National Association of Ovulation Method Instructors

Information on the Billings Ovulation Method

• The Billings Ovulation Method of Natural Family Planning gives a woman important self-knowledge by teaching her to recognise her cycle of fertility, the fertile and infertile times throughout her life.
• It may be used as a method of natural family planning to achieve, postpone or avoid a pregnancy.
• Over 50 years of research by Doctors John and Evelyn Billings and their colleagues has shown that cells in the cervix are sensitive to changing levels of the hormones oestrogen and progesterone.
• When oestrogen is at a low basic level during the infertile phases of the menstrual cycle, the cervix is blocked by a mucus plug preventing passage of sperm. Pregnancy cannot occur.
• Oestrogen levels rise as an egg follicle matures. The cells of the cervix produce more fluid secretions which allow sperm to swim through to the fallopian tubes. Pregnancy may occur.
• These secretions produce signs outside the body which are easily monitored and so enable a woman to assess her fertility on a daily basis.

The website of the World Organisation of the Ovulation Method Billings (www.woomb.org) provides more detailed information on the method in 16 languages. Learning material may also be downloaded from this site.

History of NAOMI.

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