out when you’re fertile? If you did it every day or almost every day, that would include the fertile time, right? How woud that be any less effective in achieving pregnancy? :confused:
 
sdeco said:
I’ve heard it often said that NFP can help couples achieve pregnancy in addition to avoid pregnancy. This has always puzzled me, even as someone who has been married 3 1/2 years and has used NFP the whole time.

At first glance it makes sense - since NFP helps you figure out when you’re fertile, you can have intercourse during the fertile time to achieve pregnancy. But couldn’t you just have intercourse every day of your cycle, and not worry about figuring out when you’re fertile? If you did it every day or almost every day, that would include the fertile time, right? How woud that be any less effective in achieving pregnancy? :confused:
Click to expand...
Actually it’s very helpful for those who have trouble with their fertility.

Technically, yes, you could have intercourse every day of your cycle… but logically, is that going to happen? (LOL!)…
And if you really want to increase your chances of conceiving, it’s recommended that you actually have intercourse every other day during ovulation (so that the husband can “build up” his sperm counts)…

Also, in tracking your temperature, you’re able to know if you actually ARE ovulating. Women who have infertility issues may not actually be ovulating. A significant temperature rise would rule out a lot of underlying problems…

HTH!
 
I’ve heard that when you got a fertility doctor that this is the first thing they start you on - charting your cycles. Then, once you’re familiar with what your body is doing, they can go from there :).

My parents sought out help for 10 years of infertility, and thanks to NFP combined with a few other suggestions from the doctor (no drugs - not that they’re bad, but just to show you they were able to do this naturally) they were able to have four beautiful children and one in heaven :).

Like the previous poster said, not all women’s cycles are regular, so with irregular cycles - a woman is able to tell if she even is ovulating that cycle. 🙂
 
There are several aspects to NFP helping achieve pregnancy.

First, charting the woman’s cycle can diagnose a host of problems including anovulatory cycles (no ovulation) as well as hormonoal problems such as a short luteal phase (if the luteal phase is too short, there will be conception followed by miscarriage as the baby cannot implant). Charting can identify these problems, and then steps can be taken to correct them so that pregnancy can be achieved.

Secondly, for sub-fertile couples-- such as those where the husband has low sperm count or the woman has certain conditions-- it is important to target the days of highest fertility for maximum chance of conception. In such cases, doing as you suggest would actually decrease the chance of conception.
 
1ke said:
There are several aspects to NFP helping achieve pregnancy.

First, charting the woman’s cycle can diagnose a host of problems including anovulatory cycles (no ovulation) as well as hormonoal problems such as a short luteal phase (if the luteal phase is too short, there will be conception followed by miscarriage as the baby cannot implant). Charting can identify these problems, and then steps can be taken to correct them so that pregnancy can be achieved.

Secondly, for sub-fertile couples-- such as those where the husband has low sperm count or the woman has certain conditions-- it is important to target the days of highest fertility for maximum chance of conception. In such cases, doing as you suggest would actually decrease the chance of conception.
Click to expand...
Exactly! Problems can be diagnosed simply from charting thoroughly. Then you know if hormonal supplements or other medications may be needed. For instance, we used NaPro ( www.popepaulvi.com ) to find out I have PCOS. Then I was able to start the appropriate medication, and now I’m finally pregnant, 10 years after our last child was born! 😃
 
OK, I can understand how NFP can help diagnose fertility problems, such as not ovulating, a short luteal phase, etc. But in those cases NFP doesn’t help you get pregnant per se; it just helps you diagnose the problem, and the subsequent treatment is what helps you get pregnant.

I guess it would seem to me that in most cases, having intercourse every other day of the fertile time instead of every day, or abstaining during phase 1 and having sex in phase 2, or whatever, would only slightly increase the chances of getting pregnant, and if you have a real fertility problem, further medical intervention woud probably be necessary. I could be wrong though…
 
Sure, you could have intercourse every day to acheive a pregnancy. A woman still will only conceive at ovulation or slightly afterwards, however! There’s no “increase in chances” by abstaining during a non-fertile time. Chance isn’t really a factor.

For folks who might not have the uh, stamina, of a 20 year old, however, it’s good to be able to say, “hey, let’s make sure we plan a romantic evening soon; it looks like I’ll be peaking” or other such sweet-talk 😉 .

For me it’s sort of splitting hairs to say that NFP just helps diagnose the problem & the subsequent treatment gets you pregnant. (No offense taken at all, btw) Because it’s not like once the problem is solved you throw your charts out the window–a woman’s fertility is usually pretty sensitive & dynamic & for some of us, careful monitoring is the only thing we’ve got to try to acheive!🙂
 
Have you talked to your wife about this yet ?
But couldn’t you just have intercourse every day of your cycle, and not worry about figuring out when you’re fertile? If you did it every day or almost every day, that would include the fertile time, right?.. :confused:
Click to expand...
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Sorry but I have been married a long, …long, …long… time I believe we have missed a few nights

**Best of luck to you and your future family **
 
sdeco said:
OK, I can understand how NFP can help diagnose fertility problems, such as not ovulating, a short luteal phase, etc. But in those cases NFP doesn’t help you get pregnant per se; it just helps you diagnose the problem, and the subsequent treatment is what helps you get pregnant.
Click to expand...
Sure NFP is what helps you get pregnant. The entire system of charting is NFP… the entire process of charting and interpreting those charts is what helps you get pregnant. I fail to understand your above analysis.
sdeco said:
I guess it would seem to me that in most cases, having intercourse every other day of the fertile time instead of every day, or abstaining during phase 1 and having sex in phase 2, or whatever, would only slightly increase the chances of getting pregnant,
Click to expand...
It may seem that way to you, but doctors such as Dr. Hilgers have studied this much more extensively and they disagree.
sdeco said:
and if you have a real fertility problem, further medical intervention woud probably be necessary. I could be wrong though…
Click to expand...
As stated previously, this is not the case.

I suggest you study NFP more thoroughly, as your conjecture is not rooted in fact.
 
Some women are only fertile for hours a month. Some men may have a low sperm count, it only takes one, of course, but may need all the fertile mucus it can get to “help it on its way”. So NFP can help you p(name removed by moderator)oint this tiny window of fertility.
Many couples will get pregnant sooner or later by your suggested method, but for some couples NFP is crucial.
 
Great Question…

Basically, fertility awareness is, without a doubt, useful to the married couple when trying to achieve pregnancy. A women who knows her fertile signs increases her chances of achieving pregnancy. For my husband and I, we achieved all 3 of our pregnancies immediately because I was keenly aware of my fertility signs…

Some abstinence may be recommended if you are having difficulty achieving pregnancy…primarily to help build up your husband’s sperm count.

A good OB/GYN will appreciate your charts too…If you have well documented charts with basal temperatures and mucus signs, your doctor may be able to identify possible reasons why you are having trouble conceiving…you must also chart your coitus records…this is valuable information to your doctor when he is trying to help you.

We have been using NFP since 1992 and have always had nothing but positive results from it…Our marriage is stronger…our faith is stronger…Our family size is just right for us!

If you have never attended a NFP class, look up Couple to Couple league and find a Certified Teacher in your area or take the home study course. You will then have a better understanding of not only your fertility awareness, but also our Catholic teaching regarding this issue.

Hope this helps,

Many blessings,

Liz
 
Before I was married I knew NOTHING about my cycle except that Aunt Flo would inevitably come around day 28. I knew nothing about when I ovulated…I even thought that it was possible to ovulate many times a cycle. I was a fertility flunk-out. When I started researching NFP (I’m not Catholic) I learned way more than my mother ever told me (actually, she just handed me a book and said ‘read this’…it was pretty much just an anatomy lesson).
Haha! Sex every day?! This isn’t a honeymoon. Sorry, sometimes a girl needs a break.
Anyway, I’m happy to say that because of the knowledge I gained from NFP we’re expecting a little Junebug! 🙂
 
Have you talked to your wife about this yet ?
Click to expand...
Ummm … I’m a woman, I don’t have a wife. Sorry for not making that clear. 🙂

My husband and I certainly don’t have sex every day - illness, busyness and exhaustion inevitably get in the way sometimes. But we are 20-somethings, so maybe we do have more energy than older folks. 🙂

I was just saying that if a couple was trying to conceive, simply having sex often (not necessarily every day - just regularly) should result in a pregnancy if the couple has no fertility problems. I think I heard that statistically speaking, it should happen within four cycles. If you think about it, the average cycle is only 28 days, and the woman is potentially fertile for about a third of that time. When you consider that the fertile time is often the time the woman experiences the greatest desire, I would think that couples who just have sex when they both feel like it should get pregnant fairly quickly (again, assuming the couple has no fertility issues). I can see how NFP could help couples diagnose fertility problems (such as a short leautal phase) if they’re having trouble conceiving. But it does seem strange to me that a couple could go for years without conceiving and then end up conceiving with no medical intervention other than figuring out when they’re fertile. Wouldn’t they have inevitably had sex during the fertile time at some point during the time they were trying to conceive? I’m not talking about couples where the woman wasn’t ovulating or has a short leutal phase. I’m talking about no other intervention other than finding out when they’re fertile. Maybe I’m misinterpreting what people mean when they say NFP can be used to achieve pregnancy. Maybe when people say that it can be used to achieve pregnancy, what they really mean is that it can be used to diagnose fertility issues. Am I making sense?

I already know a lot about NFP – I’ve taken the CCL class, met with the instructor outside of class, gone to several doctors about my weird cycles (including an NFP-only Dr.) and tried all sorts of nutritional things to make my cycles more normal. (I have 45-90 day cycles and confusing mucus much of the time. But I got pregnant 3 months after getting married without trying. Go figure.) I guess I’m looking at this more from my own perspective. My fertility signs are often confusing – I’ll sometimes think I’m fertile when I’m not – so if my husband and I were trying to conceive, we would probably just have a lot of sex and not worry about the mucus too much. But again, I’m looking at it from my perspective (20-something who probably has more energy than older people, not always sure when I’m fertile and when I’m not, already conceived one child without trying).
 
Maybe I’m misinterpreting what people mean when they say NFP can be used to achieve pregnancy. Maybe when people say that it can be used to achieve pregnancy, what they really mean is that it can be used to diagnose fertility issues. Am I making sense?
Click to expand...
I think what everyone means is that NFP is a set of tools.

If a couple is quite fertile then they will probably achieve pregnancy fairly soon even without the use of NFP. If one or both of them has marginal fertility NFP can help this couple target the most fertile days/hours to have intercourse.

If a couple has a more serious problem then the use of NFP itself may not solve it. It may be necessary for one or both prospective parents to take supplements, drugs, or resort to surgery. But even in such cases the use of NFP is a part of the monitoring process.
 
SMHW has a good answer. I wanted to add one thing: NFP can help you achieve pregnancy in the month you’ve picked. Sure, you can get pregnant without NFP and many people do. But if you know the precise day to try, you have a better change to become pregnant than if you are winging it (and might for some reason chose to skip that day). For couples with certain schedules, such as teachers, this can make the difference between timing your pregnancy so that you give birth at the beginning of the summer (giving hubby time off when you need him most, or making the most of the year wifey takes off from teaching) and the end of the summer.
 
I read somewhere about a couple who didn’t get pregnant for years and years, and they just couldn’t figure it out. Turns out the woman thought her fertile mucus was “yucky” and didn’t want to do anything then!
 
I read somewhere about a couple who didn’t get pregnant for years and years, and they just couldn’t figure it out. Turns out the woman thought her fertile mucus was “yucky” and didn’t want to do anything then!
Click to expand...
Interesting - when I’m fertile that’s when I *most *want to have “marital relations.” Of course, I have mucus almost all the time so if we didn’t do it when I had mucus we would never do it. 🙂

But I can see now how NFP could help a couple who’s having trouble conceiving or who has limited time for the “conjugal act.” Especially since most people don’t have bizarre 45-to-90-day-cycles-with-mucus-all-the-time like me.
 
sdeco said:
But couldn’t you just have intercourse every day of your cycle, and not worry about figuring out when you’re fertile? If you did it every day or almost every day, that would include the fertile time, right? How woud that be any less effective in achieving pregnancy? :confused:
Click to expand...
I’m eight months’ pregnant so am too lazy to walk downstairs to look at my NFP book right now, but here is something I recall learning in my course: A man makes millions of sperm and he actually needs to deposit a lot of them in the woman to overcome the hostile conditions of the vaginal environment. (The vagina and uterus have to be hostile enough so as not to be overtaken by infection from every little bacteria that comes along, but friendly enough that not all sperm are killed in there.) Men are continually producing new sperm, but they can only produce them so quickly. If a man has marital relations daily, the number of sperm he is depositing is fewer than if he abstains for several days, during which the sperm build up.

Therefore, one tactic I believe is advised by NFP and by doctors to achieve pregnancy is to avoid having marital relations daily, but to have them every other day or so during the fertile time.

Does anyone else remember learning this? Does anybody have the numbers at hand, instead of just using rough descriptions as I did above?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top