"Plan B” Pill Problems Lead Couples to Try Natural Family Planning

March 16, 2009 - PRLog -- The pattern is predictable: a woman on a medical blog asks whether the abdominal pain she feels after taking the Plan B pill means that anything is wrong. The woman, speaking anonymously, complains that she has had nausea for a week, then diarrhea, and now feels “a constant dull ache on my right side.”
Two weeks later another woman on the blog, at Steadyhealth.com, answers her and urges her to get help right away because her abdominal pain might mean that she has a fallopian pregnancy, in which the embryo wrongly implants itself in the tube leading to the womb. She sternly advises, “You MUST go to the hospital, tell the doctor you took Plan B…”
Released in 2006, the morning after pill, also called the “next day” pill, is sold under the brand name Plan B, which is produced by Duramed Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The Food and Drug Administration patient insert says that Plan B side effects have been associated with “nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, tiredness, diarrhea, dizziness, breast pain, headache, and menstrual changes.”
The pill, which is taken twice after intercourse, contains a very high dose of the hormone progestin, found in many birth control pills. Critics call the amount of hormone an overdose of the drug, and point to its dosage as a possible cause of its side effects.
Many couples who have experienced difficulties with various forms of medicated birth control find relief in a safe and effective way of detecting fertility in Natural Family Planning (NFP), said Monica Cassidy, co-president of the Chicago chapter of the Couple to Couple League (CCL), an international organization that teaches NFP.
“It takes some commitment to learn how to detect the signs of fertility, as well to respect your spouse’s fertility,” Cassidy said. “But we find that couples who stick it out are well rewarded in terms of marital happiness and family planning.”
Couples in Naperville, Aurora, Downers Grove, Wheaton, Bolingbrook, Harwood Heights, Norwood, and in Chicago area and elsewhere are invited to take classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning sponsored by CCL.
Classes in NFP will begin in Chicago, at St. Alphonsus Church beginning Apr. 26; in Naperville, at St. Raphael Church, beginning May 17, and in Chicago, at Resurrection Hospital, beginning June 7. For more information, call Monica Cassidy at 847-724-7206, or to to http://www.naturalfamilyplanningchicago.org.

# # #

The Couple to Couple League (CCL) is an international, interfaith, non-profit organization dedicated to teaching Natural Family Planning (NFP) to married and engaged couples. This news article is sponsored by the Chicago chapter of CCL International.