Natural family planning

By Mayo Clinic staff

Natural family planning — more accurately referred to fertility-awareness-based birth control — is a means of preventing pregnancy by avoiding unprotected intercourse during a woman's fertile period, when she's most likely to become pregnant. For highly motivated and diligent couples, one or more fertility-awareness-based methods may prove an effective means of birth control. Examples of fertility-awareness-based methods are:

  • Basal body temperature
  • Calendar
  • Cervical mucus
  • Lactational amenorrhea
  • Standard days
  • Symptothermal

BI00026

Jan. 25, 2008

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