{"id":5706,"date":"2016-11-26T20:48:09","date_gmt":"2016-11-27T02:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=5706"},"modified":"2016-11-27T09:33:30","modified_gmt":"2016-11-27T15:33:30","slug":"more-on-nfp-effectiveness-and-a-shocker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/11\/more-on-nfp-effectiveness-and-a-shocker.html","title":{"rendered":"More on NFP effectiveness – and a shocker!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"from<\/p>\n

So last week I wrote about<\/a> a very-statistically-credible German-conducted effectiveness study for sympto-thermal NFP that showed\u00a0a user effectiveness rate of 98% for couples educated in a specific method. \u00a0And I further said that the CDC claimed that NFP\/FAM had a failure rate of 24%, but that I couldn\u2019t find a source for that failure rate and didn\u2019t give it much credence.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019ve found the source: \u00a0a study by the Guttmacher Institute<\/a> that takes government survey data on contraceptive use and unplanned pregnancies and calculates \u201creal world\u201d failure rates. \u00a0The linked study is from 2001, and it may have been updated in the meantime, but here are their conclusions: \u00a0in the first year of use for women reporting\u00a0\u201cperiodic abstinence\u201d as a contraceptive method, 22.9% of women became unintentionally pregnant. \u00a0This compares poorly, as you might imagine, to the 7.5% of unintentionally-pregnant pill users, and the 13.7% of condom users.<\/p>\n

The study further calculates rates of unintentional pregnancy in the 2nd year of use, and here the rates drop for all methods, but they don\u2019t move from these two calculations to some sort of overall effectiveness rate that\u2019s identified as comparable to \u201ceffectiveness rates\u201d that one generally sees. \u00a0But this 23% \u2014 or whatever more recent figure there may be \u2014 is a potential source for the CDC\u2019s 24% failure rate.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the catch: \u00a0no where in the Guttmacher study is \u201cperiodic abstinence\u201d defined, so I dug into the original source, the National Survey of Family Growth<\/a>, and, in particular, their survey of contraceptive use<\/a>. \u00a0Here they don\u2019t define the term, but they do split this out into two categories: \u00a0\u201ccalendar rhythm\u201d and \u201cNatural Family Planning.\u201d \u00a0(The report doesn\u2019t say whether women were asked to choose between these two categories, or whether the survey-takers asked for a free-response answer, then categorized it themselves.) And, out of the group of women ages 15 -44, 0.8% reported using \u201cperiodic abstinence.\u201d \u00a0The spit between these two subcategories? \u00a00.7% reported \u201ccalendar rhythm\u201d and 0.1% reported NFP.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a shocker.<\/p>\n

That says that any statistics on failure rates of \u201cNFP\u201d based on this study are useless, because the vast majority of women who are supposedly using the method, are doing nothing of the sort. \u00a0No one* teaches \u201ccalendar rhythm,\u201d and I can\u2019t imagine that these \u201cusers\u201d have really gone back to research Knaus-Ogino\u2019s original method<\/a>. \u00a0Presumably these are women who have read that ovulation occurs on day 14, or maybe 14 days before your period, and are creating \u201crhythm methods\u201d for themselves, rather than following any specifically defined and researched method.<\/p>\n

(* I should clarify that almost<\/em> no one teaches calendar rhythm, but that depends on whether the\u00a0\u201cCycle Beads<\/a>\u201d method \u201ccounts\u201d as such. \u00a0This method, which is promoted generally for third world women, and has a researched user-effectiveness of 12%, with restrictions on use for women with cycles of 26 \u2013 32 days, is based on counting days on a bracelet of sorts. \u00a0But I doubt the 0.7% of women reporting \u201ccalendar rhythm\u201d are following this method, which, so far as I understand, is largely promoted for women in third-world countries who would benefit from a very simplified method.)<\/p>\n

So, readers, what do you make of this?<\/p>\n

(Note: \u00a0first published 11\/26, edited for clarity 11\/27)<\/p>\n

image: \u00a0from https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/calendar-year-calendar-office-dates-1255952\/; public domain<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So last week I wrote about a very-statistically-credible German-conducted effectiveness study for sympto-thermal NFP that showed\u00a0a user effectiveness rate of 98% for couples educated in a specific method. \u00a0And I further said that the CDC claimed that NFP\/FAM had a failure rate of 24%, but that I couldn\u2019t find a source for that failure rate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":5707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[269,501],"class_list":["post-5706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-contraception","tag-natural-family-planning"],"yoast_head":"\nMore on NFP effectiveness - and a shocker!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So last week I wrote about a very-statistically-credible German-conducted effectiveness study for sympto-thermal NFP that showed\u00a0a user effectiveness rate\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/11\/more-on-nfp-effectiveness-and-a-shocker.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More on NFP effectiveness - 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