Study shows FAM to be as effective as the pill

In January, I published a piece in Wired News about the fact that women are increasingly using online tools to monitor their basic fertility signs -- whether to get pregnant or to avoid pregnancy. So I was fascinated (and relieved) to to read that the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), as it's called, has been shown to be as effective as using the pill. From an article in MedPage Today:

A natural family-planning method based on fertility self-monitoring may be as effective as hormonal contraception but only when used correctly, researchers said.

The natural method produced an unintended pregnancy rate of 0.43% per year for couples who abstained from sex during fertile times, reported Petra Frank-Herrmann, M.D., of the University of Heidelberg, and colleagues, online in Human Reproduction.

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On an unrelated note, for those who missed my recent She's Such a Geek reading in January, purple-haired girl geek wonder Liz Henry blogged the entire event live. You can read her blow-by-blow here.