When I was growing up, I went to yeshiva. As one of the two “townies” going to the school (the other was my brother), we shared a bus with kids going to Sacred Heart. 38 of them.
Most of those kids came from families like my father’s- with a plethora of kids. Back then, there was no birth control pill. Not that devout Catholics (or Orthodox Jews) would use such a drug. Families that wanted (needed?) to prevent a childbirth relied on the rhythm method.
No, there was no music involved. And, some folks called it the calendar method. Basically, it required the woman to track her menstrual period. And, it takes a while to get it right- about 6 to 12 months of “mapping”.
One counts from the first day of her last period to the first day of the current period. Then, once the periodicity is known, one subtracts 18 days from the length of one’s shortest cycle. That provides the most fertile portion of one’s period. Then, one subtracts 11 from the longest menstrual cycle. That provides the last portion of the fertile period. And, one keeps doing this forever. Monitoring the length and dates of one’s periods.
If you WANT to have kids, then you know what you’ll be doing morning, noon, and night on those fertile days. If you want to avoid having kids, then you know when to avoid sexual contact. And, one still needs help- like condoms. Except Orthodox Jews and devout Catholics don’t allow that practice. So, there were still “slip-ups” (known as kids) using the rhythm method.
Now- the FDA has approved an app. Yes, an app. One that is a sophisticated (one hopes) process that is still the rhythm method. Natural Cycles charges women $ 80 (okay, $ 79.99) a year to use the app. Which conveniently comes with a digital thermometer (basal body thermometer, which is considered more sensitive than conventional devices). One enters her body temperature daily and calendars her period.
Yup. You pay $80 to use the rhythm method on your phone. The problem with this? Making sure you take your temperature as soon as you wake up in the morning- and enter it. Otherwise the “smart algorithm” Natural Cycles claims it has can’t be smart- because it is relying on accurate data.
The data Natural Cycles submitted to the FDA claimed that 1.8% of the 15,500 women who properly used the app (average of 8 months) managed to get pregnant. (Yes, these subjects were trying to avoid aggrandizing their family size.) And, then, there’s the 6.5% failure rate for those who didn’t take (or enter) their temperatures and menstrual cycle as directed- and had sex on the days they were most fertile. (You see, this really IS the rhythm method.) Moreover, the algorithm requires a few months of data to prove it’s “smart”- just like the “calendar” method.
Given this data about the rhythm method, we should compare results with what else we have to control pregnancies.
Condoms are only 82% effective (according to the CDC)- because we men put them on wrong, ding a little hole in them (presumably unintentionally), or there’s a manufacturing defect.
Birth control pills have a 9% failure rate (again, mostly because folks forget to take them each and every day). And, the IUD is 99% effective.
In truth, the only way one avoids an unwanted pregnancy is “just say no”.
This is pretty incredible—I’ve never heard of it. My pregnancies were all in the late 80’s, so rhythm method and basal thermometer for us!
We never practiced the rhythm method, relying on the birth control pills after the birth of our first. Glad it worked for you, Marcia. (Hmm. Not quite the whole story, though.)
Yup, I remember the rhythm method way back in the “old days”. Quite interesting with the app, wonder how many would use that.
Well, I wonder about that too- and considering what Jessica (SophisticatedDesign.Com) had to say, probably less than I originally thought.
Not in a million years would I put such personal information in a smart phone! What’s wrong with paper and pencil on your night table? Really people are getting too dependent on technology. Eventually they might forget to do it the ‘normal’ way….and then the problems could begin.
That’s a really important point, Jessica. Thanks for bringing it up for everyone!
Must be that you need an app for everything nowadays. You’re right, there is only one sure method – but nature being nature, it isn’t too popular with either men or women. Not only that, it doesn’t cost anything (in money).
I always thought apps were to provide better data than we could obtain by ourselves, Alana. Clearly, I was mistaken.
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