Natural family planning is also referred to as fertility awareness. There are a number of ways to monitor fertility naturally and this fertility monitoring is useful for wither achieving pregnancy or avoiding it.

A woman is actually only fertile for about 100 - 120 hours during a month so being able to pinpoint this fertile period is essential to correctly practicing fertility awareness or natural family planning.

With natural family planning the idea is to become aware of the fertile and infertile periods so that you can make decisions about your sexual activity that coincide with whether or not you wish to conceive a child.

A number of natural family planning methods exist that all essentially monitor a few keys to fertility: cervical mucus, waking temperatures, and changes in the cervix itself.

Monitoring cervical mucus is important because it changes to indicate fertility and to aid in getting pregnant. When a woman is fertile her cervical mucus is often clear, stretchy, slick or slippery. It is often described as being similar in consistency to an uncooked egg white.

Monitoring waking temperatures (BBT) is done because when using a special thermometer a woman's waking temperature can indicate the start of her fertile period. The idea is that when a woman is fertile her waking temperature increases indicating fertility.

Monitoring cervical position is another indicator of fertility because the position of the cervix changes (it gets higher) when a woman is fertile.

Some plans will monitor all three indicators others will only focus on one or two. Each woman should choose the method she prefers and stick with it, also get specific instruction on your chosen plan to ensure you are practicing it correctly. Some of the various methods include:

Calendar based method or rhythm method-
Requires counting of days in the woman's cycle to observe ones own personal rhythm and thus determine which days are fertile and infertile.

The symptothermal method-
Requires the monitoring of BBT (basal body temperature), cervical mucus to chart fertility.

The ovulation method-
Requires the tracking of only the cervical mucus

The internet has an abundance of information regarding the failure rates, specifics of various methods and even more methods that were not mentioned here. A great site will all the info in one place is: http://www.childbirthsolutions .com/articles/preconception/fe rtilityawareness/index.php

Natural family planning is more natural than using pills, creams or condoms to prevent pregnancy and it is also a great birth control method for those whose religion may not allow for the use of more traditional methods. I found that natural family planning was better for me because it did not require me to alter my hormone levels to avoid pregnancy and I felt much better than I did taking birth control pills.

Learn more about this author, Talina Norris.
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