The rhythm method – preferred by the Luddite & strict Catholic crowd – has lately become popular with renewal in interests noted in recent times.
Many physicians have noticed a greater interest in women patients during the past couple of years – many of whom feel they’ve had enough of hormonal intake & are keen on a lesser-invasive means of birth control.
Table of Contents
Rhythm Method
Additionally called the calendar method or periodic abstinence, the rhythm method prevents conception by basically not engaging in sex in the days when one ovulates. Several baby-hopeful couples too deploy this approach for timing sex to coincide with when the woman ovulates to enhance their pregnancy chances.
Tracking menses cycles for a minimum of six months at the onset is essential for understanding bodily patterns & knowing exactly which days the woman is highly fertile. Then, by not having sex on such days or deploying other contraceptive choices like condoms, Who could prevent pregnancy.
Manner of Working
The woman’s menstrual cycle is the basis for this fertility awareness method. Classically, sperms could be surviving within the woman’s reproductive system for about five to seven days; however, an egg has a survival period of merely twenty-four hours.
Hence, it is likely that fertilization of a woman’s egg could occur even two to three days post-sex when ovulation has taken place & sperm is already existent inside the body.
But, twenty-four hours following ovulation, it is comparatively risk-free to state that conception wouldn’t occur until the woman’s subsequent menses cycle. However, how could a woman find out her peak fertile days?
The majority of the period cycles could be segregated into trio stages – pre & post-ovulatory infertility phases & the fertility phase sandwiched between the duo.
The 1st day when a woman experiences her menstrual bleeding is deemed the 1st day of her menstrual cycle. Therefore, for determining the preovulatory period, tracking menses cycles for a minimum of six months is needed.
After such time, your briefest cycle is to be taken into consideration & then subtracting nineteen from it. For instance, in case a woman’s briefest menses cycle has been twenty-six days, then subtracting nineteen from twenty-six yields seven – hence she would not be fertile till the seventh day of her cycle.
The post-ovulatory infertile stage is computed by deduction often from one’s longest-lasting menses cycle. For example, if a woman’s lengthiest menses cycle has been thirty-two days, then subtracting ten from thirty-two would give twenty-two.
Hence, on the twenty-second day of a woman’s cycle, she would be resuming yet another non-fertile phase. This would also be translating to the fact that between day eight till twenty-one of any menses cycle, abstaining from sexual contact would be needed or using some birth control option is crucial since the chances of conception is considerably heightened during such period.
Who’s an ideal candidate for the Rhythm Method?
Being rather vigilant about any changes occurring inside one’s body, awareness about the span of your monthlies, spotting variations in cervical mucus (profuse & thin means approaching ovulation & thick & non-existing is possibly a risk-free day) & being heedful about bodily temperature variations (is some 10ths of a degree more when a woman ovulates) could all be helpful for those planning on using the Rhythm method .
Hence, Who wouldn’t benefit women experiencing erratic menses cycles from this birth control technique. Moreover, teens who mainly don’t experience regularity in their menses cycles are unfit for such a birth control approach.
Since this approach needs to be periodically abstinent, it is primarily suggested for individuals in committed, monogamous relationships wherein the couple is STD-free. Moreover, the rhythm method provides no shielding from sexually transmitted diseases such as Chlamydia & HIV.
Seeking your doctor’s consultation before adopting this technique is highly recommended since they would be better able to suggest the precise means of tracking your menses cycle &, in case necessary, using some device to know when you are ovulating.
Efficacy
Imperfectly using such a pregnancy prevention method or engaging in sex when the woman is fertile has caused a comparative rise in failures met with the use of the rhythm method. From around a hundred females deploying this approach, about twenty-five might accidentally get pregnant.
Despite following this approach to the T, it still has merely ninety-one percent efficacy, which translates to the fact that nine would conceive yearly from a hundred females using such approach correctly.
How Reliable is the Rhythm Method?
Several factors are contributory to making the rhythm method not that dependable. Aside from the usually made blunders such as incorrect tracking of menses cycle, the erroneous formula being used for finding non-fertile or fertile period, engaging in sex during a fertile period or perhaps the non-willing approach of a mate, rhythm method has some imperfections.
The principle deployed for ascertaining a woman’s fertile phase is based on a presumption that all females are ovulating mid-way in their period cycle. However, though several females are ovulating mid-way, some are ovulating sooner, or others are not ovulating till just before menstruating.
Moreover, several females experience mid-cycle blood loss, which they could wrongly be marking as a usual menses cycle that leads to a flawed computation of period cycle days. This would lead to inaccurate prediction of a woman’s fertile time leading one to engage in sex during the fertile phase innocuously.
Also Read: Skipped Periods Reasons
Previous menses cycles for predicting future menses cycles are another area leading to augmented failure rates. In most situations, previous cycles would suffice in offering you a parameter for forthcoming cycles. Still, any lifestyle variation like intake of drugs, stresses, sickness, the commencement of menopausal phase or nursing could well affect the menses cycle.
Even in the absence of such factors, the fact is that every female has a somewhat different period each month & this could be affecting when she ovulates & is fertile in that cycle.
