New fertility apps and technology are starting to play a key role in teaching women about their bodies, as more women are becoming empowered to learn more about how their fertility works. As an article by Global News explains, tracking fertility on apps is giving women a new sense of control over their own bodies and allowing them to better plan their lives and families.
We are glad that fertility apps are giving women more knowledge of their cycles and providing them the opportunity to better understand their bodies. From Glow to DOT to Kindara to Natural Cycles and many more, women now have ample choices when it comes to picking an app to chart their cycles and predict ovulation.
The Global News article warns against relying solely on the information provided by the fertility apps when trying to prevent pregnancy, which is a fair point; we would add that women should learn Fertility Awareness-Based Methods (FABM) from a trained instructor to fully reap the benefits of both pregnancy seeking and the effective pregnancy prevention rates. Unfortunately, the news article suggests that, “other methods like birth control pills or IUDs are much, much more reliable if getting pregnant is not something the woman wants at that time.” This is not only bad advice for many women for whom birth control creates risky and undesirable side effects, it is also factually incorrect; a number of Fertility Awareness-Based Methods are proven to be more reliable than the Pill in preventing pregnancy.
While we, too, would warn against solely relying on an app to prevent pregnancy, we would not corner women into thinking that birth control pills, implants, or IUDs are the only option—especially in the context of an article exploring how women are pursuing greater knowledge about their cycles.
The fact that so many women are turning to fertility apps and that so much new fertility technology is cropping up highlights the search by women for natural alternatives to birth control. Now more than ever, women are expressing dissatisfaction with their current methods of birth control and their adverse side effects, and for the lack of information provided to them by their medical providers about truly natural methods of birth control. Women are tired of their health concerns being brushed aside as the Pill is pushed as a magical “cure all” for all of their symptoms, only to experience additional side effects as a result.
Natural Womanhood exists to educate women and couples that there ARE natural, effective, completely side-effect-free methods of family planning. Through our expert-written articles, fact-based information on the efficacy rates of FABMs, and resources to help couples with their family planning needs, we hope more people learn about methods of natural family planning—safe and effective alternatives to the Pill, the IUD, or any other potentially harmful birth control methods, so they don’t feel cornered into thinking its their only option.
