The Natural Birth Control Method I use: Effective and Hormone Free

A natural birth control method is one of the things that is very important for me and my natural lifestyle.
That is why, when I got in my first relationship, I went on a search for natural birth control. Because I knew one thing for certain: I refused to manipulate my own body with hormonal birth control and live with a fake menstrual cycle.

I was beginning my search like most of us do: on Google. I read about all the different birth control options the regular healthcare system recommends. But I didn’t want hormonal birth control, and the other option, which was a copper IUD wouldn’t suit me either (due to heavy bleeding & cramps).

The first pages about a natural birth control option made it seem that a safe natural birth control method didn’t exist.
I read about different methods, like the calendar method or rhythm method. And it seemed to me that the natural birth control options only were for risk takers, uneducated people or women who didn’t really care if they happened to get pregnant by mistake.

But I, a 19 year old teenager at that time, wanted to prevent pregnancy at all costs. I wanted a serious method, one backed up by science.
After weeks of researching and reading all the possible information I could find, I finally found a solution.

In this post I’m going to explain which natural birth control method I successfully use today and how it works!

A little about the fertility of women

Before I explain which method I use, there are some important facts that you should know about a woman’s fertility.

• Women are only fertile 24 hours each month.
  Yes you read that right. One day a month. That is only 12 days per year! Yet women are the ones taking a pill everyday to suppress their fertility.
• Women only ovulate ONCE each cycle, if more than one egg is released, it is within the same 24 hours.
  Which means that after ovulation, it is impossible to get pregnant for the rest of the cycle.
• Sperm is fertile every second of the day, but can only survive up to 5 days inside a woman.
  Sperm can survive up to five (in some extreme cases six) days inside a woman if there is fertile-quality cervical fluid present.

This means that there is a time of 6 days a month that a woman potentially could become pregnant.

Lets add one more day for extra precautions, and we have in fact one week a month that a woman possibly can get pregnant. That means, if you do NOT want to become pregnant, you must use another means of contraception during that considered fertile phase. In your infertile phase you don’t need contraception to avoid a pregnancy.

This isn’t usually taught in school. What I was taught wast: If you have sex, there is a chance you get pregnant so use a condom or even safer, take the pill because a condom can break.

I was never taught that women only are fertile one day a month, I was never taught what happens in the body physically when a woman approaches ovulation. I was never taught how my own body works.
Instead of learning I could take control over my cycle by learning to understand the signals my body was sending, I was taught to ignore it all and just take a pill.

The Fertility Awareness Method (FAM)

The Fertility Awareness Method (NOT to be confused with the rhythm method) is a natural birth control method where the woman learns to actively observe and recognize the signals her body is sending, to predict ovulation. This makes that she can conclude if she is in an infertile or fertile phase in her menstrual cycle.
You can check this by three primary fertility signs:

• Basal body temperature
  Basal body temperature (BBT) is the temperature you have immediately after waking up. Before ovulation, a woman’s temperatures typically varies between 36.11-36.50 degrees Celsius (97.0-97.7 Fahrenheit). After ovulation those temperatures rise to 36.55 (97.8 Fahrenheit) degrees and higher, and stay high until the next period starts. When there is a consecutive rise in temperatures, you know you have ovulated.
• Cervical fluid
  Cervical fluid or vaginal discharge. The quality and quantity of the cervical fluid shifts during your cycle. Right after your period there are often a few dry days with little to no cervical fluid present. After a few days you’ll start to produce more cervical fluid, and the closer ovulation you are the wetter it gets. The most fertile type of cervical fluid resembles clear, stretchy egg-white. After ovulation has occurred, the cervical fluid transitions from wet to dry again.
• Cervical position
  The cervix is the lower part of the uterus that extends into the vagina. Just like your basal body temperature and cervical fluid it goes through changes during your cycle. When you approach ovulation, it moves higher up, gets wet, soft and open so sperm easily can swim through. When you are infertile the cervix will be low, firm and closed.

All of these signs shift during your cycle and help you determine when you are approaching ovulation, are ovulating or have ovulated.

Remember that these fertility signs only are valid if you are NOT on hormonal birth control.

You can check these signs all by yourself, literally only using your fingers and a good quality basal body thermometer. Then you keep track of the results on a paper or on an app, which is called charting. It is very important that you have a good thermometer that is very precise and measures 1/100 degrees (measures 36,56 instead of one that rounds up and measures 36,6).

Practicing the fertility awareness method is not only a natural birth control method to avoid unplanned pregnancy, but it also teaches you about your own body and cycle.
Even if it can feel difficult in the beginning, you eventually will get better and better at reading the signs your own body is giving you. The method where you observe and chart both basal body temperature, cervical fluid and other optional fertility signs (like cervical position) daily is called the Symptothermal method. Studies show that the Symptothermal method (STM) is the most effective fertility awareness method. When used correctly it has an effectiveness rate of 98-99,6%, which is way better than typical use of the pill (which is 91%) and almost just as good as perfect use of the pill (99,7%). (Weschler, 2015; Trussel, 2011).

To use it correctly, it is important to properly get educated on how to use FAM. It is easy to learn and you can educate yourself by reading books, taking courses or even better get taught by a trained FAM teacher.

Many people, including doctors and regular health practitioners, are real quick to dismiss the fertility awareness method.

They simply believe (and get taught) that women are to easily confused and not disciplined enough to observe and understand their body signals correctly, and will make mistakes that leads to unwanted pregnancy. Instead of teaching women how to understand their own bodies and hormones correctly, it is much easier (and more profitable…) to just prescribe and let them depend on a pill.

But using the pill does not come without a price, which we sadly enough also, rarely get taught.

It can be super scary to go from hormonal birth control, where you don’t have to do a thing (except for maybe taking a pill at a certain time every day), to trusting your own body and reading its signals. I felt exactly the same.

That is why I use technology to make my observations and measurements super precise and to completely eliminate the chance of making a human mistake. The device I use is a high tech fertility computer called Daysy.

Daysy – A fertility tracker

Daysy is a medical device based on the fertility awareness method. It calculates your fertility based on basal body temperature. It has an inbuilt software and a very precise and sensitive thermometer you use to measure your temperature every morning.

But Daysy is not only a basal body thermometer. It is a high tech device with an inbuilt algorithm for the highest quality of menstrual cycle tracking. It also contains the data of 5 million cycles, which Daysy uses in its algorithm. The technology is completely based on science and super reliable by 30 years of research and experience from over 500 000 women.

Factors that can influence your basal body temperature, such as to little sleep, sickness or alcohol are included in the algorithm. Although if you know you have slept less than 3 hours, have a fever or are hung over, you should avoid to take your temperature that morning.

I have personally used Daysy & the fertility awareness method for over 4 years and successfully avoided unwanted pregnancy!

How does Daysy work?

Every morning when you wake up you measure your temperature under your tongue with Daysy. This takes about 30-60 seconds. Daysy will then give you a color that tells you if you are fertile or not the next 24 hours.
If you are fertile, use a condom or other means of contraception to avoid pregnancy. If you are not fertile, you are good to go!

– Red= Fertile.
– Yellow= Learning phase or cycle fluctuation (consider as fertile)
– Green= Not fertile.

With the Daysy device, you also get an app called DaysyViews. You can sync your device to your phone to see all your temperature measurement data in a beautiful chart. Also you can add notes, quality of cervical fluid and the days you menstruate to keep track of your cycles even better.

How effective is Daysy?

Birth control effectiveness is measured in so called Pearl Index. If the Pearl index is 1, it means that 1 of 100 women will get pregnant in the first year of use.
The pill has a pearl index of 0.3-9 and UIDs have a pearl index of 0.2-0.8 (Trussell, 2011).

Daysy can tell you whether you are fertile or infertile with 99.4% accuracy.
This would make the pearl index of Daysy 0.6.
(Demiańczyk & Michaluk, 2016; Freundl et al., 1998)

This means that it is possible to use the Daysy as a natural birth control method together with a barrier method or abstinence on fertile days. If you add checking your cervical fluid and cervix position as well, you will make it even more accurate!

Just like all the other birth control methods out there, if a method isn’t used correctly it can potentially result in an unwanted pregnancy. There simply doesn’t not exist a birth control method that is 100% effective (except for abstinence).

Good to know about Daysy

It takes Daysy 3-4 cycles to get to know your cycle
This means that you will receive many red (fertile) days when you start to use Daysy. This is also why you can trust Daysy to be accurate from the very first day of use. When Daysy learns your cycle it will narrow down your considered fertile window and you’ll eventually get more green days.

If you have very irregular cycles, you will receive more red days
If you have a cycle between 19-40 days, Daysy can handle it perfectly well. But if you have high fluctuations in your cycles, you can expect to get more red days. This is because Daysy does not take unnecessary risks.

The more you use Daysy, the more green days you will get
You should take your temperature every morning to get as many green days as possible. It is okay if you accidentally forget 2-3 times a month, but forgetting more than that will result in more red days.

Store Daysy in a good case
Don’t just keep Daysy lying somewhere unprotected, like under your pillow where you can accidentally break it. Store Daysy in a hard eyeglass case to protect it from accidents.

The DONT’S of using Daysy

• Dont slack! This method will require your discipline to take your temperature every morning. I keep Daysy on top of my alarm so I am forced to move it (and remember to directly take my temp) before I can turn of the alarm.
• Don’t only use the app that predict your fertile days! This is NOT enough to avoid a pregnancy. You have to take your temperature and see what color Daysy gives you for the next 24 hours. Optionally you can also chart other fertility signs to make sure if you’re infertile (the more fertility signs the better).
• Daysy alone can NOT actively prevent conception! It is a device that will calculate your fertility status. On the days that you are fertile you must use another form of contraception to avoid pregnancy! For example a condom.
• Don’t use your intuition as a birth control method! If you’ve been using Daysy or FAM for a while and think you know your body and can feel when you are fertile, please don’t. You will always need PROOF of that you are indeed fertile/not fertile by the fertility signs described above. Take the red color Daysy gives seriously!
• Don’t use Daysy if you use hormonal medication or birth control! Hormonal birth control and hormonal medication will influence your temperatures, so do not use Daysy if you use either of them because the results will be invalid.

Natural Birth Control IS an Option

“An informed woman taking care of herself is the most powerful form of activism today.”
— KELLY BROGAN M.D.

I wanted a natural birth control method without the negative side effects that can accompany many types of hormonal birth control. And although it at a first glance seemed impossible that a safe natural birth control method existed, it actually did.

I have now used Daysy as a tool in the fertility awareness method to prevent pregnancy successfully for over four years. There are NO negative side effects and instead you will now get a positive side effect of getting to know your body and learn more about your own unique cycles.

I am not here to convince you that this is the best option for absolutely everyone. I am here to tell you that natural birth control is a true and safe option! Do your own research and decide for yourself if this is a method that would suit you. The decision is up to you.

by Bo Smit

A Note From Bo!

I’m not a doctor and I can’t tell you what is best for your body. This post is my personal experience that should be taken as information, and not personal medical advice. Please do your research and be sure to meet with a functional doctor or healthcare provider you trust before making any changes to your medications.

I only recommend products I absolutely love & use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post contains affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support!