Calendar-based methods

Infobox Birth control
name = Calendar-based methods

---

width = 270
caption = An illustration of the Standard Days Method. This method may be used by women whose menstrual cycles are always between 26 and 32 days in length
bc_type = behavioral
date_first_use = Ancient (ad hoc)
1930s (Rhythm method)
1999 (Standard Days)
rate_type = Failure
perfect_failure% = Standard Days: 5%
Rhythm method: 9
typical_failure% = 25
duration_effect =
reversibility = Yes
user_reminders = Dependent upon strict user adherence to methodology
clinic_interval = None
STD_protection_YesNo = No
benefits = No side effects, can be used to facilitate pregnancy achievement
periods =
weight_gain_loss =
risks =
medical_notes =

Calendar-based methods are various methods of estimating a woman's likelihood of fertility, based on a record of the length of previous menstrual cycles. Various systems are known as the Knaus-Ogino Method, rhythm method, and Standard Days Method. These systems may be used to achieve pregnancy, by timing unprotected intercourse for days identified as fertile, or to avoid pregnancy, by restricting unprotected intercourse to days identified as infertile.

The first formalized calendar-based method was developed in 1930 by John Smulders, a Roman Catholic physician from the Netherlands. It was based on knowledge of the menstrual cycle which was independently discovered by Hermann Knaus (Germany), and Kyusaku Ogino (Japan). This system was a main form of birth control available to Catholic couples for several decades, until the popularization of symptoms-based fertility awareness methods. A new development in calendar-based methods occurred in 1999, when Georgetown University introduced the Standard Days Method. The Standard Days Method is promoted in conjunction with a product called CycleBeads, a ring of colored beads which are meant to help the user keep track of her fertile and non-fertile days.

Terminology

Some sources may treat the terms "rhythm method" and "fertility awareness" as synonymous. [cite web |title=Rhythm Method |publisher=Contraception.net |year=2008 |url=http://www.contraception.net/resource_centre/rhythm_method.asp |accessdate=2008-05-18] However, fertility awareness is usually used as a broad term that includes tracking basal body temperature and cervical mucus as well as cycle length. The World Health Organization considers the rhythm method to be a specific type of calendar-based method, and calendar-based methods to be only one form of fertility awareness.cite paper |title=Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use:Fertility awareness-based methods | version = Third edition |publisher=World Health Organization |year=2004 |url=http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/publications/mec/fab.html |accessdate=2008-04-29 ]

More effective than calendar-based methods, systems of fertility awareness that track basal body temperature, cervical mucus, or both, are known as symptoms-based methods. Teachers of symptoms-based methods take care to distance their systems from the poor reputation of the rhythm method. [cite web |last=Weschler |first=Toni |title=Fertility Myths |work=Ovusoft |publisher=Taking Charge of Your Fertility |url=http://www.ovusoft.com/library/myths.asp#19 |accessdate=2008-04-29 ] Many consider the rhythm method to have been obsolete for at least 20 years, cite book | first=Toni | last=Weschler | year=2002 | title=Taking Charge of Your Fertility | pages=pp.3-4 | edition=Revised Edition | publisher=HarperCollins | location=New York | id=ISBN 0-06-093764-5 ] and some even exclude calendar-based methods from their definition of fertility awareness. [cite web |last=Singer |first=Katie |title=What is Fertility Awareness? |work=The Garden of Fertility |year=2007 |url=http://www.gardenoffertility.com/fertilityawareness.shtml |accessdate=2008-05-18]

Some sources may treat the terms "rhythm method" and "natural family planning" as synonymous. [cite web|title=Rhythm Method |work=Birth Control Health Center |publisher=WebMD |year=2005 |url=http://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/rhythm-method |accessdate=2008-05-18] In the early twentieth century, the calendar-based method known as the "rhythm method" was promoted by members of the Roman Catholic Church as the only morally acceptable form of family planning. Methods accepted by this church are referred to as natural family planning (NFP): so at one time, the term "the rhythm method" was synonymous with NFP. Today, NFP is an umbrella term that includes symptoms-based fertility awareness methods and the lactational amenorrhea method as well as calendar-based methods such as rhythm. [cite web |title=Natural Family Planning |work=Institute for Reproductive Health, Georgetown University |year=2005 |url=http://www.irh.org/nfp.htm |accessdate=2008-05-18] This overlap between uses of the terms "the rhythm method" and "natural family planning" may contribute to confusion.

The term "the rhythm method" is sometimes used, in error, to describe the behavior of any people who have unprotected vaginal intercourse, yet wish to avoid pregnancy.

History

Early methods

It is not known exactly when it was first discovered that women have predictable periods of fertility and infertility. St. Augustine wrote in the year 388 of periodic abstinence practiced by the Manichaeans, "Is it not you who used to counsel us to observe as much as possible the time when a woman, after her purification, is most likely to conceive, and to abstain from cohabitation at that time...?" cite book |last=Saint |first=Bishop of Hippo Augustine | authorlink = | coauthors = Philip Schaff (Editor) |title=A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Volume IV |publisher=WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. |year=1887 |location=Grand Rapids, MI |pages= [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.iv.v.xx.html "On the Morals of the Manichæans", Chapter 18] ]

Early Christian doctrine considered complete sexual abstinence to be the most holy state for humans, with marriage being a holy state for those without the fortitude required by an abstinent life. [1 Corinthians 7.8-9, 32-35
[http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3010.htm cf. St. Jerome, Against Vigilantius]
Council of Trent, [http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/8920/churchcouncils/trent.htm Session 24] ] The Manichaeans (the group the early church father St. Augustine wrote of) believed that it was immoral to create any children, thus (by their belief system), trapping souls in mortal bodies. Augustine condemned them for their use of periodic abstinence: "From this it follows that you consider marriage is not to procreate children, but to satiate lust."

One book states that " [The rhythm method] "had been recommended... by a few secular thinkers since the mid-nineteenth century". cite book | first=Marilyn | last=Yalom | year=2001 | title=A History of the Wife | edition=First edition | publisher=HarperCollins | location=New York | id=ISBN 0-06-019338-7 |pages=pp. 297-8, 307] The Roman Catholic Church's first recorded official statement on periodic abstinence to avoid pregnancy is from 1853, where a ruling of the church's Sacred Penitentiary addressed the topic of periodic abstinence to avoid pregnancy. Distributed to confessors, the ruling stated that couples who had, on their own, begun the practicing of periodic abstinence—especially if they had "legitimate reasons"—were not sinning by doing so.cite web |last=Pivarunas |first=Mark A |title=On the Question of Natural Family Planning |work=cmri.org |publisher=Congregatio Mariae Reginae Immaculatae |date=February 18 2002 |url=http://www.cmri.org/03-nfp.html |accessdate=2008-04-27]

In 1880, the Sacred Penitentiary reaffirmed the 1853 ruling, and went slightly further. It suggested that, in cases where the couple was already practicing artificial birth control, and could not be dissuaded to cease attempting birth regulation, the confessor might morally "teach" them of periodic abstinence.

Knaus-Ogino or rhythm method

In 1905 Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde, a Dutch gynecologist, showed that women only ovulate once per menstrual cycle. [cite web | title=A Brief History of Fertility Charting | work=FertilityFriend.com | url=http://www.fertilityfriend.com/Faqs/A_brief_history_of_fertility_charting.html | accessdate=2006-06-18] In the 1920s, Kyusaku Ogino, a Japanese gynecologist, and Hermann Knaus, from Austria, working independently, each made the discovery that ovulation occurs about fourteen days before the next menstrual period. cite book | first=Katie | last=Singer | year=2004 | title=The Garden of Fertility | publisher=Avery, a member of Penguin Group (USA) | location=New York | id=ISBN 1-58333-182-4 |pages=pp. 226-7] Ogino used his discovery to develop a formula for use in aiding infertile women time intercourse to achieve pregnancy:

In 1930, John Smulders, a Roman Catholic physician from the Netherlands, used Knaus and Ogino's discoveries to create a method for "avoiding" pregnancy. Smulders published his work with the Dutch Roman Catholic medical association, and this was the official rhythm method promoted over the next several decades. While maintaining procreation as the primary function of intercourse, the December 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii by Pope Pius XI gave the highest form of recognition to a secondary—unitive—purpose of sexual intercourse. This encyclical stated that there was no moral stain associated with having marital intercourse at times when "new life cannot be brought forth." Although this referred primarily to conditions such as current pregnancy and menopause, the Sacred Penitentiary in yet another ruling in 1932, cite web |last=Harrison |first=Brian W |title=Is Natural Family Planning a 'Heresy'? |work=Living Tradition |publisher=Roman Theological Forum |month=January | year=2003 |url=http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt103.html |accessdate=2008-04-27] and the majority of Catholic theologians also interpreted it to allow moral use—for couples with "upright motives"—of the newly created Rhythm Method. [cite book |author=Kippley, Sheila; Kippley, John F. |title=The art of natural family planning |publisher=Couple to Couple League International |location=Cincinnati, OH |edition=Fourth edition |year=1996 |pages=p.231 |isbn=0-926412-13-2] In 1932 a Catholic physician published a book titled "The Rhythm of Sterility and Fertility in Women" describing the method, and the 1930s also saw the first U.S. Rhythm Clinic (founded by John Rock) to teach the method to Catholic couples. [cite journal |last=Gladwell |first=Malcolm |title=John Rock's Error | journal = The New Yorker |date= 2000-03-10 ]

Into the early twentieth century, it was believed by some Christians that the only licit reason for sexual intercourse was an attempt to create children. A minority of Catholic theologians continued to doubt the morality of periodic abstinence. Some historians consider two speeches delivered by Pope Pius XII in 1951 ["Moral Questions Affecting Married Life": Addresses given [http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P511029.HTM October 29, 1951 to the Italian Catholic Union of midwives] and November 26, 1951 to the National Congress of the Family Front and the Association of Large Families, National Catholic Welfare Conference, Washington, DC.] to be the first unequivocal acceptance of periodic abstinence by the Catholic Church.

Later 20th century to present

Humanae Vitae, published in 1968 by Pope Paul VI, addressed a pastoral directive to scientists: "It is supremely desirable... that medical science should by the study of natural rhythms succeed in determining a sufficiently secure basis for the chaste limitation of offspring." This is interpreted as favoring the then-new, more reliable symptoms-based fertility awareness methods over the rhythm method. Many fertility awareness teachers consider the rhythm method to have been obsolete for at least 20 years, and calendar-based methods are not classified as NFP by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. [cite web|year=2007| title=Basic Information on Natural Family Planning| month =July |url=http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/nfp/information.shtml |publisher=United States Conference of Catholic Bishops]

In 1999, Georgetown University introduced the Standard Days Method. Designed to be simpler to teach and use than the older rhythm method, the Standard Days Method is being successfully integrated into family planning programs worldwide.

Types and effectiveness

Most menstrual cycles have several days at the beginning that are infertile (pre-ovulatory infertility), a period of fertility, and then several days just before the next menstruation that are infertile (post-ovulatory infertility). The first day of red bleeding is considered day one of the menstrual cycle. To use these methods, a woman is required to know the length of her menstrual cycles.

Imperfect use of calendar-based methods would consist of not correctly tracking the length of the woman's cycles, thus using the wrong numbers in the formula, or of having unprotected intercourse on an identified fertile day. The discipline required to keep accurate records of menstrual cycles, and to abstain from unprotected intercourse, makes imperfect use fairly common. The actual failure rate of calendar-based methods is 25% per year.

Rhythm method (Knaus-Ogino method)

To find the estimated length of the pre-ovulatory infertile phase, nineteen (19) is subtracted from the length of the woman's shortest cycle. To find the estimated start of the post-ovulatory infertile phase, ten (10) is subtracted from the length of the woman's longest cycle. A woman whose menstrual cycles ranged in length from 30 to 36 days would be estimated to be infertile for the first 11 days of her cycle (30-19=11), to be fertile on days 12-25, and to resume infertility on day 26 (36-10=26). When used to avoid pregnancy, the rhythm method has a perfect-use failure rate of up to 9% per year. cite book | first=RA | last=Hatcher | coauthors=Trussel J, Stewart F, et al | year=2000 | title=Contraceptive Technology | edition=18th Edition | publisher=Ardent Media | location=New York | id=ISBN 0-9664902-6-6 | url=http://www.contraceptivetechnology.com/table.html ]

Perimon

A software program developed in Germany from 1995 to 2001, Perimon is a stricter variant of the rhythm method. It requires a greater period where unprotected sex is not allowed when used to avoid pregnancy, designating a maximum of 10.5 days each cycle as infertile. No clinical studies have been done to determine effectiveness, but the program's developers claim a perfect-use failure rate of 4% per year. The Perimon software requires a paid subscription. [cite web |title=Perimon |year=2007 |url=http://www.perimon.com/en/ |accessdate=2007-02-11 ]

tandard Days Method

Developed by Georgetown University's Institute for Reproductive Health, the Standard Days Method has a simpler rule set and is more effective than the rhythm method. A product, called CycleBeads, was developed alongside the method to help the user keep track of estimated high and low fertility points during her menstrual cycle. The Standard Days Method may only be used by women whose cycles are always between 26 and 32 days in length. In this system, days 1-7 of a woman's menstrual cycle are considered infertile. Days 8-19 are considered fertile. Infertility is considered to resume beginning on day 20. When used to avoid pregnancy, the Standard Days Method has a perfect-use failure rate of 5% per year. [cite journal |author=Arévalo M, Jennings V, Sinai I |title=Efficacy of a new method of family planning: the Standard Days Method. | journal = Contraception | volume = 65 | issue = 5 |pages=333–8 |year=2002 | pmid = 12057784 | url=http://pdf.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNACQ416.pdf | doi = 10.1016/S0010-7824(02)00288-3 |format=PDF] According to mayoclinic.com, women in their late 30s and early 40s tend to have shorter menstrual cycles. Consequently, the fertile phase may begin on day five rather than day eight.

Advantages

The Standard Days method (SDM) is increasingly being introduced as part of family planning programs in developing countries. The method is satisfactory for many women and men who find other methods unacceptable; offering it through family planning centers results in a significant increase in contraceptive use among couples who do not want to become pregnant. [cite journal |author=Kalaca S, Cebeci D, Cali S, Sinai I, Karavus M, Jennings V |title=Expanding family planning options: offering the Standard Days Method to women in Istanbul. | journal = J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care | volume = 31 | issue = 2 |pages=123–7 |year=2005 | pmid = 15921552 | doi = 10.1783/1471189053629446 ] [cite paper |author=Urmil Dosajh, Ishita Ghosh, and Rebecka Lundgren |title=Feasibility of Incorporating the Standard Days Method into CASP Family Planning Services in Urban Slums of India |publisher=The Institute for Reproductive Health, Georgetown University |date=|url=http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADG768.pdf |format=PDF |accessdate=2006-12-02 ] The low cost of the method may also enable it to have a significant positive impact in countries that lack funding to provide other methods of birth control. [cite journal |author=Gribble J, Jennings V, Nikula M |title=Mind the g
journal = J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care | volume = 30 | issue = 3 |pages=155–7 |year=2004 | pmid = 15222918 | doi = 10.1783/1471189041261483 ]

Potential concerns

Failure rate

One concern related to the use of calendar-based methods are their relatively high failure rate, compared to other methods of birth control. Even when used perfectly, calendar-based methods, especially the rhythm method, result in a high pregnancy rate among couples intending to avoid pregnancy. Of commonly known methods of birth control, only the cervical cap and contraceptive sponge have comparably high failure rates. This lower level of reliability of calendar-based methods is because their formulas make several assumptions that are not always true.Kippley, p.154]

The postovulatory (luteal) phase has a normal length of 12 to 16 days, [Weschler, p.48.] and the rhythm method formula assumes all women have luteal phase lengths within this range. However, many women have shorter luteal phases, and a few have longer luteal phases. [Kippley, p.111] For these women, the rhythm method formula incorrectly identifies a few fertile days as being in the infertile period.

Calendar-based methods use records of past menstrual cycles to predict the length of future cycles. However, the length of the pre-ovulatory phase can vary significantly, depending on the woman's typical cycle length, stress factors, medication, illness, menopause, breastfeeding, and whether she is just coming off hormonal contraception. If a woman with previously regular cycles has a delayed ovulation due to one of these factors, she will still be fertile when the method tells her she is in the post-ovulatory infertile phase. If she has an unusually early ovulation, calendar-based methods will indicate she is still in the pre-ovulatory infertile phase when she has actually become fertile.

Finally, calendar-based methods assume that all bleeding is true menstruation. However, mid-cycle or anovulatory bleeding can be caused by a number of factors. [Kippley, pp.413-415] Incorrectly identifying bleeding as menstruation will cause the method's calculations to be incorrect.

Embryonic health

It has been suggested that unprotected intercourse in the infertile periods of the menstrual cycle may still result in conceptions, but create embryos incapable of implanting. [cite journal | author=Luc Bovens | title=The rhythm method and embryonic death | journal= [http://jme.bmjjournals.com/ Journal of Medical Ethics] | year=2006 | volume=32 | pages=355–356 | url=http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/32/6/355.pdf ] It has also been suggested that pregnancies resulting from method failures of periodic abstinence methods are at increased risk of miscarriage and birth defects due to aged gametes at the time of conception. [cite journal | author=Gray, RH | title=Aged gametes, adverse pregnancy outcomes and natural family planning. An epidemiologic review | journal=Contraception | month=October | year=1984 | volume=30 | issue=4 | pages=297–309 | pmid=6509983 | doi=10.1016/S0010-7824(84)80022-0 ] Newer research suggests that timing of conception has no effect on miscarriage rates, [cite journal | author=Gray RH, Simpson JL, Kambic RT | title=Timing of conception and the risk of spontaneous abortion among pregnancies occurring during the use of natural family planning | journal=American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology | month=May | year=1995 | volume=172 | issue=5 | pages=1567–1572 | pmid=7755073 | doi=10.1016/0002-9378(95)90498-0 ] low birth weight, or preterm delivery. [cite journal | author=Barbato M, Bitto A, Gray RH, et al | title=Effects of timing of conception on birth weight and preterm delivery of natural family planning users | journal=Advances in Contraception | date=June-September 1997 | volume=13 | issue=2-3 | pages=215–228 | pmid=9288339 | doi=10.1023/A:1006508106197 ]

References

External links

* [http://www.cyclebeads.com/ CycleBeads] - A website promoting the Standard Days Method