NFP books or other resources

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Feanaro_s_Wife

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Just wondering which book or other resource has been the most helpful to you in learning about and practicing NFP.

I have learned most of what I know from a combination of books I borrow from the library and online sources.

I would like to have something in the house permanently though… if I was to buy one book, which one would you recommend?

Malia
 
I would say you can’t go wrong with The Art of Natural Family Planning as well as *Fertility, Cycles, and Nutrition. *

These are my two must-haves! I’d be interested to see what others say, though…
 
We were trained on the Symtpothermal Method as well, so I’d second the vote for The Art of Natural Family Planning.

You can learn more at ccli.org/
 
These wouldn’t be specifically on a method or the practice of NFP, but on Catholic teaching as a whole, I’d have to recommend The Good News About Sex and Marriage by Christopher West and For Better Forever by Gregory Popcak.

Good luck,
Nicole
 
The Art of Natural Family Planning and Taking Charge of Your Fertility are both excellent.

However, what I found most effective was my Creighton class and reference materials provided by my instructor.
 
Thanks for the replies so far everyone! Keep em’ coming!

Malia
 
I don’t think we offer you anything better than the Art of Natural Family Planning. You can get it at www.ccli.org

My only suggestion is to take a class. Call your church.
 
Okay, I’ll be a dissenting voice. CCLI is very popular in our area, but we found that their method and materials were overly complicated. (That book is HUGE! 😛 ) We decided to learn the Billings Method instead, and have been very happy with it.

Here are our favorite resources:

woomb.org/bom/lit/litindex.html
woomb.org/bom/index.html
… and any book by Dr. Evelyn Billings.
 
The book for Couple to Couple League is huge because they cover all the unusual cases that people may encounter (i.e. coming off the pill, breakthrough bleeding, etc.)

Once you learn the procedure it is pretty simple. It is much easier to take the course because it can be pretty hard to understand the book without having someone to simplify it.

Based on my understanding of the Billings method my wife would already be pregnant again due to the fact she has PCOS. Since Sympto-thermal uses both mucus and temperature readings, mucus showed one thing, temperature showed another. It turned out temperature was correct.
 
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Marauder:
The book for Couple to Couple League is huge because they cover all the unusual cases that people may encounter (i.e. coming off the pill, breakthrough bleeding, etc.)
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My Billings book covers all that stuff, too, but it’s a lot more compact. 🙂

Speaking of unusual cases (well, not really unusual at all), another reason we prefer Billings is that it works very well during breastfeeding. Charting with the STM can be tricky for nursing moms, due to very irregular cycles, disturbed sleep, etc. CCLI does teach “ecological breastfeeding” to prolong the period of postpartum infertility, but this isn’t practical for a lot of families, and it’s only reliable for 6 months in any case. Then you’re back to charting.
Based on my understanding of the Billings method my wife would already be pregnant again due to the fact she has PCOS. Since Sympto-thermal uses both mucus and temperature readings, mucus showed one thing, temperature showed another. It turned out temperature was correct.
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The Billings folks have a saying: “Teaching all indicators isn’t the same as teaching all methods.” In other words, doing a “mucus-only” form of the STM isn’t the same as doing Billings. The rules are quite different, and so is the accuracy.

woomb.org/bom/lit/teach/indicators.shtml

It’s also worth noting that Creighton (another mucus-only method) has the highest proven accuracy of any form of NFP, and is especially recommended for women with endocrine disorders such as PCOS.

Anyway, I’m glad you’ve found a method you’re happy with. 🙂
 
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maryceleste:
Speaking of unusual cases (well, not really unusual at all), another reason we prefer Billings is that it works very well during breastfeeding. Charting with the STM can be tricky for nursing moms, due to very irregular cycles, disturbed sleep, etc. CCLI does teach “ecological breastfeeding” to prolong the period of postpartum infertility, but this isn’t practical for a lot of families, and it’s only reliable for 6 months in any case. Then you’re back to charting.
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That is not true. STM is reliable all through postpartum infertility, not just for 6 months. What you are referring to is that no systematic observations need to be made during the first 6 months since there is a 1% chance of becoming pregnant without a “warming period”. After 6 months, you can observer your mucus signs (and temperature, if you wish) for reliable NFP.

Mucus only methods is certainly another option, and I do refer couples when they are having difficult health issues or having difficulty achieving pregnancy.
 
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Rascal:
That is not true. STM is reliable all through postpartum infertility, not just for 6 months.
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Sorry if I was unclear…I meant that ecological breastfeeding (as taught in the CCL book) is only reliable for 6 months. (Actually, for us, it only would have been reliable for 2 months. My daughter was sleeping 6+ hours at a time by that point, and no way was I going to wake her up!!! 😛 ) After that, you’re back to charting with the STM, which, for lactating women, tends to be somewhat more complicated than charting with Billings.

On the subject of complexity vs. simplicity, here’s an excerpt from a large-scale study of the Billings method in China:

*It is interesting to note that in one field trial, most failure cases had a relatively high cultural level (two university graduates and two lecturers). They all felt sorry and admitted that since they considered the method was simple and easy to master, they had paid less attention to the teaching course and had not strictly followed the rules. The consequence was use-related failures. On the contrary, the illiterate women were generally very attentive to BOM teaching and rigidly stuck to the rules, and failures were very rare. (…)

During the training, special attention should be paid to the intellectuals and professionals. The method seems to be too “simple” to them and they could not get hold of it without strict supervision.*

woomb.org/omrrca/bulletin/vol27/no4/chinaEvaluation.html

ROFL… 😛
 
Again, I’m not sure what book you are referring to, but ecological breastfeeing does involve strange observed symptoms. However, the rules as taought by CCL are easy and depending on one’s movtivation can be easier. The rules are valid all through postpartum infertility (and pre-menopause). Yes, at some point you do need to chart your symptoms, but you would if you hadn’t been pregnant.

If you do have research that indicates CCL’s rules less accurate, please cite one. It would be helpful if couples in class ask the question.
 
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Rascal:
If you do have research that indicates CCL’s rules less accurate, please cite one. It would be helpful if couples in class ask the question.
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I don’t think anyone has done formal studies on the effectiveness of CCL’s mucus rules, when used without temperatures. However, there are several reasons why this approach can be expected to be be less effective than the Ovulation Method (a blanket term covering various mucus-only methods such as Billings and Creighton). These reasons are discussed in the “Teaching All Indicators” article, as previously mentioned.

Anyway, that’s kind of off-topic for this thread. My points remain:
  1. Some of us prefer the Ovulation Method, since it’s very simple and doesn’t require temperatures, but it’s still as accurate as the STM. (Controlled studies have shown 99+% effectiveness for both methods.)
  2. For those who would like to learn the Ovulation Method, it’s necessary to use reference materials that deal with the OM specifically. This could include books by Evelyn or John Billings, online information from woomb.org or familyplanning.net, or course materials from a Creighton instructor. You just won’t find equivalent information in STM books such as “The Art of Natural Family Planning” or “Taking Charge of Your Fertility.”
So, in answer to Malia’s original question, there’s no one book that covers all the questions you might have about NFP. But you should be able to keep your library down to a manageable size. 🙂
 
Sorry if I was unclear…I meant that ecological breastfeeding (as taught in the CCL book) is only reliable for 6 months
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uh…no
i ffollow the 7 steps listed in ccl co-founder Sheila Kipply’s book, Breastfeedind and Natural Child Spacing and I’m 14 months post partum with no mucus, ovulation, or period.
I highly suggest that book and Taking Charge Of Your Fertility along with the other books already mentioned and this website
member.newsguy.com/~mayfikn/lam/lam.html
 
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