Why isn't there a fool proof NFP?

[a_cermak]

I have heard and read about the experiences of people who have had accidental pregnancies with NFP. This can put unneeded stress on a marriage.

Why isn’t there a fool proof form of the method? I’m thinking of something like a blood test they use for diabetes that could just return a yes/no or percentage of risk or something like that that would obviate the need for taking a temp first thing in the morning (hard if you have sleepless nights due to an infant) or for taking cervical mucous signals.

I know the Creighton model uses fertility tests to confirm, but even they aren’t perfect as the sperm can survive long enough to miss the first luten test.

Is anyone working on something like this? The NFP model is highly effective when used as exactly meant, but it’s as used effectiveness is quite a bit lower than say the effective rate of IUDs or implantable or injected hormonal birth control (these methods are highly effective because they do not rely on perfect observance).

I think if something like this were invented that took out the charting and the perfect use requirements (other than abstaining when the meter said no), that NFP usage would skyrocket.

 

[CarrieSpooner]

I have heard and read about the experiences of people who have had accidental pregnancies with NFP. This can put unneeded stress on a marriage.

Why isn’t there a fool proof form of the method? I’m thinking of something like a blood test they use for diabetes that could just return a yes/no or percentage of risk or something like that that would obviate the need for taking a temp first thing in the morning (hard if you have sleepless nights due to an infant) or for taking cervical mucous signals.

I know the Creighton model uses fertility tests to confirm, but even they aren’t perfect as the sperm can survive long enough to miss the first luten test.

Is anyone working on something like this? The NFP model is highly effective when used as exactly meant, but it’s as used effectiveness is quite a bit lower than say the effective rate of IUDs or implantable or injected hormonal birth control (these methods are highly effective because they do not rely on perfect observance).

I think if something like this were invented that took out the charting and the perfect use requirements (other than abstaining when the meter said no), that NFP usage would skyrocket.

There is. It’s called abstinence. When people try to justify the use of ABC, they have all the reasons in the world why NFP won’t work for them but this does not explain why they think they are entitled to sex whenever they want it.

What you are asking is why isn’t there a way to make the world according to our own will and not Gods. Why isn’t there a way to safely and accurately allow me to achieve my own desires. That is not a Christian thought. Christ didn’t say, go and have the sex you want to have. He said give up your life. He said pick up your cross. It’s hard. But that does not mean we are entitled to change the law of creation. Love gives life. That’s it. We can work with the cycles he gave us but any time you have sex, ABC or not, life is a possibility unless you have no ovaries/uterus.

But people want sex without consequences. They want love without responsibility. It’s not possible.

 

[a_cermak]

I’m not trying to justify ABC, I’m post-menopausal so it doesn’t personally matter to me. Even when I was pre-menopausal and Catholic, I never used ABC (I was blessed with natural infertility during most of my marriage, only reversed at the very end).

I’m not even suggesting ending the need for abstinence during fertile times. What I’m recommending/asking about is finding a better way to p(name removed by moderator)oint those fertile times. Mainly, because I’m an engineer. And partly because I do feel that NFP/FAM is a much more natural method as long as it is as predictable as the most modern forms of ABC and as long as it is as easy as the most modern forms of ABC.

 

[Maine52]

You do know that accidental pregnancies also occur when artificial birth control methods are utilized? NFP, when used correctly, has the same Pearl Index (rate of unintended pregnancies per year) as contraception. If you’re looking for a perfect method of preventing pregnancy, the only 100% effective method is abstinence.

 

[gardenswithkids]

NFP is all “fool proof” if you trust that God is intricately involved in creating human beings right from the start.

To quote from someone I can’t recall:
“He is no fool if he should chose to give the things he cannot keep to buy what he can never lose.”

 

[a_cermak]

You do know that accidental pregnancies also occur when artificial birth control methods are utilized? NFP, when used correctly, has the same Pearl Index (rate of unintended pregnancies per year) as contraception. If you’re looking for a perfect method of preventing pregnancy, the only 100% effective method is abstinence.

Yes. That’s why I mentioned the “as used” rates. NFP has a high “perfect use” rate but a lower “as used” rate. IUDs and implantable and injected hormonal ABC has the same effective rate for both “perfect use” and “as used” mainly due to the fact that there is nothing the person need do.

 

[a_cermak]

NFP is all “fool proof” if you trust that God is intricately involved in creating human beings right from the start.

To quote from someone I can’t recall:
“He is no fool if he should chose to give the things he cannot keep to buy what he can never lose.”

Family planning, of which NFP is a type, normally involves planning the spacing of one’s children. I do not think it would be helpful to NFP’s marketing to claim that well, God wanted all the unplanned children that may result!

 

[gardenswithkids]

I’m not trying to justify ABC, I’m post-menopausal so it doesn’t personally matter to me. Even when I was pre-menopausal and Catholic, I never used ABC (I was blessed with natural infertility during most of my marriage, only reversed at the very end).

I’m not even suggesting ending the need for abstinence during fertile times. What I’m recommending/asking about is finding a better way to p(name removed by moderator)oint those fertile times. **Mainly, because I’m an engineer. **And partly because I do feel that NFP/FAM is a much more natural method as long as it is as predictable as the most modern forms of ABC and as long as it is as easy as the most modern forms of ABC.

“Blessed with natural infertility” sounds like an oxymoron if you view fertility from a Biblical perspective. Oh, well, I understand your question now. You’re an engineer–that explains your question better. If something hasn’t been invented yet to best help couples live by the teachings of the Church, it is because Catholics or others haven’t yet invented it yet, but it’s not because the Church hasn’t asked.

From Humanae Vitae

To Scientists

1. Our next appeal is to men of science. These can “considerably advance the welfare of marriage and the family and also peace of conscience, if by pooling their efforts they strive to elucidate more thoroughly the conditions favorable to a proper regulation of births.” (28) It is supremely desirable, and this was also the mind of Pius XII, that medical science should by the study of natural rhythms succeed in determining a sufficiently secure basis for the chaste limitation of offspring. (29) In this way scientists, especially those who are Catholics, will by their research establish the truth of the Church’s claim that “there can be no contradiction between two divine laws—that which governs the transmitting of life and that which governs the fostering of married love.” (30)

 

[ahs]

The reason there is not an NFP method that is 100% fool-proof is because it’s a topic that involves sex, and sex is the very thing that normally leads to procreation. Everytime a couple engages in sex (typical scenario, mind you, completed in a natural manner…) there is some potential for pregnancy. The only 100% sure way to avoid pregnancy is to avoid the act that normally leads to pregnancy.

ETA: As to the use of NFP skyrocketing if it were 100% effective, I doubt it. My opinion is that people who use contraception instead of NFP are unwilling to do the 1 thing that NFP naturally demands: voluntary abstinence from sex for some period of time. NFP requires self-control and a willingness to suffer, to go without something that we want, to tell the self “no”. If contracepting couples could do those things, they would not be using contraception.

 

[UbiCaritas]

First of all, a point about NFP “failure”: while this does not encompass every instance of it “failing,” I have an honest question. Many times when NFP “fails,” it “fails” because a couple decides to risk having sex at a time when the woman might be fertile. Now, if a couple’s birth control method of choice is a condom, but they don’t put the condom on before they actually engage in intercourse, no one would call that a condom failure: they’d say that the couple didn’t use the method properly. Yet if a couple decides to have sex although they can’t be certain that the woman isn’t fertile…that’s an NFP failure? One can see why I used quotation marks around the word “failure” earlier in this paragraph: in short, it’s not NFP that “failed!”

Next, if NFP is used quite cautiously–i.e., only 4 days after ovulation is confirmed via testing strips, temperature rise, mucous signs, or whatever combination the couple is using–it is 100% effective. You can’t make a baby without the sperm and the egg meeting. Is this hard, since it limits intercourse to about 10 days (depending on a woman’s luteal phase length) per month? Yep. Is it infallible? If you’ve confirmed from multiple sources that you have ovulated several days prior to intercourse…then yes, it is. Double ovulation is quite rare, and only occurs within a 24-hour window anyway (thus the 4 day waiting period). Of course, as I said, this severely limits the number of days a couple can have intercourse.

What I’m reading is not so much “why isn’t there an infallible method of NFP?” as much as “why isn’t there an infallible method of NFP that will allow a couple to have intercourse whenever they want without putting in the effort to check CM or temperature or pee on a stick.” As other posters have pointed out, ABC methods have failure rates, too. Some of them are tied into user error, of course (i.e., skipping taking a pill, not updating a Norplant injection, etc), but the fact that there are babies conceived while their mother is taking the pill exactly as prescribed demonstrates that other methods aren’t perfect, either. Condoms, even if worn properly, can break. Diaphragms can slip. Etc.

For those of you who are committed to using NFP for good reasons and are finding it hard, I’m not posting this to pick on you. I do know that pre-menopausal, menopausal, and breastfeeding women can find the signs really hard to interpret; my best friend, for example, had 6 months of nonstop fertile mucous while breastfeeding, and my DH and I, once this kiddo comes, will be using a combination of methods for a while. My point isn’t that NFP is easy and people for whom it’s difficult are being unreasonable; it’s that NFP has a failure rate based on user error as much, and probably far more so, than its actual method failure rate.

 

[Listener]

I agree with the person who posted this. I guess they have a few expensive devices out there now that attempt to do something like this, but I suppose they are not perfect.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could spit into a tube or on a piece of paper and have it turn a certain color if you were ovulating?

For some women, getting pregnant is a death sentence. For women who can’t get pregnant, this would be very useful.

I have noticed that there are a lot of women on these forums who can crank out babies like popping a cork out of a wine bottle! Some of them are very self righteous, and they talk about their successful NFP use and wonder what’s the matter with everyone else.

Some women have horrible pregnancies, where they have to lie in bed for 9 months. Some women have labor from hell and babies that are upside down or backwards, and they need forceps. Some women have such serious health problems that they will die if they get pregnant again. Other women have had multiple miscarriages.

And some women have husbands who won’t cooperate at all!

So yes, I think it would be wonderful if such a thing was invented. And I don’t think it is odd at all that a woman would consider infertility a blessing.

 

[Memaw]

I have heard and read about the experiences of people who have had accidental pregnancies with NFP. This can put unneeded stress on a marriage.

Why isn’t there a fool proof form of the method? I’m thinking of something like a blood test they use for diabetes that could just return a yes/no or percentage of risk or something like that that would obviate the need for taking a temp first thing in the morning (hard if you have sleepless nights due to an infant) or for taking cervical mucous signals.

I know the Creighton model uses fertility tests to confirm, but even they aren’t perfect as the sperm can survive long enough to miss the first luten test.

Is anyone working on something like this? The NFP model is highly effective when used as exactly meant, but it’s as used effectiveness is quite a bit lower than say the effective rate of IUDs or implantable or injected hormonal birth control (these methods are highly effective because they do not rely on perfect observance).

I think if something like this were invented that took out the charting and the perfect use requirements (other than abstaining when the meter said no), that NFP usage would skyrocket.

Are you looking for a GOD proof NFP? Stay single and be chaste! God Bless. Memaw

 

[a_cermak]

Next, if NFP is used quite cautiously–i.e., only 4 days after ovulation is confirmed via testing strips, temperature rise, mucous signs, or whatever combination the couple is using–it is 100% effective. You can’t make a baby without the sperm and the egg meeting. Is this hard, since it limits intercourse to about 10 days (depending on a woman’s luteal phase length) per month? Yep. Is it infallible? If you’ve confirmed from multiple sources that you have ovulated several days prior to intercourse…then yes, it is. Double ovulation is quite rare, and only occurs within a 24-hour window anyway (thus the 4 day waiting period). Of course, as I said, this severely limits the number of days a couple can have intercourse.

What I’m reading is not so much “why isn’t there an infallible method of NFP?” as much as “why isn’t there an infallible method of NFP that will allow a couple to have intercourse whenever they want without putting in the effort to check CM or temperature or pee on a stick.” As other posters have pointed out, ABC methods have failure rates, too. Some of them are tied into user error, of course (i.e., skipping taking a pill, not updating a Norplant injection, etc), but the fact that there are babies conceived while their mother is taking the pill exactly as prescribed demonstrates that other methods aren’t perfect, either. Condoms, even if worn properly, can break. Diaphragms can slip. Etc.

/QUOTE]

A couple should be able to have intercourse at least 20 days out of an average month and have a high level of confidence that those 20 days off are absolutely 100% safe without having to chart, having to observe mucous signs, having to take a temp at a specific time of day every day, etc. Instead of which, a simple meter either using spit, blood or urine could gave a read out that was reliable (either yes/no or a % risk) and that could be checked by either the male or the female (because in some low percentage of cases, NFP failure is caused by trickery).

This would be 100% within the norms of the Church if such a thing could be invented.

 

[a_cermak]

“Blessed with natural infertility” sounds like an oxymoron if you view fertility from a Biblical perspective.

I do not view fertility as the Torah does. It was written for a different time. I feel blessed because I was able to have a (couple of) careers while being married to a wonderful partner. It all would have been much harder with children at that point in time and I think I would have had a hard time getting my conscience to accept either HV or rebelling against HV (at that time I was Catholic). Since I never had to limit my family (nature did it for me), and therefore never had to deal with the whole HV thing, I feel blessed.

 

[ahs]

A couple should be able to have intercourse at least 20 days out of an average month and have a high level of confidence that those 20 days off are absolutely 100% safe without having to chart, having to observe mucous signs, having to take a temp at a specific time of day every day, etc. …This would be 100% within the norms of the Church if such a thing could be invented.

Why 20 days? Or why ANY number of days? What objective standard is being used to determine the “right” number of days a couple should get to have sex without risk of pregnancy? Is procreation-free sex a “right” to a Marriage? IF it is, then what is “Marriage” in the first place, if it’s primary focus (2/3 of the time) is getting to have sex without the burden of a risk of procreation?

 

[UbiCaritas]

A couple should be able to have intercourse at least 20 days out of an average month and have a high level of confidence that those 20 days off are absolutely 100% safe without having to chart, having to observe mucous signs, having to take a temp at a specific time of day every day, etc. Instead of which, a simple meter either using spit, blood or urine could gave a read out that was reliable (either yes/no or a % risk) and that could be checked by either the male or the female (because in some low percentage of cases, NFP failure is caused by trickery).

This would be 100% within the norms of the Church if such a thing could be invented.

As another poster observed…why 20? Why not 22? Or 23? Seems a fairly arbitrary number.

And to phrase it in secular terms…a couple should be able to have intercourse at least 20 days out of an average month and have a high level of confidence that those 20 days off are absolutely 100% safe without having to put on a condom, having to take a pill, having to get a Norplant injection, having to have an IUD in place…

Or with your last sentence: if someone took out the going to the store and buying a condom and the perfect use (making sure it fits properly/isn’t damaged/goes on at the right time) requirements, condom use would skyrocket. Well, maybe…but would its effectiveness skyrocket?

Sure, it sounds nice, but it’s not the way the human body works. If someone could devise a method to predict these things, that would be great, and could certainly be used within the norms of the Church. My point is that any method of avoiding pregnancy requires that the couple do something: abstain entirely, abstain except when one knows that a woman has ovulated, put on a condom, take a pill, etc.

I mean, while we’re at it, I’d like a blood/urine/saliva/whatever test that can predict with perfect infallibility whether I’ll get female-specific cancer so that I don’t ever have to get mammograms or pap smears. That would be seriously AWESOME. If someone comes up with it, I’ll bless their name forever…but until then, I’ll do my monthly breast exams and get my regular pap smear done 'cause they’re what a responsible person does.

 

[a_cermak]

Why 20 days? Or why ANY number of days? What objective standard is being used to determine the “right” number of days a couple should get to have sex without risk of pregnancy? Is procreation-free sex a “right” to a Marriage? IF it is, then what is “Marriage” in the first place, if it’s primary focus (2/3 of the time) is getting to have sex without the burden of a risk of procreation?

I was referring to biology, not teleology. Using science, it should be possible to make NFP as accurate under normal use cases as modern ABC (just with the need for abstinence). That should result in at least 20 risk-free days in a month.

 

[a_cermak]

Sure, it sounds nice, but it’s not the way the human body works. If someone could devise a method to predict these things, that would be great, and could certainly be used within the norms of the Church. My point is that any method of avoiding pregnancy requires that the couple do something: abstain entirely, abstain except when one knows that a woman has ovulated, put on a condom, take a pill, etc.

Granted one always has to do something. One has to get one’s IUD fitted, get one’s implantable implanted or the Depo injected. And with NFP one has to practice abstinence during fertile days. No doubt about that. The problem lies in p(name removed by moderator)ointing which days. And if that could be done perfectly, I think you’d see a lot of couples choosing it as a method since it does not involve any medical intervention. Heck, I can see the organic types flocking to it, as well as young professional women.

 

[Burt_Macklin]

I was referring to biology, not teleology. Using science, it should be possible to make NFP as accurate under normal use cases as modern ABC (just with the need for abstinence). That should result in at least 20 risk-free days in a month.

There is little incentive to invent a better method of NFP; you can’t patent it and sell it to anyone. With other methods of birth control you have a customer for life.

 

[a_cermak]

There is little incentive to invent a better method of NFP; you can’t patent it and sell it to anyone. With other methods of birth control you have a customer for life.

Well with my meter idea, that could be patented and sold. And the ABC companies don’t get their customers for life, just about 25 years or so (remember fertility only lasts from puberty to menopause).