WHAT HAVE WE BEEN MISSING?

• Observable alterations in bio markers may identify underlying health problems early on, thus leading to prompt diagnosis and treatment.
• No artificial products introduced into the body, allowing the female reproductive system to function as interconnectedly as designed, protecting heart, bone and immune health
• Improves libido as natural hormones fluctuate monthly as designed. https://naturalwomanhood.org/learn/charting/
• What happens to your brain, body and mood when using hormonal contraception https://magazine.tcu.edu/fall-2020/hormonal-birth-control-brain/

There is shared responsibility for family planning decision making. Communication improves leading to a deepening of relationships and increased mutual respect. More frequent and rewarding marital relations than couples using contraceptive methods (https://naturalwomanhood.org/learn/charting/).

Conscious decision of couple to practice chastity with marriage through periodic abstinence. Self-mastery of this area of marriage influences other areas of marriage: finances, child raising, extended family relationships. Marriage as whole is now ordered as God designed and couples are free to experience marital union empowered by the knowledge of where they are with their couple fertility. Children will be blessed living in a household where the parents have worked to improve their intimacy in a rightly ordered way resulting in closeness that spills over to the whole family (Olmsted, 2018, number 56).

Periodic abstinence requires couples to develop nurturing behaviors in a non-arousal way. Couples regain appreciation for what they must postpone, if they desire to avoid pregnancy, month after month, year after year. This periodic waiting time increases desire within the couple, such that when the infertile phase arrives, couples are eager to engage in marital union, hence keeping the “spark” alive.

The marital union has a two-fold purpose: unitive and procreative, or “babies or bonding.”

https://www.usccb.org/resources/Spirituality%20of%20NFP%20article%20Happiness%20NFP%20Marriage.pdf