What exactly is wrong with contraceptives?

[13pollitos]

That really is sad. I think that explains at least somewhat why so many catholic couples aren’t using it. I will have to look at my dioceses and see how it is advertised in both. To be quite honest, I’ve never seen anything about it in the two churches I attend regularly, and i teach Sunday school and altar server coordinator so I’m pretty involved in both parishes. You made me just now realize this. I am sorry you’ve had a struggle like that to cope with. Marriage and parenting are hard all on their own. Adding more stress is terrible. For couples trying to teach themselves with no support, I’ll be praying tonight that they find the grace to live according to God’s will for them. Thank you for responding to me.

 

[Allegra]

You may personally have had good luck with birth control, but you’d have to go around with your fingers in your ears, humming loudly to pretend to believe that everyone has had the same experience. I know five people intimately who have gotten pregnant while on birth control. My sister’s second child was born with the IUD still implanted. My cousin dismissed her pregnancy symptoms until she was almost in her third trimester because she was still taking birth control and believed that even if she had conceived, she would have had a miscarriage at that point. Even Planned Parenthood states that well over half of the children they abort were conceived even though their mother’s were using contraception. Trying to claim that birth control is effective given the number of women who get pregnant in spite of it seems almost crazy to me and it’s almost cruel to assume that anyone woman who is failed by contraception must have done it wrong in some way.
And again, while you may have not experienced side effects, many, many women do. Most suck it up so they can remain sexually available without consequences, other rely entirely on barrier methods or NFP. I know lots of non-Catholic and completely non-religious women who use NFP with barrier methods because the side effects of birth control are so uncomfortable for them. I have another sister who had a stroke at the age of 19, just a month after having an implant installed. Of course, there’s no way to definitively prove that the implant caused the stroke, but she was completely healthy and they didn’t find any underlying health issues after the fact.
Finally, I’m not sure why you are surprised that parishes don’t train women in NFP. We saw a specialist at the hospital for that. There was no “searching”, other than looking up certified specialists that were covered by my husband’s health insurance, more or less the same as you would look up an ENT or cardiologist. Why would you go to some random volunteer at your parish when you could go to someone who is certified to teach it?

 

[13pollitos]

This is very good information. Yes, I know women who have had strokes and pulmonary embolisms due to hormonal contraceptives. I also know women who have developed latex allergies, partially due to condom usage. Depression and anxiety are also attributed to the pill. A co worker had her uterus perforated when she had her IUD placed. Essure has been removed from the market due to all sorts of problems. And many babies are here because of birth control failures. Sadly, many are aborted as well. My adopted kids’ bio mom is currently pregnant after having her tubes tied and many post vasectomy babies have been born to people I know. There are reasons so much of secular society is seeking out alternatives to hormones.

I hadn’t considered what you say about finding a medical professional to teach NFP. I did have the midwife offer to teach me after my older child’s birth. I wasn’t interested at the time and actually had forgotten about it. At my age I don’t see it as important and in my younger years it was unneeded. Is it generally easy to find drs or nurses who teach NFP? Is it just an ON/Gyn or a particular specialist? That seems a lot better than some volunteer anyway.

 

[carisa3]

I personally don’t know enough about NFP or any other forms of birth control to know how effective they all are. I think it’s kind of disappointing though that that NFP isn’t advertised better, especially in churches. I didn’t know what it even was until long after I knew about condoms and birth control pills. As a young teenager, I thought that since contraception is prohibited in the catholic church, then married couples just can’t have sex unless they want a ton of kids lol.

 

[KCmedtech]

Trying to claim that birth control is effective given the number of women who get pregnant in spite of it seems almost crazy to me and it’s almost cruel to assume that anyone woman who is failed by contraception must have done it wrong in some way.

I feel the same way about women who have gotten pregnant through NFP. The number is truly unknown because the numbers of users are small and…official method failures are classified as…no instructor/self taught…which could mean a number of different things.
I’ve belonged to several NFP support groups on Facebook…with several thousand followers per group. The number of posts that pop up from women who have gotten pregnant multiple times from multiple methods is alarming…to be blunt. I think it’s one of the only ways to see if the method is actually effective. Especially since official failures that contribute to how effective is the method is, are failures confirmed through an instructor verifying it was a method failure and not a user failure.
But to classify and advertise that NFP is 98% effective is just as ridiculous and out there, and yes, cruel as the number you’ve seen get pregnant while on the pill.

I commented that we all know women who have gotten pregnant on the pill. My best friend did and also ignored her symptoms until she went to see her OB for a routine physical.

I’ve gotten pregnant twice…while desperately trying to avoid…through NFP. So, I don’t trust the method at all.

And we don’t all have the luxury of finding a physician to teach the method. Truth be told…most instructors are catholic nurses who take an online course on the method and are certified after being self-guided/self taught. I’ll take my doctors over that…all of whom have stated that they would never advise the method to avoid pregnancy.

I’ve looked around my area. We have one midwife who is familiar with the methods but does not teach any of them. I live in a city, with several hospitals, and I work in health care at one of the hospitals.

 

[KCmedtech]

I would say it’s not easy to find anyone with a medical degree in gynecology to teach NFP. But, it could be where you live.

My parish is fairly orthodox with several large families. I’ve gotten to know a lot of the families and most have never used NFP and choose to space through nursing.
I know one who is self taught Marquette. One who is self taught sympto thermal. The rest Ive talked to do not use NFP and I’ve never asked how they space their children.

When my husband brought up the topic at the parish council meeting…he was met with blank stares with one suggestion that there was an instructor couple that taught STM about 50 miles from us but couldn’t remember if they still taught or not.
Yeah…not good enough.

 

[13pollitos]

I’ll take my doctors over that…all of whom have stated that they would never advise the method to avoid pregnancy.

I’ve gotten pregnant twice…while desperately trying to avoid…through NFP. So, I don’t trust the method at all.

Which method of NFP do you not trust, or is it all methods? Would you feel the same way about artificial birth control if your babies were conceived while using it instead? What if your health declined or God forbid worse from the hormones or allergic reactions? Would that make you distrust artificial contraception? Why the concern that it isn’t promoted and more widely taught if you distrust it anyway? If you spoke with your drs about NFP and they advised you against it, why want more instructors that are more accesible at the parish level? Why ask the Church to promote something you have no trust in, wouldn’t advise anyone to use, and seem to highly dislike?

I can understand the shock, fear and trauma when little ones come at times that are not ideal. I am pretty sure all moms have felt that way at some point. I am just not sure why you have such negative and conflicting statements for NFP but defend the pill.

 

[Allegra]

I just asked my OBGYN about it and he gave me a list of trainers in the area, which I cross checked with the insurance. The lady we went to wasn’t a doctor, but some sort of nurse with special fertility specialist certification and she had an office at the hospital.

 

[Allegra]

I was trained through Creighton model and that is how they get their information on effectiveness. It takes several months of guided charting before you are considered “officially trained”. They don’t include people who are “self-taught” in any of their studies. I’m not even sure how you’d go about getting the materials without going through someone who is certified to teach. For what it’s worth, my OBGYN DID recommend this practitioner and I know other women who have been sent there by their doctors as well. I’ve used it for my entire marriage and had no problems with unexpected pregnancies or strokes. My sister has used it for probably the same amount of time, although she does so for non-religious reasons and uses barrier methods. She hasn’t had an unexpected pregnancy either, although she got pregnant twice on two different birth control methods. The first time she lost the baby, so maybe they’d consider that successful? A second trimester miscarriage and D & C wasn’t exactly her expectation though. As I already said, her second child was actually born with the implant still inside. It was too close to where the placenta was attached to safely remove.

 

[Mboo]

the use of contraceptives is a sin against nature, of the same kind as sodomy, and which violates the 5th commandment: you will not kill.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Catholics tend to be very misinformed about contraceptive use. Namely, they cause abortions.

The possibility of abortive actions has not one thing to do with the reason contraception disorders the marital act. The method/device, from coitus interruptus to a copper IUD, all disorder the marital act and bring harm to the people involved.

There are no collections for it, most parishes do not have anything to say about it except for marriage precana. I’m shocked that each parish doesn’t have its own instructors for married couples and one must search and hunt for information and instruction.

If you visit our parish website, there are links to each of the main methods of NFP, to the nearest instructors. Our Diocese website has an entire area devoted to NFP.

Each week in the bulletin is at minimum is a blurb that says “Information about Catholic marriage, NFP and more at www.foryourmarriage.org”

The US Bishops have a wealth of information, as well as the annual “NFP Awareness Week”. Every US parish receives posters, flyers, links to the promotional resources from the USCCB:

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-act...ural-family-planning/awareness-week/index.cfm

Maybe you could volunteer to put up the posters next year, to help print/insert the bulletin flyers, etc.

Instructors themselves are barely given a month of formal training…most of it is done online.

Various methods have their own training programs.

Thing is, some of the methods - for instance the BOMA - is simple, it is such a simple method that it is taught in areas where the literacy rate is low The Quest - leading to the discovery of the Billings Ovulation Method®

If it’s truly so effective…why hasn’t it been picked up by the mainstream and secular culture?

Have you read “Sweetening The Pill” by Holly Grigg-Spall?

List of articles (and link to their Facebook page with more recent articles) http://www.sweeteningthepill.com/articles.php

 

[KCmedtech]

When you don’t trust something, you aren’t going to market it or create a platform for it.

I don’t trust NFP. That doesn’t make me a bad Catholic.

For me, it’s not effective. No different than if someone has a method failure from another method…they won’t trust it either.

 

[13pollitos]

You were talking about how the Church should do better at promoting and teaching NFP, your husband talked about it at a parish meeting, and yet you don’t trust NFP and would never help market it. Do you see how conflicting your statements are?

 

[KCmedtech]

No, they aren’t.

This was years ago when my husband asked when we were trying to get it better promoted.
Nothing was ever done. To this day…nothing has been done and I don’t care if it will or not.

A few months after this I found out I was pregnant again…third pregnancy, 2nd unplanned…in 4 years of NFP practice.

So, I gave up.

 

[13pollitos]

I do understand that must have been hard. I can see how it would make you not too happy with NFP. Was this all with one method or did you try various methods?

The reason I ask is there have been so many different types of NFP mentioned that it doesn’t seem right to lump them all together. There isn’t just one method, and it appears the various methods are pretty different. They “measure” or “monitor” different signs of fertility. In many secular societies, they are using devices that alert you to ovulation/fertile times in order to prevent pregnancy because they no longer “trust” hormones or barrier methods. I am pretty sure they aren’t borrowing from catholic teachings there. They simply don’t want kids/more kids, but don’t like hormones or their health won’t allow them, and barrier methods have a pretty high failure rate. Other methods of NFP or FAM are promoted by the UN, the WHO and Planned Parenthood, and they are definitely not influenced by Catholic teachings. I just saw on the PP website that they actually will teach three different methods of NFP/FAM in their clinics if that is what their clients want to use. The UN says that non medical instructors teach many different methods world wide, and the WHO says the same.

I know for me, breastfeeding (just one method mentioned on WHO site) isn’t going to space my babies. My two girls are 13 months apart. (I am happy about that though. My age isn’t going to allow another baby for much longer, and my prayer is just one more. But I am more than satisfied either way.) If I did opt to use NFP I think I would try a mucus only, or even the cycle beads. They seem simple to learn. I never realized how many different methods exist around the globe!

 

[Brendea]

I will mention this only beacuse I believe that it is relevant.

I use contraception for medical reasons even when I abstain from sex I still need to use it. The only other alternative is a hysterectomy and that is something I will not put my body through
I have recently changed the contraception I use to control the cramps and the heavy bleeding ( 6 week periods are not good especially when the pain i get feels like I’m in labour and I can soak a pad in an hour)
My medical problems are so severe that before I started using contraception that I managed to have a premature baby born at 23 weeks

Birth control or contraception is not a decision alot of women take lightly and a lot of us would prefer to be able to stop the pain and bleeding another way however my children NEED me to be ok they NEED me to be able to get up and be able to play with them they NEED me to be able to look after them they do not need a mother who is in hospital regularly or is in to much pain to move for 6 weeks

 

[His_helpmeet]

In this case, it sounds as if you’re using birth control pills as a medication, not to prevent pregnancy. That’s an acceptable use. This falls under the double-effect principle. Your intention is not prevent conception, but to control a legitimate medical condition. Preventing conception is an unintended side effect.

 

[13pollitos]

That is not contraception. That is for medical purposes. You are correct, you and your children need you to be ok.