Billings, J. J. (1993). Natural family planning. Natural methods have cross cultural appeal. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 307(6915), 1357. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.307.6915.1357-b
Billings JJ. Natural family planning. Natural methods have cross cultural appeal. BMJ. 1993;307(6915):1357. doi:10.1136/bmj.307.6915.1357-b
Billings, J. J. "Natural family planning. Natural methods have cross cultural appeal." BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), vol. 307, no. 6915, 1993, pp. 1357.
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RRM Academy Synopsis
Billings ovulation method gained acceptance across cultures
Couples of many cultures and religions, including very poor couples who cannot read, accepted and used the Billings ovulation method, a 1993 BMJ letter from its author, J J Billings, reports. He and his wife taught the method in more than 100 countries.
Key Findings
Couples of differing cultures and religions took up the method, and the poorest illiterate couples understood it and used it successfully.
Across roughly 20 years, the author and his wife spent an average of four months a year building Billings ovulation method teaching programs in more than 100 countries.
The author says the method fits every stage of a woman's reproductive life, including the various pathological conditions that arise.
Marital harmony, fidelity and monogamous relationships among sexually active people were the social gains the author attributes to the method.
In the author's view, any method's rules should be read as written, condoms and the contraceptive pill included, and the label "unforgiving" reveals no new weakness.
Interpretation
The piece is a short letter to the editor, written in reply to R E J Ryder's 1993 BMJ review of natural family planning and the critical letters that followed. The findings are field observations from the teaching work of the author and his wife. Its readers are clinicians debating whether natural methods suit poor and low-literacy settings, and the author answers with what he saw among couples taught the method.
RRM Context
The Billings ovulation method is a fertility awareness-based method. Couples learn to identify the fertile days of the cycle, and that knowledge serves both goals, conceiving and avoiding pregnancy. RRM relies on cycle charting because the data come from the woman's own body.
Our editorial summary of this paper, not the article's abstract.
