I need info on natural birth control

HI,

There are several natural way to birth control. Among of them Queen Anne's Lace Tincture is the best natural medicine for birth control. If you are interested to know how to control birth by using this tincture, then read this article: http://www.articlesbase.com/alternative-medicine-articles/queen-annes-lace-a-conscious-choice-for-birth-control-7149237.html.

Hope my suggestion help for you!

Hi Peter!

I don't recommend herbs because there are no efficacy studies done on them and most are also messing with your body in one way or another in order to actually make you not conceive. Certainly they seem to be much better than synthetic hormones, but why mess with your body if you don't have to?

As a few people touched on, the sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness is a really great and effective way to manage fertility - well worth the time to learn. Basically, it's all about finding when you are actually fertile (or your partner is ) and during that tim either abstaining, using alternate sex, or using a barrier method. It's NOT the same thing as the rhythm method because it's based on what's happening in your current cycle with your hormones and not how your cycles have behaved in the past. That's why it's 99.6% effective (as long as you learn it well and use it correctly).

I teach the method and have used it myself for well over 4 years. You can learn more at my website: http://holistichormonalhealth.com

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!

In Mesoamerica species of Montanoa (Asteraceae) have been used for centuries as natural birth control. Some of the compounds in the plant were heavily researched by pharmaceutical companies in the 1960's. The plants are large herbaceous perennials that can stand a few degrees of frost, but can be grown in tubs and overwintered indoors in colder climates. They are stunning when in bloom, and emit a fruity, ripe-apple type scent.

Interestingly it wasn't until female scientists researching herbal medicine went to Mexico that the traditional use of this plant surfaced. It was traditional women's lore and was not discussed with men (especially in a catholic culture)

This may be to simple to believe soaking in very Hot water long enough to kill your sperm just prior to sex.

I'm not sure if these suggestions have been mentioned already, but I'm a huge advocate for natural/non hormonal forms of birth control. In my research, I've found a few methods that are effective:

-condoms, though the waste factor of these is substantial, they do make lambskin ones (which of course are incredibly pricy

-FAM, or Fertility Awareness Method. Rather than just avoiding sex on your ovulation days, this method helps you to track your cycles and actual fertility days with stunning accuracy. It requires charting, noting physical signs of fertility, and taking your temperature daily, but in all it only takes a few minutes a day. This coupled with a barrier method is incredibly effective. Right now I'm reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility - it's amazing what you can learn about how your own body works.

-cervical cap, or Femcap. This is awesome, think menstrual cup, but just slightly different. It has no metal and is very comfortable and easy to insert, unlike a diaphragm, and can be left in place for up to 48 hrs, so spontaneity is still possible. You can choose to use it with or without a spermicide. I intend to use this in conjunction with the FAM, once I get a few months of my cycles charted.

There are options out there, and you don't have to get an IUD to go non hormonal but reliable. I've been the guinea pig of many failed birth control methods, only because of the horrible symptoms that they caused. If you have any other questions, let me know, and I'll answer them the best I can.

I find it a little bizarre that there is still an attitude that women using herbs to control their fertility is somehow 'unnatural' or not good.
European women were stripped of their indigenous knowledge of herbs, child-bearing and fertility during the witch-hunts, which removed both the witches and their folklore, making women vulnerable to control by the church and state who were in need of higher populations of workers in order to bolster the new mercantile economy.

"The attack of church and state against the witches was aimed not only at the subordination of female sexuality as such, although this played a major role, but against their practices as abortionists and midwives... Not only were women artisans pushed out of their jobs and their property confiscated by the city authorities, the state and the church, but women's control over the production of new life - that is, their decision to give birth to a child or to abort - had to be smashed. This war against women raged throughout Europe for at least three centuries" - Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale.

Other cultures worldwide have managed to hold onto their traditional indigenous knowledge of fertility and herbal medicine and their control of fertility often goes unnoticed.

The problem is as stated elsewhere on this thread, when unempowered women try to make random choices about fertility and end up with a big mess - either an unwanted pregnancy, or a damaged fetus from the inconsistent or improper use of abortifacients, or possible health complications to the woman from uneducated use of herbs or vitamins.

Large doses of Vitamin C are effective - which is why many pharmaceutical companies sell Vitamin C with rosehip added, which counteracts the abortifacient, as they didn't want to be associated with ending pregnancies.

I second Sister Zeus as an emergency source of information on emmenagogues and abortifacients.

I also second any recommendation which gives more empowerment, information and agency to women to make these decisions about their own fertility in ways that are self-loving, responsible, and safe.

Be Careful. You are speaking of th e"Rhythm Method" where you avoid intercourse on the fertile days. From what I have heard, it is very tricky.....I would look into alternate birth control methods before I tried that.......especially if you are not sure you want a baby.

After deciding to stop the pill, my wife looked into alternative methods of birth control and also ended up using the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), maybe the most empowering method for women, as it makes you aware of what is exactly happening in your body during each phases of the month. It consists basically in learning how the body works and monitoring the changes in order to know for sure where you are at each particular day. No need for plants or supplements, just learning how to read the body cycle.

It calls for some discipline, in practice, every day you have to :

- take your temperature
- feel your cervix (position and texture)
- inspect cervical fluid (color, texture and quantity of mucus)
- describe vaginal sensation (wetness / dryness)
- look for secondary signs like (mid-cycle pain, spotting, breasts, etc.)
- log this data on a chart

By reading the charts she is able to know with accuracy the days when she is fertile or not. When having regular sex, we still decided to apply a "safety margin" of about two days, as we were not trying to conceive at this moment.

Once we decided to have a child, we followed the charts and knew precisely which days would result in conception. Indeed on our very first try, it worked and she got pregnant.

Here's an example of a chart :



Here are some books she used to learn the method, you can take classes too :

- The garden of fertility by Kathy Singer (for a good introduction and basics)
- And as has already been mentioned, Taking charge of your fertility by Toni Weschler (for more advanced situations)

ps. This method is not the Billings, STM, Rythm method or Natural family planning, Fertility awareness is more complete and accurate.

Alex,

Thanks for providing such a thorough description of what your wife is doing.
I know someone who also followed this method.
For seven years and with different partners, she followed this method religiously and never got pregnant, not even a scare (I believe like you she left a margin of a few days on either end), and then when she wanted to get pregnant she knew exactly what day to have sex and conceived on the first try also.

However, she tried to teach this method to some college students, who applied the methodology less rigorously, and several became pregnant shortly afterwards. One of them on tracking her ovulation concluded that she 'never' ovulates so just went for it. Needless to say, this is no method at all!

Anyways, congrats to you and your partner for having the discipline and self-respect to use this method.

As a side benefit of being so intimately in touch with mucus levels etc, my friend got more in touch with her body and was able to overcome some of her hang-ups and physical pain due to menstruation. What a great side effect!

PS is day 18 with the temperature spike where she ovulated?

Thanks Jay for providing another example of a women who sucessfuly applied this method.

Jay Muir wrote:she tried to teach this method to some college students, who applied the methodology less rigorously, and several became pregnant shortly afterwards.

Self-discipline is primordial indeed. Also a very important factor is that after taking the pill (often for several years), the transition of your body to a natural method can take months (up to a year for some women). The chemicals in the pill are so powerful that they stay in the body for a long time. In the case of my wife, I believe it took four months for the charts to "stabilize" and for the readings to be trusted completely. Maybe that is why some of these students got pregnant so fast. As a side note, another strong side-effect of this pill "detox" was recurrant acne for almost a year.

Again, this method takes dedication as there are many extra factors to monitor (sleep cycles, sickness, travels / jet lag, etc.). It's not for everybody, and I can see how some college students may not have the willpower for this. It also helps a lot if the partner is aware and committed to the method, again something that might not be very frequent in college students relationships.

On the chart I posted (an example found on the web, not my wife's), indeed the temperature rise on day 18 indicates that she had just ovulated in the last 24 hours. The temperature then stayed high until the start of the next period. A couple of days before day 18, she could also know by her cervix (fluid and shape) that ovulation was near. You can also see that the pause in lovemaking from day 13 to 20 indicates that she knew she was going to be fertile.

ps. My wife is standing next to me, I could not be as accurate by myself

If you're pro-life, be aware that the herbs you use may be an abortifacient. Abstinence does work. It's not easy,though.

I've been a single male for the past year, and hanging out with available women. I want to add that the smell of an ovulating woman is dramatic and very noticeable to me. In addition to paying attention to things like calendars, mucus, etc, smell is a very powerful diagnostic tool.

For many years I had my own copy and having worked at a huge used book store in Minneapolis, I aquired numerous additional copies

Natural Birth Control
By (name escapes me) Stephan Gaskins wife,
from the Farm in Tenneses, fame.

A combination of basal body tempature, fertility of the vaginal mucus and
the monthly cycles of a woman.

Over 25 years of lovingly sharing equally the responsibility of birth control.
I/we (4 different partners at different periods of my life),
have never ever had a pregnancy scare
nor any of my women and men friends who I have shared the books, approach with.
Thats over 200 people.

Look up the Farm on line and see if they are still selling the book new.

I am going to post some data from my book "Herbal ABC's - The Foundation Of Herbal Medicine" here. This is from a section of the book called "Antifertility & Abortifacient Agents".
Hopefpully it is readable. The formatting is lost when copying it here and I tried to locate all the reference numbers and remove them as they are confusing.

Queen Anne’s lace ‑
Daucus carota
in the Umbelliferae or Parsley family.
Part used: Seed
Taste/smell: Not much smell to the seed if fully mature.
Dosage: 1-2 teaspoons of dried seeds the day after sexual intercourse and each following day for a minimum of 5 days. (Large women take more.)
Use: (a) anti-implantation agent
The seed of this plant is used by women after sex as an anti-implantation herb.
There has been research with mice showing it does act as an anti-implantation herb. In one study the rats were given an extract of carrot seed which was administered subcutaneously from day 1 to day 7 of their pregnancy. The controls had implantation on day 8. None of the carrot seed rats had implantation. The researchers had theorized that lack of implantation is due to an imbalance of progesterone to estrogen. So, another group was given carrot seed extract as well as 2mg, 4mg or 8 mg of progesterone from days 8-15. The 2 mg progesterone mice had no implantations while the 4, mg and 8 mg progesterone mice still had implantations on day 16.
Contraindications: There is not enough evidence to know how often this works. The side effect of it not working is pregnancy.

Zoapatle -
Montanoa tomentosa & Montanoa frutescens
in the Asteraceae or Aster family
This is not a plant I have any experience with nor is it in common use in the United States. However, it has been used extensively in Mexico and I think more people should know about this plant and study it. The data below is largely from research.
Parts used: Aerial parts traditionally, roots may also be useful
Dosage: An infusion of tea is made by extracting zoapatle leaves with hot water for several hours.
Use: (a)Abortifacient, (b) Anxiolytic.
A decoction of Zoapatle has been used for centuries by Mexican woman as an abortifacient. There have been herstorical, ethnobotanical, agricultural, pharmacologic and clinical studies done on this plant.
Research  of the Montanoa spp. activity has shown a wide variation of effects on the uterus. This caused much of the research to focus upon establishing standards for optimum environmental conditions and effectiveness of different varieties, as researchers felt this was an important factor in it’s effectiveness. After some confusion around the different species it has been agreed that both Montanoa tormentosa and M. frutescens should be the primary focus of research. Additionally, it was thought that various species of animals respond differently to the plants. Other research pointed to the varied activity of the plants being due to the phase of estrous cycle or stage of pregnancy of the animal.  Then in 1987, in research with Guinea pigs, it was found that non-polar fraction isolates of the plant inhibited spontaneous contractions in an in vitro setting, while the more polar fraction isolates caused uterine stimulant activity. It is possible that different preparations of the same plant were confusing scientists initially. However the research does often say it is performed with similar extraction methods.  So, I am not sure what to make of the different research results, and simply provide you with the data here. More information  is needed to come up with conclusions.
According to past research, the variables causing alterations in responses to Zoapatle of inhibition or stimulation of uterine contractions could be due to different species of plant, different species of animal, different methods of growing Zoapatle, different methods of plant extraction,  the stage of estrous, the existence or absence of pregnancy, and the difference in  testing muscle tissue in vitro as opposed to a live pregnant female.
Here are some varied examples of research that may be of interest to you.
When administered intra-uterine in lab rats, markedly different results were obtained depending on which species was used. Montanoa frutescens produced an almost total inhibition of implantation sites, while Montanoa tomentosa prepared and administered in the same fashion, did not inhibit the number of implants at all.
When the Zoapatle was prepared from Montanoa tomentosa it did not alter the normal structural changes of the uterus by days 5 and 8 of pregnancy in the rat. On the other hand, Zoapatle made from Montanoa frutescens caused profound alterations on those structures. These changes included loss of epithelial lining, thickened blood vessels and alterations in endometrial stroma cells. This suggests an anti-implantation effect found with experimental administration of Montanoa frutescens.
In human research the tomentosa spp. appeared to induce contractions in pregnant women. In 1979,  6 women were given Montanoa tomentosa infusions orally for 2 days prior to scheduled pregnancy termination. They were 6-7 weeks pregnant. Administration of Zoapatle extracts resulted in a menstrual-like cramp and a significant dilatation of the cervix in all subjects studied. In four of the six subjects the menstrual-like pains were associated with bleeding. No comparable effects were observed in the control group.  
The effect of zoapatle tea was studied and partially characterized upon human and rabbit spermatozoa. Tea prepared from Montanoa tomentosa did not influence sperm motility or viability in a wide range of tea concentrations tested, on the other hand, tea prepared from Montanoa frutescens had immediate and constant inhibitory effect upon motility and decreased cell viability.
Constituents so far discovered in Zoapatle include Kaurenoic acid, Kauradienoic acid,  Zoapatanol and Montanol.  
Additionally Zoapatle has been used for treatment of post-partum bleeding and as an emmenagogue. There may be potential for the herb to be used for intrauterine evacuation in cases of uterine fetal death. So far, scientific studies have shown the plant to be safe.

P Thickens wrote:Hygieia: a woman's herbal  is the best I have found.

That's good to know. I just picked up a copy from a used book seller because it looked interesting and I don't see books on that subject often.

Angelika Maier wrote:I wonder why the herbs are seen as oh so unsafe while we never question the safety of pharmaceuticals.

That is not my experience. My experience is that when researching any health condition, I inevitably come across writings referring to Big Pharma as a purveyor of nothing but poison. Unfortunately, some of these writings are more agenda-based than information-based. Yes, there is sound information to be found about safe, or safer, alternatives to the products of Big Pharma. I own several herbals. But there are also screeds that would have you believe that anything other than Big Pharma must be safe, because it isn't Big Pharma. We have come to the point that we have to learn to be as discerning about alternative medicine advice as we are about mainstream medicine advice.

In some parts of the world, you can walk into a mainstream drugstore, or even supermarket, and find an array of herbal supplements, packaged up in bottles just like those of conventional over-the-counter drugs. You will usually find several competing brands of the same herb. Not to mention chains like GNC, who specialize in supplements. Is this not just as commercialized as mainstream medicine? Commercialization of healthcare carries certain inherent risks, whether it be mainstream medicine or alternative medicine.

There are plenty of horrible, nasty poisons produced naturally by plants. Since this thread has to do with reproductive health, I will use an example related to that. Hellebore is an herb sometimes used to relieve the symptoms of morning sickness. False hellebore is a poisonous plant that can cause a horrific birth defect known as cyclopia. The two plants do not look very similar, but because of the similarity of name, people have been known to take false hellebore, believing that they were taking hellebore -- with tragic consequences. The problem with the the plethora of writings on herbalism is that it can in some cases create a false sense of security, with people thinking that they can safely medicate themselves because they read an article or blog. There is a reason there are schools of herbal medicine -- doing this safely requires more knowledge than you are likely to get from Google University.

Rebecca morgan wrote:Queen anns lace seed!!! It seemed there were alot of nay sayers about practicing fertility awareness but that in conjunction with taking queen anns seed when I get nervous has worked for me for the past 2 years. If I have unprotected sex 6 days before I obvulate, during ovulation, or a few days after, or am just nervous cause my periods gone wack, I'll take a pinch of the seeds in my mouth a few hours after my "experience" and chew until I get what I perceive is a table spoon and a half of medicine juice adding more seeds to get there If I need it. I'll take it three times a day for two to six days depending on my worries. I have been super sloppy and I still havent gotten pregnant ince I got pregnnt using condoms and had to induce an herbal abortion.  A great read is "fertility awareness" I believe you can find it on Zine library.
I know that there are people who take queen anns daily kind of like "the pill" Anywho, I have only written a little about thi and so I recommend learning more about all this if you have specific questions I can do my best.

Also I have heard neem is something persons with a penis can take as a daily tonic to deaden their sperms ability to travel. I am not super familiar but if one could find good information its worth looking into.

hi rebecca, does this still work for you? do you have an email?

Hi, I have some stories to share.  The first is a horror story, re: vasectomies.  A woman I used to know married a guy who'd previously had the snip for a prior marriage, but on remarrying, he and my friend wanted to start a family.  So the guy went to have the vasectomy reversed.  The surgeons found out that, though the guy had no knowledge of this, the first operation had been botched.  They'd cut the tubes too close, and the surgeons couldn't reverse the operation.  So the couple had to go for the next method - IVF - which is way expensive and, I'm told, tough for the woman.  But to get the sperm from the guy, because of the botched vasectomy, they had to go in with a needle.

Every guy reading this is now mouthing "Ouch!" of something similar.

During one of these operations - might have been the failed vasectomy reversal? - they guy got a serious post-operative infection, yes, right there, it was apparently pretty yucky.  The guy was ex-military, and tough, so bore it well, but it sounded horrendous.  When they decided to have a second child, he said he just couldn't go through getting the needle again.  It was apparently against the rules to do this, but they found a way to give him a general anesthetic to get the second sample.  The couple now has two healthy kids.

Another anecdote:

I used to know a certain doctor.  He told me a colleague was doing vasectomies.  One day he snipped the wrong tubes.  The patient was left permanently impotent.  My doctor friend's attitude was, "Well, accidents happen."

And finally - a happy story, but a word of warning if you're trying to avoid pregnancy:

If  people go to a good natural healer for something unrelated, and they're in a relationship, we have to warn them: as you heal, detoxify, etc., you will become more fertile as an indirect consequence.  A healthy body is naturally more fertile.  Just something to be aware of.

Enrique Ramirez wrote:My wife and I have practiced natural birth control for the three years that we have been married and have had no problems (kids) yet. We took the class from the "Couple to Couple Leage" Called "The Art of Natural Family Planning". I highly recommend it.
http://www.ccli.org/

It's been a while but I am pretty sure this is what I used to avoid pregnancy for 6 years after my first two and before husband decided we could have more.

And I was VERY fertile, conceiving on one or two tries otherwise.

The key is using all three indicators - basal body temp, mucus and cervix, keeping good records and following the signs.
Adding in a barrier method would make it even more effective if choosing to press your luck.
It taught me so much about my body as well.
All it requires (after learning) is a thermometer and paper for recording.

The "rhythym method" doesn't work because it is based solely on average cycles/timing.
It will only hedge your bets, not recommended.

Nothing will guarantee success while doing extended breastfeeding as it throws the signs off, just FYI.