STUDY SHOWS NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING BESTS IUD IN REGULATING BIRTH

SHANGHAI, China, Jan 29, 2001 (LSN.ca) - A Chinese trial has demonstrated the effectiveness of the Billings Ovulation Method (BOM) - a method of natural fertility regulation which can be used to achieve or avoid pregnancy. The study compared the effectiveness of the Intra-Uterine Device against that of the BOM in avoiding pregnancy. The trial involved 1,654 women aged 24-35, with 992 using BOM and 662 using IUDs. Results showed that in the BOM group five women became pregnant due to faulty application of the method, the pregnancy rate being 0.5%, while in the IUD group there were 12 pregnancies (2%).

Moreover, in the IUD group, there were 15 expulsions and 38 removals due to severe pain/bleeding caused by the IUD, whereas no such complications exist with the BOM.

Professor S. Z Qian, a Professor of Pharmacology at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Journal of Andrology, presented the study in a paper at a Congress organized by the Catholic Sacred Heart University in Rome. The teaching of the Catholic Church is that BOM is not to be used to avoid becoming pregnant except in grave circumstances. It is however encouraged as a method for achieving pregnancy that is far superior to the use of drugs and especially illicit means of fertility promotion such as in vitro fertilization.

See the study at:  http://www.woomb.org/omrrca/bulletin/vol27/no4/chinaEvaluation.html