Survey: Over 40 percent of American women open to learning about natural family planning

In 2018, the Natural Cycles app became the first non-hormonal birth control method to receive both CE marking in Europe and FDA approval in the United States. The app was founded six years ago by Swedish particle physicist Elina Berglund Scherwitzl and her husband, who were beginning to plan their own family. In an ACCESSWIRE article, Berglund said, “I’d stopped using hormonal birth control, and, in my search for a natural alternative, I learned that a woman’s body temperature changes throughout her menstrual cycle.”

Users take their temperature each day when they wake up, input that data into the app, and then check whether they’re on a ‘red day’ (potentially fertile) or ‘green day’ (infertile). The app utilizes a sophisticated algorithm to determine whether a woman is fertile or infertile by ‘learning’ her body’s unique patterns. The app can be used either to achieve or to avoid pregnancy, and research has found it to be as effective or more effective for avoiding pregnancy than many conventional methods of birth control.

READ: Questions about hormonal contraception? Here’s a quick reference guide.

A recent study of 4,023 women and 499 healthcare professionals commissioned by Natural Cycles and conducted by global marketing research firm Dynata revealed that healthcare professionals significantly underestimated American women’s interest in learning about fertility awareness-based methods of family planning. The survey found that 58-63% of healthcare professionals surveyed expected fewer than two in 10 women (20 percent) to be interested in fertility awareness-based methods. In reality, over four in 10 American women (40 percent) surveyed were open to learning about them. These women’s reasons most commonly included wanting to better understand their body and cycle, as well as “seeking an option which had no negative impact on their health, body, or mind; seeking a more natural approach to birth control; and seeking greater personal control over their body and fertility.” The survey furthermore found that more than 4 in 10 women who were not using birth control were motivated by an objection to ingesting hormones.

Live Action News has reported here, here, here, and here on the potential risks for women and girls who use hormonal birth control — which has the potential to prevent a new human life from implanting in the uterus. The Natural Cycles app and other evidence-based technologies utilizing fertility awareness-based methods provide the ability to plan pregnancies without the nasty physical and mental side effects.

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