Chapter 49: Family Physician's Approach

Hilgers TW; Boyle PC

Restorative Reproductive Medicine · NaProTechnology

Chapter 49: Family Physician's Approach

Hilgers TW, Boyle PC

The Medical and Surgical Practice of NaProTECHNOLOGY, 653-666, 2004

RRM Academy Synopsis

Family physicians guide couples through NaProTECHNOLOGY with charting

A textbook chapter describes how a family physician guides couples through NaProTECHNOLOGY care with the Creighton Model FertilityCare System chart. The program can last 18 to 24 months and combines longer visits, evaluation of both partners, diagnosis of the cause, and treatment aimed at it.

Key Findings

Consultations average 40 to 45 minutes, with the husband and wife attending together and follow-up reviews every three to four months.
The husband records the most fertile sign each day on the Creighton Model FertilityCare System chart, taught by a FertilityCare Practitioner, which involves him in treating the couple's shared fertility.
The man's evaluation centers on a semen analysis unless a recent normal result exists, and the woman's can include the chart, timed hormone tests, ultrasound, and follicle tracking.
Diagnoses fall into two main categories, functional reproductive abnormalities and structural problems, and treatment targets each abnormality found, with surgical evaluation usually after about six effective cycles.
Treatment is counted in effective cycles, and the chapter proposes continuing until about 12 effective cycles are completed in a program that can last 18 to 24 months.

RRM Context

Restorative reproductive medicine seeks the cause of infertility and treats it by working with the body's own cycle. Evaluation in primary care brings that principle to couples early, before a referral to other specialists. NaProTECHNOLOGY is one restorative method, and the chapter shows a family doctor using the couple's daily chart to guide testing and treatment. The approach gives men a clear role and treats infertility as a shared problem, with each step explained so that the couple can decide together at every stage.

Our editorial summary of this paper, not the article's abstract.

Abstract

This chapter describes how a family physician manages couples trying to conceive with NaProTECHNOLOGY (NPT), from the initial consultation and history through teaching, physical examination and follow-up reviews every three to four months. The authors set out a sequence of CREIGHTON MODEL FertilityCare System charting, timed hormone blood tests, ultrasound and, where indicated, surgical evaluation, aiming at 12 effective cycles within a program that can last 18 to 24 months. The husband takes part as an active participant who records the observed markers on the chart, and the chapter covers male evaluation with seminal fluid collected during intercourse. Results cited from an Irish NPT practice that treated 1239 couples between Feb. 1998 and Jan. 2002 show an overall live birth rate of 25.2 percent, rising to 44.7 percent for those who successfully completed the program.

Topics

Restorative Reproductive Medicine › NaProTechnology › Protocols and Framework · Clinician Education and Training › Practice Adoption › Implementation in Practice · Menstrual Cycle › Cycle Disorders › Ovulatory Disturbances

Phil C Boyle, Thomas W Hilgers

Philip Boyle, Phillip Boyle, P Boyle, Tom Hilgers, T Hilgers

Hilgers et al. 2004, Hilgers 2004

Chapter 49: Family Physician's Approach

Family physicians guide couples through NaProTECHNOLOGY with charting

Key Findings

RRM Context

Abstract

Topics

By this author

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