Natural Family Planning

Natural Family Planning (NFP) is an umbrella term for modern, healthy, scientifically accurate, and reliable methods of family planning which have been in use for only some 25 years. The natural methods do not depend on having regular menstrual cycles; they treat each woman and each cycle as unique. When married couples are taught by competent teachers, understand the methods, and are motivated to follow them, NFP is up to 99% successful in spacing or limiting births. NFP methods are different from and better than artificial contraception because they:

• Cooperate with, rather than suppress, a couple's fertility
• Can be used both to achieve and avoid pregnancy
• Call for shared responsibility and cooperation by husband and wife
• Require spousal communication
• Foster respect for and acceptance of the total person
• Have no harmful side effects
• Are virtually cost free