Women say natural form of birth control is superior to hormones for birth control
By Erin Fitzgerald <er526925@dal.ca>
Posted: Oct. 26, 2007
Claire Gallant, 26, a musician, is an avid supporter of FAM. Photo: Claire Gallant
When Claire Gallant turned 19, both her mother and family doctor encouraged her to start taking the birth control pill. “It just seemed like the thing to do,” she says.
After taking the pill for five years, Gallant, now 26, began to question what the added hormones were doing to her body. After some searching she came across a hormone- free form of birth control known as the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM).
This method encourages women to monitor their fertile periods by tracking their body temperature, cervical fluid and position of the cervix. Users fill in charts to determine when ovulation will occur and how many days it will last for. Through becoming aware of when fertility is highest, women can either avoid or achieve pregnancy.
Savayda Jarone, a medical herbalist and fertility awareness teacher, has been teaching FAM workshops for the past four years and practising the method herself for the last 10 years. Jarone, 34, says it is about basic body awareness.
“With time it becomes easy to use,” she says. “At first people feel intimidated to take on the responsibility and commitment, but eventually it becomes second nature.”
Jarone is seeing more women gravitate towards this method judging by the attendance at her workshops. “Since the beginning, every workshop has been full,” she says. “I think some women are looking for an alternative and I am offering it to them, the response continues to be excellent.”
Jarone points out that the method is of no harm to a woman’s health and it is basically free of charge, women only need to invest in a thermometer to practice FAM.
On Oct. 24, Jarone led one of her bi-monthly workshops at the Halifax Sexual Health Centre. The workshops can accommodate up to 12 women. Jarone says her audience can range in age from 18 to 50.
When the method is used perfectly, it is 98 per cent effective, according to Jarone. The method failure rate is only two per cent, but the typical failure rate, including those who apply it improperly, is 10 per cent.
Gallant stresses that in order to use FAM successfully, “you have to be mature enough to fill in your charts,” she says. “It requires a certain level of awareness and consciousness of your body, it’s not for everyone.”
Out of the seven women who attended Jarone’s Oct. 24 workshop two were already practising the method and three others were searching for a different alternative to the pill.
Jarone teaches FAM in a way that doesn’t require any additional forms of birth control to be used as long as abstinence is practised during a woman’s fertile period, which usually lasts for seven days.
Pam Wilson attended the introductory workshop despite the fact she has been practising FAM for the past six months. Wilson learned about the method after reading American author, Toni Weschler’s book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility. Weschler’s book is highly regarded among FAM followers as the fertility awareness bible.
After being on the pill for a number of years, Wilson, 29, began looking for an alternative.
“I find a lot of women experience depression while on the pill, she says.” “FAM made sense to me, I just had to get to know my body and in doing so I learned more about myself than I ever knew.”
The side effects associated with hormonal birth control is a central issue with FAM users and there is evidence to back them up. In June 2005 Pfizer Canada issued a release stating that Depo-Provera, better known as “the shot,” was associated with irreversible loss of bone density. The degree of bone density loss was linked to the duration of use. Women who develop these symptoms at an early age are at a higher risk to develop osteoporosis, according to Health Canada.
Savayda Jarone, 34, a medical herbalist and and fertility awareness teacher, has been teaching FAM workshops for the past four years. Photo: Erin Fitzgerald
Jarone has never seen any statistics on the number of women who rely on FAM, but believes usage of the method is very low when compared to the usage of hormonal methods.
Gallant believes that society’s reliance on doctors and medication encourages people to react sceptically towards FAM. Some even confuse it with the rhythm method, she says.
“The hardest part is explaining it to other people,” she says. “It’s not some hippie thing that won’t work. But you have to pay attention and be mature, so some people shy away.”
The rhythm method bases a woman’s ovulation period on a monthly calendar which is ineffective according to Jarone. She says there is a big gap in education when it comes to FAM.
“It’s not being taught in the school system and most people don’t know about it at all,” Jarone says. “I have people in my workshops well into their 50s who claim they have never heard of it from their practitioner.”
Kim Plaxton, a doctor at the Dalhousie medical clinic, says many practitioners talk to their patients about FAM if they are in a committed relationship and interested in a non-hormonal method of birth control. However, she would recommend hormonal birth control before FAM to her patients.
“FAM is higher risk. It depends on the patient and their partner. They have to be responsible and take a few months to figure it out,” she says. “They have to know when to abstain in order to avoid pregnancy or use barrier methods during ovulation.”
Plaxton also points out that FAM, used without additional forms of birth control, will not protect against sexually transmitted diseases, so it is important to be in a monogamous relationship.
Gallant says she would never go back on the pill. “This will be a great method for my whole life,” she says. “If I ever want to have kids I will know when to conceive.”
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