Q: What do you call people who use the rhythm method?
A: Parents!

It is totally normal to be skeptical about natural family planning. After all, many of us still think of the ‘family planning’ methods of our parents’ generation when we first hear about NFP. Everyone we talk to has a story of a ‘‘friend of a friend’ who ended up having a rhythm method baby. The couples who were proponents always seemed to have 6+ kids - a reality that is overwhelming to a couple just beginning to think about being more deliberate in their family planning.

Not Your Mother’s Rhythm Method

Q: What’s the difference between the rhythm method and natural family planning?
A: Science!

NFP (or fertility awareness) is not the same thing as the rhythm method. Both work on the same principle of avoiding conception by avoiding sex on the woman's fertile days. The difference is in how those days are calculated. The old rhythm method relied primarily on the calendar, without recognizing that every woman’s internal calendar is a little different. NFP takes advantage of more precise scientific methods of calculation. To learn specifics of how NFP can help you identify your fertile days, visit NFP Methods.

NFP is effective in assisting couples trying to conceive or couples who are trying to avoid pregnancy, because it is quite effective in identifying fertile days. Despite its scientific basis, NFP’s success lies not in how scientifically versed you and your spouse are, but in how well you communicate and share responsibility for your family.

Communication is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship, and NFP often helps couples become expert communicators. You and your spouse will learn to develop a larger vocabulary of love and discover many different ways to be physically intimate with one another. If you want a relationship where sex is not taken for granted, communication is built in on a regular basis, and you both share in family planning decision making, NFP can help.

Learn more

To learn more about how NFP can help you and your spouse grow closer together, contact one of our instructor couples and ask them to share with you their firsthand experiences.

Have you been labeled “green” or “crunchy” or “granola” by your friends and family? No matter how you feel about those labels, chances are you simply want to be a good steward of the earth’s resources and keep you and those you love as healthy as possible.

Those who are proponents of sustainable farming, hormone-free milk and meat, and fair trade often translate these values into their parenting. When you think about having children, you may think about things like unmedicated childbirth, breastfeeding, babywearing, and wooden toys. But did you know that natural parenting can begin before conception?

You can give your reproductive system the same natural care you give your nutrition, your health, and the environment. It is a natural extension of your parenting philosophy to keep your children’s first home – the womb – chemical free. It’s organic parenting at its earliest stages.

To Conceive or Not to Conceive, Naturally

If children just aren’t in your short-term plan, you have some options to prevent or avoid pregnancy, and each impacts the earth and your health in various ways.

Hormonal contraception is the only drug approved to treat a healthy condition as a disease and rewire a normally working system so that it malfunctions. Whether oral (The Pill), implanted (IUD), or injected (Depo Provera), hormonal contraception effectiveness lies in ultimately stopping your reproductive system from performing properly, thus preventing pregnancy.

Just like any medication, hormonal contraception also has a host of side effects including irritability, decreased sex drive, increased risk of many diseases, especially breast cancer, infertility/trouble getting pregnant later, losing already fertilized eggs.

Hormonal contraception also has a negative impact on the environment, increasing estrogen in water supply with massive impacts on both the local ecosystems^1,2 and the humans who depend on those water supplies for drinking water ³.

What about barrier methods? Most condoms sold in the United States are made of biodegradable latex. However, they also contain preservatives and hardening agents to make them resilient to tearing. Those additives also make it harder for the condoms to break down in the landfill.⁴ The spermicidal chemicals found in many condoms can also have a host of side effects including irritation, increased risk of urinary tract and vaginal infections, and allergic reactions.⁵

In addition, prophylactics rely on large-scale rubber and latex production that can contribute to the erosion of topsoil and inhibits the natural biochemical cycle of carbon. Researchers at the University of Amsterdam have noted that the agricultural practices used in harvesting the materials used to make condoms have "seriously endangered" drinking water where they have taken place "not to speak of the consequences for the ecosystem and the stench."⁶

Organic Family Planning

With Natural Family Planning, the negative impact on your health and the environment can be avoided. Natural family planning methods work with your body’s natural processes instead of against them. Your body is respected and preserved from chemicals. There are no chemicals, no packaging waste, and no trips to the doctor for injections or prescriptions.

Even Pope Francis has commented the importance of natural, green, and environmentally conscious living:

“Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude.”
Audience May 21, 2014.

Learn More

Take the next step in your natural living by bringing those values into all aspects of your life. Sign up for a class today and learn more about how Natural Family Planning can support your desire for a ‘green,’ ‘crunchy,’ or ‘granola’ lifestyle!

1. Vulliet E; Cren-Olive C, Grenier-Loustalot MF. Occurrence of pharmaceuticals and hormones in drinking water treated from surface waters. Environmental Chemistry Letters (2011) 9:103–114

2. Kvarnryda M, Grabic R, Brandt I, Berg C. Early life progestin exposure causes arrested oocyte development, oviductal agenesis and sterility in adult Xenopus tropicalis frogs. Aquatic Toxicology 103 (2011) 18–24

3. Margel D, Fleshner NE. Oral contraceptive use is associated with prostate cancer: an ecological study. British Medical Journal Open. 2011 Nov 14;1(2)

4. J.W. Davies, D. Butler, J.L. Small, V. Sekuloski, C. Jefferies. Gross solids transport and degradation. Water Science and Technology, Volume 37, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 61-6

5. Rekart, Michael L. "The toxicity and local effects of the spermicide nonoxynol 9." JAIDS Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 5.4 (1992): 425-426.

6. Interfacultaire Vakgroep Milieukunde / Interfaculty Departmental Group Environmental Science. University of Amsterdam. Condom. The ups and the downs. October 22th 1993 (Dutch).

Close your eyes and imagine what makes you feel most in love and the most intimate.

If you could step into any love story, any romantic landscape, what would you find yourself surrounded by and who would be there? Ask a hundred women that same question, and the answer would be strikingly similar.

No one ever says “I’d like to be alone,” “I’d like being treated like an object instead of a person,” or “I’d like to be depressed, gain weight, be more irritable and increase my risk for cancer.” No. They imagine being with someone, feeling loved and being healthy. They imagine candles, lovely music, genuine embraces, honest words and laughter.

The desire and need for intimacy without barriers is deeply rooted in us all.

Our bodies are made beautifully. We are living masterpieces, kaleidoscopic perpetual miracles on our own, without anything extra. That’s the way we were made to live and to love—without barriers, without chemicals, or additives. Imagine a wide open landscape of love. Imagine holding nothing back.

Natural Family Planning (NFP) is 100% organic, based in fertility awareness and appreciation. Your fertility is a gift, not a disease, and NFP is the all natural way to embrace it.

Best of all, NFP is a shared system. Women don’t bear the burden and the side effects alone. No, the only side effects are increased communication, greater mutual self-knowledge and respect, self resolve and poise, a healthy body, more romance and greater intimacy. Welcome to NFP.

Learn More

If you're ready to learn more about how Natural Family Planning can help you have greater intimacy with your spouse and honor the incredible power of your bodies, we can help!

We're so thrilled you want to learn more about Natural Family Planning! Simply visit our "Find A Class" section of this website to get started connecting with an NFP instructor near you.

Many people think of Natural Family Planning as a way to avoid pregnancy, but NFP can also help some couples experiencing infertility.

Fertility Treatment Options

Couples who experience infertility can be easily overwhelmed and confused by the sheer number of technological and medical possibilities available. Many of those treatments are expensive, invasive, and often add to the tension and stress you may already feel.

When couples can conceive with the help of NFP, they are also using a method which is inexpensive and natural. All methods of NFP provide ways for each woman to track her changing signs of fertility. The observable signs and symptoms of the fertile and infertile phases of the woman’s menstrual cycle are unique to each woman. Tracking your unique cycle can help a husband and wife know exactly when their fertile window is and increase the odds of conceiving. For many couples, irregularities in those same signs and symptoms have offered insight into the causes of infertility.

Assisting Your Other Medical Treatments

If you are already under a doctor's care for infertility, then NFP can help you work with your doctor. Providing your doctor with your fertility charts and observations can help the physician know better when to draw certain tests. If the woman has to go on a fertility drug to induce ovulation, the observations of your fertility chart can help your doctor determine the medicine's effectiveness.

Using Natural Family Planning methods to enhance fertility has saved numerous couples time and money by providing them and their doctors with the most accurate information for each woman's unique fertility cycle.

Learn More

Discover which NFP methods are most effective for couple's dealing with infertility and contact an instructor who can walk with you on your journey to get answers today.

Many doctors have been researching and working on natural family planning methods over the last several decades, so there are multiple NFP methods available - perhaps some you weren't even aware of when you first started using NFP.

Regardless of the method of NFP you practice, if you have questions about your chart or your fertility, we can help. There are so many things that can change throughout the course of your married life together. The beauty of Natural Family Planning is that it can change right along with you!

Whether you have changed your family planning intentions, have had changes in your health, are beginning to see the signs of pre-menopause or are just in need of a little refresher course, our instructors can assess your needs and work with you to help you reach your family goals.