NFP, Say What?

What is NFP you ask? It is Natural Family Planning! For those of you who do not know the Catholic church teaches that using contraception to avoid/postpone a pregnancy or using certain artificial reproductive technologies to try and achieve a pregnancy is morally illicit. Basically it means it is wrong and is a grave sin. You can look it up yourself in the Catechism of the Catholic Church(a collection of Church teachings) or online here at the Vatican website.

Now when I first heard these teachings when I was in high school, I was internally conflicted and appalled. I thought that the Church had no business deciding what married couples should and should not do in their own bedroom. Then I read into the whys behind the teachings by reading JPII's Theology of the Body and read more about the purpose of sex and married love. My mind was blown with the amount of love a husband and wife could share and express to one another. My heart and mind were forever changed from that point on. I now understood the meaning of sex as not just for physical pleasure but as a way of possibly creating new life, something that a lot of people in my generation still don't understand. It is now part of my life's ministry and work to educate people about NFP!

The Basics

NFP is way for couples to either achieve or avoid a pregnancy or just monitor fertility by a woman recognizing and charting the natural changes in her fertility with each menstrual cycle. With this knowledge a couple would know their times of fertility and infertility in each cycle and use periodic abstinence to use the system according to their intentions. So if a couple is trying to avoid or postpone a pregnancy there are NO pills, condoms, iuds or any other contraceptives to get in the way of their married love. It is 100% safe and natural! It is also a great way for couples who are dealing with fertility issues to get to the root of the problem and help them to conceive naturally. There are various statistics of effectiveness depending on which method you use.

I teach the Creighton Model FertilityCare System which has the added benefit of NaProTechnology! For more information you can contact me or find a teacher or medical consultant in your area you can go to FertilityCare™ Centers of America.

I am not Catholic, so why should I care about NFP?

Many non-Catholics use NFP because they do not want to use harmful chemicals and artificial hormones to postpone a pregnancy if they need to. NFP is also cost effective for many couples. IUSENFP is a great site for non-Catholics to check out more information on NFP!

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