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Calendar-based methods are various methods of estimating a woman's likelihood of fertility, based on a record of the length of previous menstrual cycles. Various methods are known as the Knaus–Ogino method and the rhythm method. The standard days method is also considered a calendar-based method, because when using it, a woman tracks the days of her menstrual cycle without observing her physical fertility signs. The standard days method is based on a fixed formula taking into consideration the timing of ovulation, the functional life of the sperm and the ovum, and the resulting likelihood of pregnancy on particular days of the menstrual cycle. These methods may be used to achieve pregnancy by timing unprotected intercourse for days identified as fertile, or to avoid pregnancy by avoiding unprotected intercourse during fertile days. The first formalized calendar-based method was developed in 1930 by John Smulders, a Catholic physician from the Netherlands. It was based on knowledge of the menstrual cycle. This method was independently discovered by Hermann Knaus (Austria), and Kyusaku Ogino (Japan). This system was a main form of birth control available to Catholic couples for several decades, until the popularization of symptoms-based fertility awareness methods. A new development in calendar-based methods occurred in 2002, when Georgetown University introduced the Standard Days Method. The Standard Days Method is promoted in conjunction with a product called CycleBeads, a ring of colored beads which are meant to help the user keep track of her fertile and non-fertile days. Terminology While the terms rhythm method and fertility awareness are not synonymous, some sources do treat them as such. However, fertility awareness is usually used as a broad term that includes tracking basal body temperature and cervical mucus as well as cycle length. The World Health Organization considers the rhythm method to be a specific type of calendar-based method, and calendar-based methods to be only one form of fertility awareness. More effective than calendar-based methods, systems of fertility awareness that track basal body temperature, cervical mucus, or both, are known as symptoms-based methods. Teachers of symptoms-based methods take care to distance their systems from the poor reputation of the rhythm method. Many consider the rhythm method to have been obsolete for at least 20 years, and some even exclude calendar-based methods from their definition of fertility awareness. Some sources may treat the terms rhythm method and natural family planning as synonymous. In the early 20th century, the calendar-based method known as the rhythm method was promoted by members of the Roman Catholic Church as the only morally acceptable form of family planning. Methods accepted by this church are referred to as natural family planning (NFP): so at one time, the term "the rhythm method" was synonymous with NFP. Today, NFP is an umbrella term that includes symptoms-based fertility awareness methods and the lactational amenorrhea method as well as calendar-based methods such as rhythm. This overlap between uses of the terms "the rhythm method" and "natural family planning" may contribute to confusion. The first day of bleeding is considered day one of the menstrual cycle. History Early methods It is not known if historical cultures were aware of what part of the menstrual cycle is most fertile. In the year 388, Augustine of Hippo wrote of periodic abstinence. Addressing followers of Manichaeism, his former religion, he said, "Is it not you who used to counsel us to observe as much as possible the time when a woman, after her purification, is most likely to conceive, and to abstain from cohabitation at that time...?" If the Manichaieans practiced something like the Jewish observances of menstruation, then the "time... after her purification" would have indeed been when "a woman... is most likely to conceive." Over a century previously, however, the influential Greek physician Soranus had written that "the time directly before and after menstruation" was the most fertile part of a woman's cycle; this inaccuracy was repeated in the 6th century by the Byzantine physician Aëtius. Similarly, a Chinese sex manual written close to the year 600 stated that only the first five days following menstruation were fertile. Some historians believe that Augustine, too, incorrectly identified the days immediately after menstruation as the time of highest fertility. Written references to a "safe period" do not appear again for over a thousand years. Scientific advances prompted a number of secular thinkers to advocate periodic abstinence to avoid pregnancy: in the 1840s it was discovered that many animals ovulate during estrus. Because some animals (such as dogs) have a bloody discharge during estrus, it was assumed that menstruation was the corresponding most fertile time for women. This inaccurate theory was popularized by physicians Bischoff, Félix Archimède Pouchet, and Adam Raciborski. In 1854, an English physician named George Drysdale correctly taught his patients that the days near menstruation are the least fertile, but this remained the minority view for the remainder of the 19th century. Knaus–Ogino or rhythm method In 1905 Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde, a Dutch gynecologist, showed that women only ovulate once per menstrual cycle. In the 1920s, Kyusaku Ogino, a Japanese gynecologist, and Hermann Knaus, from Austria, working independently, each made the discovery that ovulation occurs about fourteen days before the next menstrual period. Ogino used his discovery to develop a formula for use in aiding infertile women to time intercourse to achieve pregnancy. In 1930, Johannes Smulders, a Roman Catholic physician from the Netherlands, used Knaus and Ogino's discoveries to create a method for avoiding pregnancy. Smulders published his work with the Dutch Roman Catholic medical association, and this was the official rhythm method promoted over the next several decades. In 1932 a Catholic physician, Dr. Leo J Latz, published a book titled The Rhythm of Sterility and Fertility in Women describing the method, and the 1930s also saw the first U.S. Rhythm Clinic (founded by John Rock) to teach the method to Catholic couples. Later 20th century to present In the first half of the 20th century, most users of the rhythm method were Catholic; they were following their church's teaching that all other methods of birth control were sinful. In 1968 the encyclical Humanae vitae included the statement, "It is supremely desirable... that medical science should by the study of natural rhythms succeed in determining a sufficiently secure basis for the chaste limitation of offspring." This is interpreted as favoring the then-new, more reliable symptoms-based fertility awareness methods over the rhythm method. Currently, many fertility awareness teachers consider the rhythm method to have been obsolete for .... Discover the Fertilityfriend Com popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Fertilityfriend Com books.