Strings of Colored Beads for Birth Control

The Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., has created the Standard Days Method® to offer women an effective natural option for family planning.

Claim of efficiency that women using this method on can rely on it for years. By using strings of colored beads for determining when you are fertile and not fertile.

According to researchers when used properly the CycleBeads® and Standard Days Method® shows to be 95% more effective in aiding women not wishing to become pregnant this based upon studies conducted in several countries. This basically translates to less than five out of 100 women who kept track of their cycle days did not have unprotected sex on eight through nineteen days of their cycle did get pregnant within the first year of using the beads. According to researchers the beads are 88% effective. This presuming you follow the guidelines.

These beads are to be most effective for women who have regular menstrual cycles between 26 and 32 days long.

Researchers have found the fertile window in women's menstrual cycle by the use of computer simulation which had taken into account the likelihood of pregnancy and ovulation occurring on different cycle days along with variability in cycle length from woman to woman and cycle to cycle.

The string has 32 colored beads with each bead representing a day in the menstrual cycle. Starting with the red bead (representing first day of period), a woman moves a small rubber ring one bead each day. The brown beads indicated days in which pregnancy is not likely and the glow in the dark white beads are days for fertility. That glowing fertility window accounts for life span of egg (around 24 hours), life of sperm (around five days) and variation in the actual timing of ovulation from one cycle to the next cycle.

Just incase you do not feel like dealing with a string of beads and have and iPhone ®, iPod touch® or iPad™, good news there is an application for the beads. The application are the virtual beads so there is no need to keep the string of beads around.

A red box marks the first day of cycle, brown box is days when getting pregnant is unlikely and white when pregnancy can occur. Plus the app will give alerts to let a woman know when she is in the fertility window, when she probably will not get pregnant and when she is most likely to have her period. An alert will off go off if the woman forgets to enter her cycle information.

These beads are manufactured by Cycle Technologies which also offer the application at iPhone Apple Stores.

If you chose to try these beads there are a few times when you should contact your practitioner:

If you think you could be pregnant. If your period has not started within one week after moving the ring past the last brown bead, you could be pregnant.

If it was a white bead day and you had unprotected sex.

If more than once a year you started your period before reaching the dark brown bead. Your cycles are less than 26 days long and the beads will not work for you.

If more than once in a year your period has not started by the day after you moved the ring to the last BROWN bead. Your cycles are more than 32 days long and CycleBeads will not work for you.

For more information on the beads you can go to Cyclebeads® online.

It is always best to choose the option that is best for you.

Sources:

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