Where is FACTS?

Discuss where our work is happening in medical schools, residencies and now reaching out to other specialties and health professional area – nursing, mid-wfery.  Emphasize that this important information about fertility and family planning should be shared with all our health professional colleagues who care for women and men of reproductive age.

A brief history of the NFP movement and FACTS

In 1972, at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Human Life Foundation Conference, NFP experts from around the world developed a consensus definition of NFP:

“Natural family planning methods are means by which a couple uses the daily observations of signs and symptoms of the fertile and infertile phases of the menstrual cycle to guide the timing of intercourse according to their desire to achieve or avoid a pregnancy.”

In the 19^th century, significant scientific discoveries were made that contributed to the development of natural methods of family planning. However, it was in the late 1920s that two physician scientists discovered a key component that led to the first reliable method of natural birth regulation. Experiments by Dr. Kyusako Ogino from Japan and Dr. Herman Knaus from Austria determined that, once a woman ovulates, there will be approximately 12-14 days until her next menses. From this information (and knowing the approximate life span of the woman’s egg and man’s sperm), they independently developed formulas to estimate the fertile times in a woman’s menstrual cycle.

Over the past fifty years, significant innovations have been made in women’s health care, particularly within the realm of reproductive science. Parallel to these advances, natural methods for monitoring fertility have been standardized and refined. This has led to more effective tracking of a woman’s cycle and her times of fertility. This information can be used to help couples achieve or postpone pregnancy and, in many cases, to diagnose and address underlying gynecological problems. 

Modern evidence based methods of natural family planning including the Billings Method^TM, Creighton Model FertiliyCare™, Symptothermal Method, also referred to as STM or FAM (fertility awareness method), the Marquette Model, Two Day Method, Standard Days or Cycle Beads method, and the Lactation Amenorrhea Method (LAM).   For more information and patient education handouts about each of these methods, please go to:  http://www.factsaboutfertility.org/resources/overview/