My interest peaked in this particularly brand of quackery (well thats my first impression, perhaps its a legit deal but my intuition says otherwise) when I saw a few artsy pics an acquaintance snapped of an Billings manual from the 1980s (SWF example here
Can anyone provide a contextualized executive summary of wtf this Billings method is all about? Is there any legit medical science going on here or is this on par with most other Catholic theories about sex?
Sounds like somebody just really likes swabbing vaginas. Also, I’m going to say the method has limited effectiveness:
My advice: do not, under any circumstances, **google Lithotomy Position.
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Given that the menstrual cycle is, well, cyclical, and that fertility – as in, the potential to conceive – does vary significantly during the cycle, there’s nothing inherently improbable about the idea that physiological examination could be a useful indicator of fertility. My wife and I used a physiological examination method when we were trying to conceive. (We succeeded.) It wasn’t, as it happens, the Billings method, but I don’t see why xiix’s intuition is that this particular measurement can’t be useful. And I seriously doubt that the method will be more or less effective in Australia than elsewhere, as the thread title seems to imply.
The effect of any method of contraception depends on two things – the way the method works, and the consistency with which it is used. For obvious reasons, using the Billings method with consistency presents a greater challenge than do other popular methods, and most of the criticism that I have seen of the method focuses on this problem.
I’ve no doubt there are studies on the inherent effectiveness of various contraceptive methods, assuming consistent use, and that these studies will include the Billings method. Sadly, I have no link to any such study, but no doubt another doper will.
So I found this study:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-3665(199011%2F12)21%3A6<327%3AEOTVOP>2.0.CO%3B2-U&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage
But I don’t have any idea what their results mean
“The billings ovulation method had the lowest (10.4 per 100 women) overall life-table discontinuation rates in the effectiveness phase. One-year life-table unplanned pregnancy rates ranged from 2.5 per 100 women for the Billings method to a high of 11.5 per 100 women for the local method acceptors.”
I practice the Fertility Awareness Method (which is the same as the Catholic church endorsed Natural Family Planning, except that FAM allows for contraception during fertile times, while NFP requires abstinence during those times). The cervical mucus (or “fluid”, as most people prefer to think of it) is one indicator of fertility, along with cervical position and basal body temperature.
I would not, personally, rely *only *on cervical fluid, as the quantity, quality and consistency of cervical fluid is a very subjective measure, and can vary widely with only a moderate correlation to fertility, according to my charting. It is also easily influenced by antihistamines, mild dehydration and hygiene.
As one of the three signs, I’m quite happy to incorporate it. It’s kept me not-pregnant for four years of use and pregnant on demand with the gender of my choice the first (and only) time we tried to get pregnant. Can’t ask for better results than that!
Still seems flakey…wanna know why?
http://www.boma-usa.org/ (some website selling the $40 kit) claims that
"In Indonesia, a trial done from 1978 - 1982 involved 1331 couples during a 42 month program and concluded a method effectiveness rate of 99%.
In India, there were 2059 couples following the Billings Ovulation Method for 21 months. The method effectiveness was 99.15%."
But I would have to say that the whole thing is starting to seem a little more logical.
First, thanks for posting all that info, firsthand reports are much more compelling than some no-name study from Indonesia in the '80s.
The only part of your post that baffled me was: were you suggesting that you were able to influence the gender of your child using a technique?
I’m *suggesting *that, yes, but I can’t *prove *that. There’s a hypothesis that “female” (X) sperm are heavier and slower than “male” (Y) sperm, and that if you time intercourse for as far before ovulation as possible (and yet close enough to still have living sperm), the light fast male sperm zip on up there through the fallopian tubes (which do not yet have an egg in them) and wander off into the abdomen because they don’t stop to ask directions. 
The slower, heavier female sperm take their time, pack a nice lunch of cervical mucus, which nourishes them on their journey, and finally make it into the fallopian tube just when the ovum is finally released by the ovary. Since all those zippy males are long gone, your chance of having a girl is greatly improved. If you want a boy, you time it for just before ovulation, so hopefully the faster boys get there first.
It’s not proven, and there’s still a lot of debate about it, but we decided it was worth a shot. We wouldn’t have been devastated to have a boy, we just thought it would be nice to have a girl. So we timed our intercourse for what should have been, looking at my previous months’ charts, 6 days before ovulation. It’s worth noting that, according to most sources, this is technically outside the window of fertility by 24 hours, and so could be considered a “failure” if we* hadn’t *been trying to get pregnant. But I just got that women’s intuition that the iron was hot, so to speak. And, lo and behold, 5 months later our daughter was born. A micropreemie, and scared the hell out of us, but she’s just fine now!
You can learn more about this notion of gender selection by googling Shettles method. I think there are more steps to his whole method, but the only one we tried was the timing thing.
