12. Not Your Grandma's Rhythm Method: A Conversation With Marquette Method Instructor Louise Boychuk, BScN RN

Did you that there are non-hormonal, peer-reviewed, evidence-based, ways to prevent (and achieve) pregnancy that are all about helping women know their bodies better, can also help to achieve pregnancy, and recognized by the CDC? In episode 12, I’m talking with Louise Boychuk, a registered nurse and instructor of the Marquette method of natural family planning. 

This is NOT your grandmother’s rhythm method of old. This is a peer-reviewed, evidence-based, non-hormonal approach to avoiding (AND achieving) pregnancy. Natural Family Planning (NFP), also known as Fertility Based Awareness Methods (FABMs) in the scientific community, refers to methods that use signs from a woman’s body to determine when she is fertile (and, also importantly, when she is most likely not fertile). Methods can use a variety of different biological markers, from cervical mucous, to hormone levels in urine that can be tested at home, to body temperature, and more.

This is easily one of my favorite topics, most notably because I used to be ardently opposed to what I thought the Church taught on sex and marriage. As you’ll hear in the episode, up until my early 20s, I thought the Church was crazy when it came to its teaching on sexual ethics and not using contraception. My (wrong) understanding was that the Church just wanted women to be, as the old adage goes, “barefoot and pregnant”, forever and ever.

(FYI-To all of those who are currently in that scenario, I see you, I hear you, I get you, and I hope you’ll hang in there with me through this post and this episode.)

Enter a good friend, a lot of reading, holy priests, wonderful speakers, and a 2-year stint as a Catholic missionary. I was led on a journey that to joy at discovering the truth of how insanely awesome God’s design for sex and marriage is, and we're going to dive into that in this episode. These teachings aren’t in place because the Church thinks sex is bad, it’s because the Church knows sex is so good, and sacred, and important- it needs to be treated as such!

Here’s the TL;DR version of the Church’s teaching on sex and marriage: Sex is meant to be both unitive and procreative. Unitive meaning that it brings a man and woman closer together emotionally, physically, all the things. Procreative in that it’s open to life, so no barriers, either physical or chemical. Abstaining from sex during fertile times to avoid pregnancy for just reasons is still in line with the church’s teaching because there is no use of something to purposefully block fertility. As Louise says in our episode, “Marquette method does not equal opposed to life, it just equals good science.” 

Many providers aren’t aware of the evidence (cue my eyeroll when I read through my discharge paper work after having my baby and under the ‘Birth Control’ section, my OBGYN wrote ‘rhythm method’), the good news is that there is peer-reviewed evidence-based journal articles. As you’ll hear in the podcast, the information is slowly disseminating, and even the CDC updated their public information regarding FABMs to more accurately provide pregnancy prevention statistics. It’s our job as practitioners to get the news out there.

We chat about a lot, including:

⁃ The science behind NFP (specifically the Marquette Method)

⁃ The effectiveness of various NFP methods at avoiding pregnancy

⁃ How NFP fits in with Church teaching

⁃ Joys and challenges of being an NFP instructor

⁃ How to become a Marquette instructor (you have to be a healthcare professional, which is perfect for the listeners of this podcast!)

I also have a lot of resources that I mention that won't fit in this show notes space, so visit www.practicingcatholicmedicine.com for a lil blog post that expands on this and for links to all the things.