Fertility awareness methods: Basic Info
Fertility awareness methods (also sometimes called FAMs, "natural family planning," or "the rhythm method") are all about tracking your body's signs and symptoms to determine which days of the month you can get pregnant, also known as your fertile days.
To find out when your fertile days are, you'll need to pay very close attention to your body and its patterns, and you'll also need to keep careful track of what’s happening. There are several different signs and symptoms of fertility that you can track, and there are multiple ways to monitor them.
Quick Facts
Very effective if you use them correctly. Hormone-free, no cost, no side effects.
- Effectiveness
Pretty effective the way most people use them (but they’re not the easiest to use).
Perfect Use: 95 to over 99% effective.
Typical Use: 77 to 98% effective.
- Hormones
FAMs don’t affect your hormones at all.
- Side effects
None
- Cost
It’s free!
- STI protection
Fertility awareness doesn’t protect against STIs.
- Ongoing effort
Using a fertility awareness method requires a lot of effort including monitoring, tracking, and planning–plus you’ll need to use another method on fertile days.
