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Fertility Awareness Methods Focus Area
Family Planning
IRH is committed to meeting the evolving family planning needs of women and couples throughout the lifecycle by ensuring they have access to a broad range of options within an informed choice context.
For nearly four decades, IRH was committed to meet the evolving family planning needs of women and couples throughout the lifecycle by ensuring they have access to a broad range of options within an informed choice context.
IRH broadened the range of methods and options available so that women and couples can have the number of children they want, when they want them. Having choices and balanced information increases the likelihood that women and couples will choose a method, use it effectively, and avoid unintended pregnancies.
In particular, IRH sought to address family planning gaps by focusing our research and technical assistance on areas that receive relatively little attention from others in the reproductive health field. One of these gaps, fertility awareness methods (FAM) of family planning, was a critical focus of our work.
FAMs are modern, effective and non-hormonal family planning options. As health concerns and side effects are the number one reason women worldwide cite for not using family planning, FAMs can play a significant role in providing a solution for unmet need.
FAMs help people achieve their reproductive goals to either plan or prevent pregnancy by helping women and couples identify the days during the woman’s menstrual cycle when pregnancy is most likely. This involves tracking the menstrual cycle or monitoring a woman’s fertility signs. The couple prevents pregnancy by avoiding unprotected intercourse on fertile days. Three FAMs developed and tested by IRH include:
Navigate to each method page to learn more about effectiveness, research-to-practice findings, and how each method has been integrated into programs worldwide. The Resource Library includes all journal articles, publications, resources, blog posts, videos and reports, and is searchable by focus area and project. Resources for program managers, policymakers, and providers seeking to integrate the methods into programs can be found in the curated repositories linked here:
Resources for other natural family planning methods are available HERE.
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