J1ST 88: Natural Family Planning

Just One Small Thing Podcast for Catholic Parents

Hi Friends!

This week we're diving into Natural Family Planning or NFP. What is NFP, you may be wondering? NFP is any method of observing your monthly fertility signs and using them to plan when to 'renew your vows' with your husband.

Fertility Awareness is not just for deciding when to try for a baby though. Many health issues can be traced back to cycle or hormonal abnormalities, so women of all ages and stages can benefit from becoming aware of their fertility signs.

Today we have a special guest, Katherine Young, a real life Fertility Care Practitioner This means she helps women learn how to observe and chart their fertility signs using the Creighton Method of NFP. In her own words, her goal as a practitioner is to:

"help build a culture of life through empowering women and couples to understand their fertility and respect God’s gift of sexuality and the dignity of the human person."

Pretty awesome right?

We'll cover why The Church teaches what She does with regards to contraception and the important differences between contraception and natural family planning. We'll also touch on the variety of methods available to grow in knowledge of your cycle. Some methods work better for different women... or even different stages of life and it's more than Okay to switch methods when you need to.

Finally, we'll discuss the importance of having a teacher for whatever method you choose. There is So Much information out there on the internet (and in books) regarding fertility awareness, but a teacher can be in impartial third set of eyes on your chart and build your confidence.

We hope you enjoy today's episode!

Your Sisters in the Small Things,

Nancy and Katie

PS Interested in learning the Creighton Method with Katherine? Her email is [e-mail]

Things we mentioned in this podcast:

This John Legend song

This website has a good overview of all the available methods

Naprotechnology: using fertility signs as clues to figure out what isn't working correctly within the woman's body and restore health and fertility

A great lecture that goes even more in-depth on the differences between NFP and contraception