Anthropological and Methodical Differences of Natural Family Planning and Fertility Awareness-based Methods.

Abstract

The term natural family planning (NFP), both in the scientific terminology and in the practical language of health policy, is often referred to as natural contraception or fertility awareness-based methods (FABM). The World Health Organization's (WHO) is the directing and coordinating authority on international health within the United Nations' system. WHO family planning recommendations present FABM as one group of contraceptive methods For these obvious reasons the article mostly concentrates on the WHO definition of FAMB. The article presents the anthropological and methodological differences between NFP and FABM and, through comparative analysis, determines that NFP is synonymous with neither FABM nor any of the methods of this group but is rather a distinct group of family planning methods.