10 Reasons to Consider Getting off Birth Control and Starting Fertility Awareness Instead

Natural Womanhood, Fertility Awareness Based Methods, Natural Family Planning, NFP, FABM, FAM, birth control side effects, womens health, reproductive health, fertility awareness, natural birth control, natural fertility health, holistic women's health, holistic health practices, natural health practices, birth control side effects, hormonal birth control side effects, health risks, women's health complications, side effects of the Pill, fertiliy awareness method benefits, reasons to use fertility awareness based methods, fertility awareness based method pros, fertility awareness method effectiveness, fabms effectiveness, natural birth control benefits

Are you thinking about getting off birth control? As someone who took hormonal contraceptives in the past to reduce unwanted symptoms of my menstrual cycle, I now feel greater agency over my reproductive health by charting my cycle with a Fertility Awareness Method (FAM). After being trained by a certified FAM instructor (who also happened to be a medical professional) on how to read my body’s natural signs of fertility with precision every day, I now appreciate fertility awareness as an effective natural family planning method as well. 

Since using FAM myself and learning more about how it contrasts with birth control drugs like the Pill, patch, ring, and hormonal IUD, I can think of ten good reasons to get off of birth control and make the switch to fertility awareness. 

1. Rule out a reason for your mood swings and feel more like yourself

Do you often feel like you’re in a fog or just not functioning at your optimal mental status? Many women say after getting off birth control that they feel greater mental clarity and improved mood. We know that research shows taking hormonal contraceptives can lead to depression and mood swings, but since young women are often prescribed birth control in teen years, it can be hard to distinguish the natural ups and downs during a time of hormonal changes, from Pill-induced mental effects

The good news is that often when women come off hormonal contraceptives, they feel more like themselves. Just read some of the public comments on this FDA Citizen’s Petition for greater transparency of birth control side effects, and you’ll start to see this trend in women’s testimonies.

2. Learn more about your natural hormone levels

While doctors may give the impression that hormonal contraceptives will “regulate” your cycle and hormones to be more even and predictable, they actually introduce synthetic hormones into your body, shutting down your healthy cycle processes like ovulation and menstruation. (Even if you have monthly bleeding, it is not the same thing as a real period, because you have not ovulated and therefore have no shedding of the uterine lining; this is why people knowledgeable in FAM call it a “fake period” or “withdrawal bleed.”) Meanwhile, while you’re taking hormonal contraceptives, your body’s natural healthy hormones like progesterone become depleted, along with many nutrients. Plus, you miss out on the health benefits that naturally occur with ovulation

If you or your doctor thought you had a hormonal imbalance in your cycle before taking contraception, there’s a good chance you would benefit from getting off birth control and starting to chart your cycle with the guidance of a certified FAM instructor, or better yet a medical professional who understands FAM. He or she can help you see what your body’s signs reveal about your hormone levels in real-time, identify if you have a health condition that needs addressing, and then treat that condition directly. 

3. Say goodbye to side effects like weight gain and migraines

Among other common birth control side effects are weight gain and headaches. Who needs these? Women have things hard enough in life; we don’t need to put up with these symptoms for some semblance of control over our reproductive health. Switching to a FAM like the Creighton Method, Billings Ovulation Method, Sympto-Thermal Method, or Marquette Method will equip you to manage your cycle health and family planning goals with zero side effects. 

Most women would agree it’s a huge perk to be able to predict when your period is coming, which many women now enjoy thanks to period-tracking apps. But it’s worth remembering that simply charting your period on a calendar (which is how many of these predictive apps work) is not as precise as reading your body’s actual signs of ovulation and fertility after learning a FAM. Charting your cycle with a fertility awareness-based method will also prepare you for times in your cycle when you will know certain hormones are rising or falling and how that may play out in your feelings or energy levels.

5. Reduce fears of unplanned pregnancy by understanding when you’re fertile and when you’re not

While many women take birth control to reduce the risk of unintended pregnancy, the most commonly prescribed oral contraceptive pills still have pretty high failure rates. For example, with typical use, 7 in 100 women will experience unplanned pregnancy during 12 months (an average of 13 cycles) on the Pill, which translates to quite a few women when we consider just how many women take birth control! Unfortunately, if you get pregnant on the Pill, you’re exposing your fetus to synthetic hormones that could potentially cause birth defects. Many women feel blindsided by positive pregnancy tests, having been given a false sense of security in their birth control’s ability to prevent pregnancy.

But when women know how to chart fertile signs such as cervical fluid, they become empowered to know exactly when in their cycle they can get pregnant and when they cannot. A number of fertility awareness-based methods are scientifically proven to have typical effectiveness rates higher than the Pill when it comes to preventing pregnancy (according to the CDC, the typical failure rate of the oral contraceptive pill is 7%, while some FABM are as low as 2%). While many other hormonal contraceptives blind women to what’s happening in their bodies with a “set it and forget it” element, FAM removes the mysterious grey area of how and when someone can get pregnant during her cycle. This in turn can reduce a woman’s fears of an unplanned pregnancy. This is because FAM use equips a woman to be more actively aware of what’s happening in her body at every point in her cycle.

6. Share the responsibility of family planning with your partner

For those who are in a sexually active relationship, hormonal contraceptives put the burden of pregnancy prevention only on the woman, which is why many call fertility awareness a more egalitarian way to view family planning. Fertility awareness methods equip the couple to learn together what times of a woman’s cycle she is fertile so they can decide their family planning goals each month and choose when to have intercourse—and when to abstain—accordingly. 

Considering the shared responsibility for family planning, it’s not surprising to learn that couples who practice natural family planning methods have better communication and relationship satisfaction.

7. Find out now if you have infertility issues so you can work toward treating them / plan ahead

As referenced above, charting your cycle equips you to determine if you have a hormone imbalance. Charting also helps you identify if you have a condition that can cause infertility, such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, uterine fibroids, or progesterone deficiency. These conditions can be treated with the help of a FAM-practicing doctor such as those trained in NaproTechnology or at FEMM clinics nationwide. 

Unfortunately, when women are prescribed the Pill or other hormonal contraceptives for these irregularities, it covers up symptoms of larger health problems like PCOS or endometriosis which can worsen over time and lead to infertility when the woman later gets off birth control and wants to get pregnant. Just another reason your body will thank you if you get off birth control and switch to FAM today.

8. Optimize your fitness and health routine

Women with lifestyles that require particularly routinized health goals also often find fertility awareness methods the most precise ways for them to optimize their performance. As the U.S. Women’s Soccer team has found, for athletes, factoring in your hormone levels during different times of the month can mean the difference between whether today is a day to push yourself harder in exercise or to rest. For women with Type 1 diabetes, knowing your biological markers of fertility throughout your cycle can equip you to make more precise insulin treatments

No matter a woman’s health goals, fertility awareness charting provides more information about her body, which always translates to more informed decisions.

9. Reduce your risk of serious health complications

Many people don’t think about health risks when accepting a doctor’s birth control prescription, in great part because many doctors don’t mention them. But, as the FDA Petition on hormonal contraceptives reveals in the comments posted by the public, many women suffer grave health complications related to taking these drugs. 

In fact, sometimes birth control side effects are life-threatening. In September 2018, twenty-year-old Alexandra Davis died suddenly of blood clots in her lungs that doctors’ visits did not identify as birth-control related until it was too late. A systematic review of literature has since revealed as many as 300-400 women die each year of birth control-related health complications.

Research on hormonal contraceptives has not only shown links with blood clots and stroke, but also: mental health issues such as depression and dramatically increased suicide risk, even psychosis; autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s DiseaseMultiple Sclerosis, and Lupus; gallbladder disease; breast cancer; clitoral shrinkage and low libido; and blindness and vision problems, as well as progesterone deficiency and miscarriage. In addition, long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) such as the IUD and implant have been known to cause similar side effects as the pill, as well as dizziness and severe pain, copper toxicity (in the case of the copper IUD), and have been known to migrate within the body, leading to misplaced devices that can lead to further complications.

What’s most tragic in all the women’s testimonies I’ve heard is that they felt blindsided by a debilitating side effect or an irreversible health condition caused by their birth control which their physician failed to warn them about. In other words, most of these women never saw these risks coming—if they had, they might have stopped taking birth control, or never started it in the first place. But you can take preventative measures today by getting off whatever method of birth control you’re on, and switching to a FAM!

10. Feel more in tune with your body

Even if you have never experienced a single birth control side effect in your life, you can still benefit from the switch to a fertility awareness-based method of charting. This is because simply learning a FAM automatically increases your knowledge of your body’s natural and healthy reproductive processes, and this knowledge makes you a more active participant in your fertility management and womanhood. Furthermore, women need to ovulate and menstruate for optimal health and development—in other words, yes, you do need a period, and your body can’t do that while on hormonal birth control! Finally, FAM removes the mystery from the many painful symptoms we thought were an inescapable and frustrating part of being female. 

With the greater self-understanding that fertility awareness brings to each user, the benefits of FAM are as numerous as there are women.

Several additional links were added to this article on May 9th, 2023.

Print

No comments yet

Related Articles

Guide to Understanding Your Cycle

Get to know and appreciate your cycle and fertility. When you join our list, you’ll receive our exclusive PDF, Understanding Your Cycle, for free. In it, you will discover a wealth of information about your reproductive health and your fertility cycle, as well as resources on fertility charting with natural birth control alternatives like fertility awareness methods (FAMs) and methods of natural family planning (NFP).

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Copyright © 2024 Natural Womanhood