Reflections on Current Status of NFP in Europe

In September 2016 I launched a new approach to fertility awareness with NeoFertility. I am a family doctor and have worked exclusively in the area of Restorative Reproductive Medicine since I opened the first NaProTechnology Clinic in Ireland and Europe in 1998.

It was an honor and privilege for me to train under the direction of Dr. Thomas Hilgers and to learn all about the Creighton Model System and NaProTechnology. I am forever grateful to Dr. Hilgers for his mentoring, leadership and dedication to this important work.

The majority of my patients attend for women’s health, infertility and miscarriage. I have helped over 3,500 couples achieve successful pregnancies over the last 20 years. Currently, only a small number attend me for family planning. I expect this to change with the development of the NeoFertility app. The app invites you to enter detailed data about your fertility indicators and automatically selects the stamp, fertility code and peak day for you. It primarily works on concepts from both Creighton Model and the Billings Ovulation Method, and uses temperature if needed. We have integrated the app to work with a temperature sensor – Tempdrop – to make temperature recording easier. But the app is only as good as the data it receives, so it is critical for users to receive adequate instruction from a trained NFP provider. The app can be used for family planning, women’s health or fertility treatment. We plan to collect data from users to demonstrate effectiveness rates for family planning and fertility treatment, so use effectiveness for family planning is currently estimated to be comparable to established NFP methods.

You may have heard about another app Natural cycles, developed by a Swedish couple. They are not traditional NFP users, have limited experience using natural methods and are philosophically pro-contraception but developed Natural Cycles for green and ecological reasons. In a very short space of time they have FDA approval for their app as a “Natural contraceptive” and have over 150,000 users world-wide prompting journalists to write articles such as “Is it possible that an app may replace the birth control pill?” Natural cycles make no appeal to divine wisdom or moral virtue, instead they see the good of science and ecological balance with natural methods……. and this has mass appeal. We need to learn a valuable lesson and allow potential users to see the inherent merit in natural approaches and cycle balancing for optimal health.

I see great potential for the growth and expansion of natural methods during the “Tech Age”. We now have the ability to monitor a vital aspect of health in real time – documenting fertility indicators as they are observed with our smart phones, which is even better than retrospective recall at the end of each day. We can document additional symptoms of mood, energy, libido, PMS – or anything that is important to the user. Incredibly in the very near future, fertility apps will have the ability to identify “at risk” cycles and can recommend hormone balancing with restorative reproductive medicine even before you experience miscarriage or infertility. This is a huge leap forward for gynaecological health that currently does not recognize impaired fertility until you have had three miscarriages or a year of infertility.

What is there not to like about highly reliable family planning that optimizes reproductive function and improves your health in the process?

Dr. Phil Boyle, President of the International Institute for Restorative Reproductive Medicine, is the Founder and Director of the Neo Fertility Clinic, in Dublin, Ireland. Dr. Boyle has twenty years clinical experience with subfertility, and a special interest in new and innovative solutions for infertility and recurrent miscarriage.   www.neofertility.ie