How General Fertility Awareness is different than Fertility Awareness Based Methods (FABM’s) of Family Planning by Nicole Moore


1.) There are no sex rules

There are no sex rules in Fertility Awareness, because it does not serve the same purpose as FABM’s of family planning, which is achieving/avoiding pregnancy.

The goal of Fertility Awareness is very simple; determine whether or not a woman has a healthy ovulatory cycle. We can think of Fertility Awareness as the groundwork for FABM’s of family planning. Fertility Awareness helps a woman learn the ins and outs of her fertility, which may be one day be used for pregnancy.

2.) You don’t necessarily need a highly trained teacher

Because Fertility Awareness is not meant to achieve/avoid pregnancy, the stakes are never high. Worst case scenario would be that the instructor is unable to find an ovulatory pattern in their students’ chart. Should this happen they can move forward to the next cycle and look again for signs of ovulation.

This is not the case for FABM’s of family planning. If an instructor is unable to read a chart, this may result in a pregnancy the couple is not ready for or an inability to help the couple achieve pregnancy.

3.) Pretty much any app will do as long as you’re not just counting days

Again, because Fertility Awareness has the very simple goal of finding ovulation there aren’t many restrictions on the way the teacher and student can find an ovulatory pattern. This is why most cycle tracking apps will do.

As long as the app helps a woman pin point her days of bleeding, days of fertility and days of infertility then the app is doing its job well. What an app should not do is predetermine your day of ovulation. As ovulation day can vary every cycle, it is incorrect to assume that ovulation will happen on the same day every month.

Interested in dipping your toes into the world of charting? Join the Sisterhood on May 1st at 12PM ET for a Facebook Live crash course on the menstrual cycle. We hope to see you there!

May God Bless you!

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