The Archdiocese of New Orleans offers hope for women of all ages (single or married) & couples with many options to learn about their fertility & God’s design…options that allow them to work with their bodies to understand their fertility, pinpoint problems, avoid a pregnancy, or achieve a pregnancy without introducing something outside God’s design… Natural Family Planning (NFP).
Natural Family Planning — 4 Methods Taught in the Archdiocese
1. Northwest Family Services — SymptoPro Fertility Education
The woman monitors her cervical mucus changes, her waking or resting temperature, & her cervix. The couple then interprets the signs on a chart to identify their days of fertility or infertility. This method helps a couple to either avoid or achieve a pregnancy.
Visit the Northwest Family Services website.
Learning the Northwest Family Services — Sympto-Pro Method:
Each class series consists of 3 classes lasting two to three hours classes that meet over the course of two months with a personalized follow-up appointment for those who are charting one month after the class series ends. Currently, there are teachers on the Northshore & Southshore, 1 of whom speaks Spanish.
To schedule classes call Office of Marriage & Family Life of the Archdiocese at 504-861-6243
2. Creighton Model FertilityCare System
The woman or couple learns the very specific coding system & charting of biological markers related to the woman’s cervical mucus that identify when she is fertile or infertile. These biological markers also identify abnormalities in a woman’s health.
This method includes NaProTECHNOLOGY for when health abnormalities are identified in order to restore a woman’s health & fertility, working cooperatively with her cycle. The method aids a woman in monitoring her health, & it aids a couple in either avoiding or achieving a pregnancy. NaProTECHNOLOGY provides real solutions to real problems such as infertility, recurrent miscarriage, painful periods, and other reproductive health issues.
Visit the Creighton Model FertilityCare website.
Learning the Creighton Model FertilityCare System:
Classes consist of an introductory group session with 8 individualized follow ups for the woman or couple in the first year…5 in the first 3 months & 3 over the course of 9 months, with more available as needed on an individualized basis. The Creighton Model System further offers those struggling with infertility or other issues such as irregular cycles the ability to see a local medical consultant. These physicians have NFP only practices that are faithful to Church teaching.
To schedule classes & for NaProTECHNOLOGY medical consultant call:
Woman’s New Life Clinic
4612 S. Claiborne Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70125
504.496.0214
Additional services include infertility treatment, NaProTECHNOLOGY medical consultations, well woman visits, adolescent gynecology
Medical consultant — Susan P. Caldwell, M.D.
The St. Anne FertilityCare Center
Classes held at the Archdiocese of New Orleans' Northshore Catholic Center
4465 Highway 190 East Service Road
Covington, LA 70433
"Like" the St. Anne FertilityCare Center on Facebook
3. Couple to Couple League — The Sympto-Thermal Method
The couple cross-checks daily 3 signs of fertility (cervical mucus, waking temperature, cervix changes). These cross-checked signs determine which phase of her cycle the woman is in. The phase determines whether she is fertile or infertile. Aids in both avoiding a pregnancy & achieving a pregnancy.
Visit the Couple to Couple League's website.
Learning the Couple to Couple League — Sympto-Thermal Method:
The 3 classes last approximately 2 hours & are spaced one month apart; also available in an online format. Currently, there are teachers on the Southshore only.
To schedule classes, visit their website.
4. Family of the Americas - Ovulation Method
The Ovulation Method is a method of natural family planning based on tracking the cervical secretion that appears regularly during a woman’s reproductive years and is a natural sign of fertility. The Family of the Americas model of the Ovulation Method includes a simple charting system that makes tracking the cycle accessible to any woman—with regular and irregular cycles—throughout all stages of her reproductive life, including breastfeeding and pre-menopausal. The method can also help couples achieve pregnancy.
Visit the Family of the Americas website.
Learning the Family of the Americas method:
Instruction includes an introductory slide presentation and individual follow-up appointments until autonomy is attained. Materials include the instruction book, Love & Fertility by Mercedes Wilson, and the chart and accompanying stickers.
Mother of Christ, you were graced by God with the privilege of bearing our Divine Savior. You experienced the joys and challenges of being a parent. Your life was blessed with seeing Jesus grow from infancy and childhood, into his adult years of teaching a ministry. With St. Joseph, you created a home for your family to love and share together. Please intercede before the God of all life, that those struggling with infertility may conceive a baby and raise healthy children, with whom they can share the Lord’s good gifts. May their children honor them and You by lives of virtue and caring for others. May their home be holy and their family be blessed with health, happiness and abiding love. And for those for whom conceiving a child is not possible may their love for each other be fruitful. Help them not to become bitter when they encounter others who devalue life. May those who cannot give birth to a child see other ways in which they can give life to others. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (sources: Nine Day Prayer to St. Gerard & Catholic Prayers)
“A medical intervention respects the dignity of persons when it seeks to assist the conjugal act either in order to facilitate its performance or in order to enable it to achieve its objective once it has been normally performed"(56). On the other hand, it sometimes happens that a medical procedure technologically replaces the conjugal act in order to obtain a procreation which is neither its result nor its fruit. In this case the medical act is not, as it should be, at the service of conjugal union but rather appropriates to itself the procreative function and thus contradicts the dignity and the inalienable rights of the spouses and of the child to be born.
The suffering of spouses who cannot have children or who are afraid of bringing a handicapped child into the world is a suffering that everyone must understand and properly evaluate. On the part of the spouses, the desire for a child is natural: it expresses the vocation to fatherhood and motherhood inscribed in conjugal love. This desire can be even stronger if the couple is affected by sterility which appears incurable. Nevertheless, marriage does not confer upon the spouses the right to have a child, but only the right to perform those natural acts which are per se ordered to procreation.”
“In light of this principle, all techniques of heterologous artificial fertilization, as well as those techniques of homologous artificial fertilization which substitute for the conjugal act, are to be excluded. On the other hand, techniques which act as an aid to the conjugal act and its fertility are permitted…
Cryopreservation is incompatible with the respect owed to human embryos; it presupposes their production in vitro; it exposes them to the serious risk of death or physical harm, since a high percentage does not survive the process of freezing and thawing; it deprives them at least temporarily of maternal reception and gestation; it places them in a situation in which they are susceptible to further offense and manipulation.
The majority of embryos that are not used remain “orphans”. Their parents do not ask for them and at times all trace of the parents is lost. This is why there are thousands upon thousands of frozen embryos in almost all countries where in vitro fertilization takes place.