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Family Planning Articles

The Family Planning category includes 30 products.

Fertility Awareness Method

  • by JMJ

  The Fertility Awareness Method, similar to Natural Family Planning, is a method of birth control that uses symptoms including basal body temperature, cervical mucus, and cervical position to detect ovulation and thus allow a couple to abstain or use other protection during potentially fertile times.  This is the basic set of rules taught in Toni Weschler's book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility.     Summary of FAM rules (sympto-thermal) Pre-ovulation rules: 1) First 5 Days Rule: You are safe the first 5 days of your menstrual cycle if you had an obvious... read more

Reasons To Choose Natural Family Planning

There are as many reasons to choose natural family planning as there are women in the world, but here are a few of the most compelling:   You are opposed to artificial birth control for religious reasons You are opposed to hormonal birth control for personal health reasons You are concerned about the environmental impact of waste and hormones from artificial birth control You don't want to take hormonal birth control while breastfeeding You are concerned about the potential abortifacient effect of some birth control methods You don't like the... read more

Is There Ever a Right Time to Get Pregnant?

“My daughter still tells me we should never have had children when we did,” a friend confides, remembering how broke she and her husband were when their oldest was born, how far from town they lived, and how she used to haul baskets of dirty cloth diapers 17 miles to the laundry mat since they had no running water in their cabin. Another friend, Steph Auteri, has recently launched a relationship blog on YourTango (where she also works as an editor) where she’s chronicling her decision to become a mom. In today’s post she asks the question, “Is there a... read more

Struggling with Fertility, a Couple Aborts Healthy Twin Boys Because They Want a Girl

Maybe you’ve already read this disturbing article on Time.com about a presumably infertile Australian couple that announced this week that they have aborted healthy twin boys because they want to have a girl? The unnamed couple already has three healthy boys. They’ve been doing IVF treatments. They had a baby daughter who died soon after birth. Though we don’t know much about them, we know part of their story because they’re bringing their case to an Australian court. Sex selection is illegal in Australia but the couple is petitioning to... read more

IUDs: Benefits and Risks of Using Mirena or ParaGard for Birth Control

  What is an Intrauterine Device (IUD)? IUDs are small T-shaped plastic devices that are are either wrapped in copper or contain small amounts of synthetic hormones. Once inserted into the uterus they are highly effective in preventing pregnancy. There are several types of intrauterine devices. This article looks briefly at the two most popular brands, ParaGard and Mirena, as well as some of the known benefits and side effects of these devices.    The Good and the Bad: the benefits and negatives of IUDs at a glance   Benefits up to 99% effective in preventing... read more

Family Planning: Are the Financially Stable the Only Good Parents?

  I always knew I wanted to be a mother. After struggling to find my path in this life, endlessly searching for what would make me happy, the only thing I was ever certain of was that I wanted to have children. Unfortunately, it didn’t come easy for us. In fact, it nearly bankrupted us just to have our first daughter.   I was at Cornell when my body went haywire, and we discovered it may take some time for me to get pregnant. I’m grateful we got started when we did, because I almost ended up with a hysterectomy and no children at the age of 33. Adding fertility... read more
