METHODS of Natural Family Planning are on the rise around the world, according to experts who gathered at the World Organisation of the Ovulation Method Billings (WOOMB) international conference earlier this year.
The conference, which marked the Golden Jubilee of the Billings Method, was held in Malaysia in April and attracted about 250 delegates from more than 20 countries.
Four teachers of the Billings Method in Perth attended the three-day conference: Tina Jack, Kathy Musca, Michelle Allum and Marilena Scarfe.
Mrs Jack said she was surprised to learn of the Method’s success overseas, particularly in China, over the past decade.
“It’s really incredible how it’s taken off there,” she said.
“There are thousands of teachers of the Method in China, let alone the people using it, because in their trials they found that it was more effective than using the IUD, and it didn’t affect people’s health.”
But Billings teacher for almost 30 years Marilena Scarfe said the Method, which is used in more than 120 countries, has not had the same impact in all parts of the world.
“It seems to be the Western countries where it’s growing a bit slower,” she said.
“They don’t [fully] understand the importance of it. But I think there will be a resurgence with all this infertility that is happening… which could be due to a lot of different factors.”
Mrs Jack agrees, and said the current generation is more open to methods of Natural Family Planning.
“Today’s generation are probably not quite so sceptical as the last generation, who believed that the natural methods don’t work,” she said.
At the conference, teachers of the Method from around the world explained its growth in their country, as well as highlighting the latest research developments.
Two Melbourne men presented to the conference a new fertility application they had created that allows couples to track their fertility anywhere, anytime.
But Mrs Jack said many countries appear to be more advanced in their research developments.
“I would say the perception I get is that Australia is kind of lagging behind, it’s a little bit sluggish, we’re a bit cynical about anything if we don’t take a chemical,” she said.
“A lot of people who use it are not Catholics, people who just want a healthy, scientific alternative to contraception.”
The international conference is held every 10 years, and Mrs Scarfe said it was a great opportunity to share ideas with overseas colleagues. “You need to come together and talk about what your country’s doing, and what are the struggles and what are some of the challenges, so then we can help each other,” she said.
The Billings Method, named after Drs John and Evelyn Billings, works by pinpointing the fertile period in a woman’s cycle, enabling a couple to conceive or not conceive without recourse to contraception.
“It’s 99 per cent effective, if used according to the rules, to prevent a pregnancy,” Mrs Scarfe said.
“We also have… people who are trying to conceive and are told to use IVF, but we pinpoint fertility to them and they become pregnant.”
Mrs Jack said there are three main methods of Natural Family Planning used around the world – the Billings Method, the Creighton Model and the Sympto-Thermal method.
“They all are quite good at detecting different signs in the woman’s body that shows when she’s fertile and when she’s not,” she said.
“People get a bit confused when they hear about the different ones. My hope for the future is that the three methodologies will work together.”
While the Australian headquarters of the Billings Method is in Melbourne, the four volunteer teachers help to make the Method available in Perth.
Clients come into the clinic for initial instruction in the Method, before going away for two weeks to chart their cycle.
“The teacher’s there to explain to them when they are fertile and when they are infertile so they can use it accordingly,” Mrs Scarfe said.
“It’s such an intimate part of a couple’s life, so we take that very seriously.”
Mrs Scarfe added that she has witnessed countless success stories in her role of assisting couples to identify their fertility.
“The Method brings couples together,” she said.
“I have seen marriages which are not doing well start blossoming.”
In his 1961 encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI affirmed that: “If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate birth without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier.”