Natural Alternatives to Birth Control: How the Fertility Awareness Method Actually Works

If you've typed "natural alternatives to birth control" into Google at 1am after reading through the side effects list on your pill's insert, girrrrrrl you aren't alone. So many gals are concerned about this usually after the same realization hits: hormonal birth control can do a lot more than just prevent pregnancy, and most of us were never told what.

Think about it this way: Most medicine is designed to repair your body. You know... bring it back to a healthy, functioning state. Hormonal birth control does the opposite. It takes a completely normal, healthy function (ovulation) and shuts it down on purpose to prevent pregnancy. There aren't many other places in medicine where we intentionally turn off a major, working system in a healthy body. 

What hormonal birth control is actually doing

The pill, the patch, the ring, the shot, hormonal IUDs... they all work by suppressing ovulation, sometimes for years at a stretch. A mic drop moment for me was when I learned that the "period" you get on the placebo week on the pill is not actually a period. It's a withdrawal bleed, which is a response to the drop in synthetic hormones, not a sign your body ovulated and cycled the way it's designed to.

If you hear about the side effects and wonder, "Yeah, but how do I know this will actually impact me?", here's what I'd say. Use your gut. I think it's worth taking a look at what the method is actually doing to your system, not just the marketing around it. Suppressing a major hormonal function for years isn't nothing, even when it's well tolerated.

The alternative: your body already tells you when you're fertile

If I told you this and then gave you no alternative, I'm sure you'd be like 'uh, rude!'. BUT here's the part most of us never learned in school: your body gives you physical, observable signals every single day that tell you whether you're fertile or not. You don't need an app to invent this data because you're already producing it. You just have to learn how to read it.

Your new besties just entered the room...

Basal body temperature (BBT). Your resting temperature shifts in a predictable pattern across your cycle. Your temps are in a lower range pre-ovulation (typically the first half of your cycle) and then they're in a higher range, a sustained rise, post-ovulation. You track this daily with devices like a cheap BBT (on amazon for $10), the Tempdrop, or the Natural Cycles/Oura Ring combo. When you see that shift from the low to high temps (you use something called a 'coverline' to help you here. Take our course to learn how to draw it!), it's a great indication that ovulation occurred. And, if you're like me, I looooove data....so this is super helpful to see clear cut on a chart. 

Cervical fluid. If you're like me, the idea of tracking cervical fluid gave me the ick. But guys...it's actually a normal and amazing functioning of your body. What you probably know as discharge changes texture and wetness across your cycle (some variation of dry, then sticky, then creamy, then a wet, egg-white consistency near ovulation, then back to dry). That shift tracks your rising fertility in real time.

If you consistently chart both of these pieces every day, a pattern will emerge and be a gorgeous chart!  This is using the sympot-thermal method (a FAM method or sometimes called NFP). You can use this information to learn if your cycle is optimal and healthy, help you avoid pregnancy, or help you achieve pregnancy. Natural birth control... how cool is that?!

What you gain beyond birth control

I think this is my favorite part of charting. It's not just that you can achieve or avoid pregnancy with it. It's that your chart is literally SHOWING YOU if something may be up with your system. A BBT and cervical fluid chart can flag signs of PCOS, thyroid issues, short luteal phases, anovulatory cycles, and more. You can then have this data on hand to show your provider and advocate for testing. Get off hormonal birth control and change your life.

Where to start

If you're ready to get off hormonal birth control and learn fertility awareness, don't try to freehand it from a blog post (even though this one is pretty good, I know!!!). There is a real learning curve to this method, because why were we never taught this before?! But, hopefully we'll be cycling for decades to come, and then you can teach your future daughters too. If you want, check out our website to learn about our course that teaches this method. We walk hand-in-hand with you to teach it in a fun, relatable, accessible way. Because...we wish we had this when we were learning!