Teaching Fertility Cycles to Teens

[Polly]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/16/AR2007031602043.html

This book is by the same author, Toni Weschler, that wrote, "Taking Charge of Your Fertility." I used the book and *poof* Elizabeth is here!

Do I think it's a good idea to teach teens how their bodies work? Yes. I wish I had known about it-I had no idea when Jo told me about the book 2 years ago. And I consider myself fairly well informed. (In fact, I hope to teach Sex Ed eventually.)

As for teens using the info as birth control, I doubt many would. I hear that the book stresses that the menstrual cycles for most girls isn't as regular as an adult woman's. I'm probably the only one of my junior and senior high school friends that was completely regular from day one. :D

I'm definately going to give this book to Elizabeth when she is ready.

Ladies?

Polly

[Kristen]

Already plan on it. :D

I'm hoping I can have my girls do some charting in their late teens, and that way they can practice doing it while they're still single, so they're pros at it by the time they're married and it counts. I had to learn when I was already married and was having sex and didn't want to get pregnant, and that was stressful. :giggle

[Desirae]

I think it's a great idea!

[Lori]

I think it's a very good idea to teach teens how their bodies work, as well as teaching them how bodies of the other gender work. I hope that Thomas and any other sons I may have aren't mystified by the female body.

I would be very careful about making sure that they understood that this isn't a particularly reliable form of birth control, and especially that it does not protect from STDs. For myself, I'll only using charting when I'm preparing to TTC and, even if I'd prefer to wait a little while to get pregnant, wouldn't have my life turned upside down by an unplanned pregnancy. When I absolutely do NOT want to get pregnant, I wouldn't trust it and use a form of artificial birth control not so prone to human error. I'd hope that, until my daughters were prepared to handle a pregnancy should it happen, they'd also rely on an artificial form of birth control. And, while I'd obviously much prefer my children waited until they were with a partner who they were completely sure was disease-free and absolutely faithful to them to have sex, if they made the choice to have sex before that, I'd want them to understand that they'd better use a condom or they'd die. Because, when it comes to my own kids, I'd have absolutely no problem invoking the fear of death to keep them from having unprotected sex. ;)

So I think it's great info to have, but I'd want to be very clear about what charting can and can't do for you.

[Val]

I think it's great to teach them more about their bodies, but as birth control.... Meh. I know the book doesn't promote this as birth control, but then what exactly is the point of charting your fertility? Like most bc the failure rate is mostly due to human mistakes (forgetting a pill, etc) and checking things like cervical positioning would not be an easy skill to pick up and use appropriately.

[Beka]

I think it's great to teach them more about their bodies, but as birth control.... Meh. I know the book doesn't promote this as birth control, but then what exactly is the point of charting your fertility? Like most bc the failure rate is mostly due to human mistakes (forgetting a pill, etc) and checking things like cervical positioning would not be an easy skill to pick up and use appropriately.

yep like Val i shall be teaching my girls about it but mostly because at least one of them is likely to inherit my PCOS & other family issues which will mean conceiving when they are ready to will cause problems in later life so if they're already in tune with their bodies hopefully it'll make for an easier path than we had with TTC jude.

[Lori]

I think it's great to teach them more about their bodies, but as birth control.... Meh. I know the book doesn't promote this as birth control, but then what exactly is the point of charting your fertility?

I wouldn't be comfortable using charting as my birth control method at times when I didn't want to get pregnant. For people who have an objection to any form of artificial birth control it's probably the most effective thing you can do (since the other options would be counting days--which is way less accurate than charting--and possibly withdrawal, but I'm not even sure if that's allowed), but when I've heard of people using it as birth control, it's usually along with another method. If someone can't use hormonal birth control for health reasons, or has moral objections to doing so, using charting along with a barrier method can make the barrier method more effective, since you can abstain from sex completely around the time you might be fertile.

I think the effort it takes would make it unlikely to be more than a novelty for a teenager. Having to wake up the same time every day and take your temperature before you get out of bed is hard to remember and very easy to be lax about. Personally, I'm sure I'd be very lax about it unless I was actively TTC and I could see some payoff for it. I think it would be good for a teen girl to read the book and know these things, but if I had a daughter who was anything like me, I doubt she'd chart just for the heck of it once the novelty wore off.

[Sarah]

I think they basics of fertility awareness should be taught to teens for sure. But like Lori, I don't think they'd really get into charting all that much. But I know that once I started reading more about fertility awareness I realized there was a lot that I didn't know about my body. Stuff that would have been helpful to know when I was a teen! :)

[Kate]

Whether or not girls do get heavily into charting, I think it's a fabulous idea, just to help them have a better understanding of just how their bodies work.