Comments on: Why we link sex and menstruation

By: Alice

Alice — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:49:29 +0000

I plan to give my daughter a copy of Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler as soon as she starts menstruating. I think the information about our bodies is a very important thing to have. Of course it doesn’t mean that sexually active teenagers (or adults) should stop using condoms. It just means they know that much more about how their own bodies work.

And FWIW, fertility awareness, like all other forms of contraception, is effective WHEN USED CORRECTLY, albeit a bit more complicated than some methods to learn to use correctly. My husband and I used it for three years to prevent, then we used it to conceive, and now we’re using it to prevent again. It’s not something I would recommend be used alone unless you are in a good position to raise a child if you slip up. But used just for information, with condoms every time, I think it’s appropriate for most people.

I don’t think more information is a bad thing in any case.

By: Ruth Rinehart

Ruth Rinehart — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:43:15 +0000

I’m with Lone Star Ma: menstruation is so totally tied to fertility, biologically, that I see it as a part of the whole discussion.

By: karenrayne

karenrayne — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:14:36 +0000

Thank you for bringing up this point, Bob, because I completely agree.

I don’t generally go into enough detail about menstrual cycles with younger groups for them to believe they can use natural family planning, nor do I explain the process of natural family planning. I also point out that it is possible for them to ovulate at any point in their cycle.

With older students (late high school, college), after I describe the female fertility cycle in detail, we do generally talk about natural family planning. I show them examples of the temperature chart that women who use natural family planning create over a month and talk about the necessary parts of using this birth control method: taking your temperature immediately upon waking up, feeling your vaginal secretions, using condoms about two weeks out of the month, and being open to the idea of having a baby. After we go into the process in great detail, they are generally very respectful of it and completely uninterested in doing it themselves.

By: Lone Star Ma

Lone Star Ma — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:18:28 +0000

I can’t imagine an age at which a girl could be menstruating when it would not be appropriate to talk about the full implications of that, fertility-wise. I mean, I realize that some girls start as young as 8 or so these days but that is still old enough to know these things. If a girl ha a functioning reproductive system, she needs to know how it works.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:01:20 +0000

“They need to understand their own fertility and their partner’s fertility - including menstruation - in order to make choices about their sexual actions that supports their pregnancy (or non-pregnancy) goals.”

I would be very careful when planting the idea in a teenager’s head that the girl’s menstrual cycle is in any way related to birth control.

I understand that, scientifically, a woman’s cycle affects her fertility, but as a practical matter this needs to be taught with one enormous asterisk: that the “timing method” is not, as a practical matter, a from of birth control. Even among women who take the time and effort to monitor their bodily functions, the real world failure rate is 20%.

Obviously you already know this, but I just wanted to give you a friendly reminder that people, and especially teens, tend to hear what they want to hear. And if they want to hear that they don’t have to go buy condoms and face the cashier, and/or they don’t have to get a pelvic, etc., that they can just use the “timing method”… that’s what they are going to hear. Any mention of this needs to be accompanied by the words “20% chance of pregnancy each year” and “zero STD protection”.

I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but just in case…