Talk:Calendar-based contraceptive methods

message: Let's all work on reaching a consensus for a new infobox to be placed on each individual birth control method's article.  I've created one to start with on the Wikipedia Proposed Infoboxes page, so go check it out and get involved in the process. MamaGeek (Talk/Contrib) 12:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed Infobox for individual birth control method articles 

message: *What is the rational for putting the discussion of failure rates ahead of the description of the methods?  That is not the case in any of the other birth control articles, and is awkward to read.
*Why are environmental factors duplicated?  They are now listed both in the "high failure rate" section and in the "perfect and imperfect use" sections. Lyrl    Talk     Contribs   13:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits of 28 September 

message: According to the National Survey of Family Growth, 0.7% of Americans are using the Rhythm Method, while 0.2% are using fertility awareness (see Table 4 in Use of Contraception and Use of Family Planning Services in the United States: 1982-2002. Advance Data No. 350).  So over three times as many people use Rhythm as FA.  I understand that FA teachers consider Rhythm obsolete, but that doesn't mean that it is, see?  The huge number of people that use it (approximately 2 million Americans, according to the NSFG estimate) testifies otherwise.
Also consider than the Standard Days Method is very recent - the journal references in this description (pdf) are from 1999-2003.  It was obviously developed for use in modern times.  Advantages include very low skills required of users (no math, as in the original Rhythm), very fast teaching time (no need to describe cervical mucus), and easier compliance (defined fertile/infertile days vs. trying to interpret a chart).  In developing countries, the cost savings and increased outreach can justify teaching such a method with slightly higher failure rates.  Again, I do not think this type of method is obsolete. Lyrl    Talk     Contribs   23:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obsolescense? 

message: This statement inserted into the most recent edit ("FA and NFP... are more accurate than Rhythm") confused me.  I thought Rhythm was a type of NFP?  I'm fairly sure most or all of the 2 million Americans who use Rhythm are under the impression they are practicing NFP. Lyrl    Talk     Contribs   02:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NFP always more effective than Rhythm? 

message: These two sections are currently duplicating some information (Rhythm thrown off by cycle irregularities, etc.).  Any suggestions for avoiding this duplication? Lyrl    Talk     Contribs   02:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Comparison to FA" vs. "Reasons for high failure rate" 

message: Note discussion at Talk:Birth control#"pregnancy rate" rather than "failure rate" re replacing occurrences of "failure rate" with "pregnancy rate".  I would also like to see the same change on this page.  Please make any comments there.  --Coppertwig 04:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Notice how other methods of birth control (such as condoms) have "pregnancy rate" rather than "failure rate." Coincidence? Wikipedia: a biased joke.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.164.44.66 (talk) 15:08, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "pregnancy rate" rather than "failure rate"  

message: According to Wikipedia policy at Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles the two items of trivia under "Popular culture references" should be worked in to the article if pertinent (which I would say they are not) or deleted (which I think it should). Darentig 19:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They're both fact-tagged anyway and can be deleted on those grounds. Lyrl    Talk     C   01:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing or incorporating trivia 

message: Dear Lyrl, referring to your last edit "rv addition of unsourced material - no studies linked to on Perimon's webpage, either, just unsourced claims)". Perimon is an enhancements of the rhythm method. Since it is acts much more cautious and designates only up to 10.5 days as infertile, it is quite obvious that it has to be safer than the standard days method. Anyhow I have no idea why you do not want to have a reference to Perimon on the rhythm method page. As long as no clinical studies exist we do not mention it? Best regards, corcov
:I had misunderstood that Perimon only allowed a maximum of 10.5 fertile days.  I was suspicious of such a low number.  My apologies.  I have added some information on Perimon back into the article. Lyrl    Talk     C   15:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Perimon

message: An edit was recently made to the external links section adding a Babymed fertility calculator, which I reverted.  Now, a Google search for the phrase "fertility calculator" gives 127,000 hits.  Wikipedia is not a repository of links, and considering the huge number of fertility calculators out there, including links to them would make this article such a "repository".
At present, we have two links to sites that offer fertility calculation: CycleBeads (external links), and Perimon (references section).  These are unique in that they are the only sites I am aware of that promote their product for avoiding pregnancy.  I would also be open to including a small number of other sites if it were argued they had some unique characteristic, that did not put this article in danger of gaining thousands of sites in the external links section.  Does this sound reasonable to others? Lyrl    Talk     C   02:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems fair enough. I am also of the conviction that we should keep EL to a minimum. A list of links to specific fertility calculators is a lot less encyclopedic than (if it exists) an indepth article about fertility caluclators in general.-Andrew c 17:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

text: After my addition was removed by Andrew c according to above discussion, I re-arranged the "Web-based Period Calculators" to contain no external links at all, but instead a link to DMOZ where some of such tools can be found. This is according to the Wikipedia Guidelines and I hope it is the right thing to do. My intention was never to spam here but to increase the article's quality, objectivity and usefulness. - Flo Ledermann  —Preceding undated comment added 10:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fertility calculators 

message: The recent additions to the history section were very interesting and useful.
However, I'm not sure about that section's current denial that there was question about the "official" approval of the Rhythm Method by the Vatican.  The existence of such questioners is supported by Marilyn Yalom's book, and also by the cmri link:
:...all these considerations convinced the great majority of theologians that Pius XI was here referring to the permissible use of the sterile periods as a means of avoiding conception. Pius XII, we may mention here, explicitly confirmed this view in 1958 (Address to Hematologists, 12 Sept. 1958, A.A.S., 50 [1958] 736), thus dispelling what little doubt had existed on this point.”
It seems there were some theologians - a large enough minority to be noted - that opposed this interpretation, until the speeches by Pius XI.  I'd like to add that back into the history section, however making clear it was a minority view. Lyrl    Talk     C   01:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Lyrl, I have no problem with it being noted as a minority view.  However, that is definitely what it was.  McHugh, OP and Callan, OP in their book "Moral Theology" state concerning the Allocution that: "Pope Pius [XII] explicitly confirmed the common teaching of theologians." (Vol II, Section 2622).  Its not difficult to find other quotes stating the same thing, such as the works of Fathers Kelly, SJ and Ford, SJ. abyler    Talk     C   18:47, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Catholic Church holds that it has never changed its position on any moral issue.  So any Catholic theologian who said otherwise would not be considered an observant Catholic, and this introduces some bias.  I believe these theologians have to stretch the historical record and take advantage of gaps in "official" teachings to maintain this position.  Which is my own bias.  However, I hope my most recent edits are reasonable, neutral presentation of the history. Lyrl    Talk     C   02:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Official" approval by the Catholic Church 

message: A recent edit changed "Early Catholic doctrine considered..." to "Catholic doctrine considers..." as the start of the sentence "...complete sexual abstinence to be the most holy state for humans, with marriage being a holy state for those without the fortitude required by an abstinent life."  Citations were added to Paul's letter to the Corinthians (first century), a Catholic document from 406 with commentary that the practices described in the document "prevailed almost unchecked till the sixteenth century", implying that they fell out of favor after the sixteenth century, and to the Council of Trent: "it is... better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony"  This is the most recent of the cites, as the council ended in 1563.
However, Casti Connubii (1930) and John Paul II's 1980s Theology of the Body (see for example ) pretty clearly state that marriage is equal to celibacy as far as holiness goes.  I am unaware of modern Catholic theologians considering marriage as a lesser state than celibacy, and so would like to change the sentence back to "Early Catholic doctrine".  Am I mistaken in this? Lyrl    Talk     C   00:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Catholic view re celibacy vs. marriage 

message: This edit placed a fact tag on the statement "For over 100 years, the Rhythm Method was promoted by members of the Catholic Church as the only morally acceptable form of family planning."  This statement is well-sourced in the history section - the early Church's condemnation of all contraceptive methods, the 1853 ruling that Rhythm was moral, up to the mid-twentieth century development of observational fertility awareness methods.  My question is, should all of these sources be added to the end of the tagged statement?  It seems a bit overkill when the sources are already in place with explanation in the most relevant discussion.
Or, is the editor asking that the statement be reworded?  If so, how? Or maybe the history section should be moved to the top of the article, as in birth control and combined oral contraceptive pill? Lyrl    Talk     C   22:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fact tag on "over 100 years" statement. 

message: I had added a section discussing use of calendar rules in combination with mucus and/or temperature observation.  It was reverted with the explanation, "there are separate articles for these methods".  I'm not sure what is meant by that - Creighton Model FertilityCare System and the Billings ovulation method do not use calendar rules.  The basal body temperature article does already say, "BBT methods often use a rule similar to that of the Calendar Method to determine the beginning of the pre-ovulatory fertile phase," but that does not include a discussion of or comparison to calendar rule use in symptothermal methods.  That leaves (if I am counting correctly) only the fertility awareness article, which currently only discusses observation of temperature and mucus, leaving day-counting methods to this article (which is why I thought it appropriate to talk about combinations of day-counting and mucus/temperature here).  Would the information I added on combining day-counting with mucus and/or temperature records be more appropriate for the fertility awareness article?  Or some other article? Lyrl    Talk     C   01:34, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Place to discuss usage of calendar rules 

message: This article has been moved to :Category:Fertility tracking as part of a planned deletion of :Category:Periodic abstinence, :Category:Fertility awareness, and :Category:Natural family planning.  Please bring up any concerns at Category talk:Periodic abstinence.  If there are no objections within four days, these three categories will be tagged for speedy deletion. Lyrl    Talk     C   22:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Category move

message: I'd like to suggest the wording "can be used to facilitate pregnancy achievement", as the current version can easily be confused as a snark about the effectiveness of the method (the fact that there were already such snarks in the article probably assisted my reading it that way). I understand my first rewording was seen as too long, but perhaps we can find a compromise by simply adding the three words "can be used" to what is there now. Neitherday 17:19, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The knowledge that ovulation occurred only once per menstrual cycle, about fourteen days before menstruation, was first obtained by Knaus and Ogino.  Does that help? LyrlTalk     C   00:02, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

text: It's discovering knowledge about the menstrual cycle.  Not the knowledge that it exists: the knowledge about when ovulation occurs relative to menstruation.  I'm hesitant to change the sentence to, "It was based on the knowledge that ovulation occurs only once per menstrual cycle, about fourteen days before menstruation, which was independently discovered by Hermann Knaus (Germany), and Kyusaku Ogino (Japan)" because thirty-one word sentences are generally hard for readers to follow.  If you have an idea of how to break that down into a few smoother-flowing sentences, please go ahead. LyrlTalk     C   11:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Wording Change

message: This statement: "Fertility awareness (FA) methods are distinct from calendar-based methods" contradicts this statement: "The World Health Organization uses the term "fertility awareness" to include calendar-based methods".  They should not both be in this article.  The second one is sourced, and worded in a way that maintains NPOV (attributing usage to WHO vs. presenting a statement as uncontroverted fact).
The sentence about biological signs is unsourced, and also untrue (basal body temperature can be used to indicate post-ovulatory infertility, but never indicates current fertility; also, calendar-based methods detect menstruation, which is a biological sign of fertility).  The sentence about mistaking calendar-based methods for FA methods assumes calendar-based methods are not FA methods, which is a POV contradicted by the WHO.
An important subtlety is that the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) is a specific symptothermal method, not a general reference to systems of fertility awareness.  This means the Billings Method is not FAM, the Couple to Couple League's symptothermal method is not FAM, and the Two Day Method is not FAM.  All of those methods are, however, fertility awareness.  This means the following statement is unsourced: "teachers of FA typically exclude the less-effective calendar-based methods from the meaning of "fertility awareness"".  The source supports the statement "calendar-based methods are not FAM", but says nothing about calendar-based methods being or not being fertility awareness.
The quote from the Ovusoft site (it's not clear if that's a quotation from Toni Weschler) was presented in a way the violated WP:UNDUE: a statement was made that these methods are ineffective, with no context such as the increasing success of the Standard Days Method in filling gaps in family planning services, or that SDM is just as effective as the female condom, and even the older Knaus-Ogino method is more effective than the cervical cap.  This discussion belongs in the body of the article, not the introduction.  Per WP:LEAD#Length, an article of this size should only have one or two paragraphs in the introduction. LyrlTalk     C   00:59, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trimming of introduction 

message: Template: has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — LyrlTalk     C   03:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of [[:Template:{{ucfirst:Fertility awareness}}]] 

message: A recent edit removed the sourced statement "Some sources may treat the terms rhythm method and fertility awareness as synonymous." This statement was there to explain why a discussion of fertility awareness is placed in the middle of an article on calendar-based methods.  With the statement removed, the first few sentences in the terminology section seem out of context.
The same edit also moved two sentences from the second paragraph into the first paragraph, leaving the second paragraph at only one sentence long.  Single sentence paragraphs are discouraged by the manual of style.  Because no explanation was given for these edits, and they seem to interfere with the readability of the section, I have reverted them for now. LyrlTalk     C   12:13, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits to terminology section 

message: Recent edits have implied that the Standard Days Method identifies more days as potentially fertile than the other methods described in this article, the Knaus-Ogino method and Perimon.  I believe the user making these edits is mistaken.
The Knaus-Ogino method identifies a different number of fertile days for each woman, based on her cycle history.  For a women with absolutely regular cycles (an extreme rarity), it would identify eight fertile days.  For a woman whose cycle lengths varied by one day, it would identify nine fertile days.  For a women whose cycle lengths varied by four days (most women experience at least this much variation), the Knaus-Ogino method would identify twelve fertile days.
Perimon identifies a maximum of ten days as infertile.  For a woman with an average 28-day cycle, at least 18 days would be identified as potentially fertile.
The Standard Days Method allows up to six days of cycle variation and identifies 11 days as potentially fertile.  For the typical women who experiences mild cycle variation, the SDM is actually the least restrictive of the calendar-based methods. LyrlTalk     C   01:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relative number of fertile days 

message: I will once again remove the external links. I cite from WP:external links
What should be linked1. Wikipedia articles about any organization, person, website, or other entity should link to the subject's official site, if any. See Official links below.2. An article about a book, a musical score, or some other media should link to a site hosting a copy of the work, if none of the "Links normally to be avoided" criteria applies.3. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons.
The links in question are neither 1, 2, or 3.
Links normally to be avoided1. Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article.4. Links mainly intended to promote a website. See external link spamming.
Both these points are valid for these two links. 
Please, if you put the links back in, give your arguments here on the talk page! Lova Falk talk 13:08, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: Although this article claims to be about contraception by the rhythm method, it also deals with the opposite, i.e. trying to conceive by timing intercourse. While I'm not suggesting there should be separate articles, I think possibly the title could be slightly broader, I just can't think of a title that isn't really clunky.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.6.96.22 (talk) 23:59, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading title? 

message: The link to strawberrypal has been removed. It may seem stupid, but people that visit this page should have some links to software they can use for this (on their smartphones, ...). I don't want to promote strawberrypal specificly (others can be added too); it's just that I only know of that one software/company. If you know of others, feel free to include them, and then reinclude the links to the article.
KVDP (talk) 08:37, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Example of software-based systems

message: "The Standard Days method (SDM) is increasingly being introduced as part of family planning programs in developing countries. The method is satisfactory for many women and men; offering it through family planning centers results in a significant increase in contraceptive use among couples who do not want to become pregnant"
Suggest deleting "offering it through family planning centres results in a significant increase in contraceptive use amongn couples who do not want to become pregnant" - this is ambiguous. Either it means that providing the method increases its uptake (which seems pointless to say), or it means that overall levels of contraceptive uptake increase, which is a controversial claim and is not supported with a citation. 
The first sentence does not have a source citation either, although it is probably true - not sure if this should be deleted until someone finds a source? --Hillv (talk) 13:34, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improving accuracy of SDM section 

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080512001456/http://www.contraception.net/resource_centre/rhythm_method.asp to http://www.contraception.net/resource_centre/rhythm_method.asp
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Please consider incorporating material from the above draft submission into this article. Drafts are eligible for deletion after 6 months of inactivity. ~Kvng (talk) 23:57, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Draft:Fertility Tracker Method]]

message: There quite a few references to "Kippley" in the article. Does this refer to ? ~Kvng (talk) 22:15, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kippley