Chapter 2: What is NaProTECHNOLOGY?

This chapter defines NaProTECHNOLOGY (Natural Procreative Technology) as a new women's health science whose main principle is the ability to work cooperatively with a woman's menstrual and fertility cycles, using the CREIGHTON MODEL FertilityCare System to monitor those cycles in a prospective and standardized way. Hilgers lists its applications as family planning, the evaluation and treatment of infertility and other reproductive disorders, abnormal bleeding, abnormal hormone conditions including premenstrual syndrome and recurrent ovarian cysts, the dating of the beginning of a pregnancy, and postpartum depression. The chapter sets out a series of paradigm shifts, including selective versus spontaneous intercourse, prospective versus retrospective data collection, and getting to underlying causes in place of what Hilgers calls Band-Aid approaches. Hilgers states that NaProTECHNOLOGY focuses on the underlying pathophysiologic event to allow a rational approach to treatment, while noting that not all causes or abnormal events can be determined.