“How do I find a doctor who…
won’t push birth control on me?”
will support my natural fertility journey?”
understands or utilizes fertility awareness?”
will help me with my hormones even if I don’t want to get pregnant?”
I see these kinds of questions asked online every day. And today I’m going to answer them all for you! I understand that it can be really hard to work with a doctor who wants to “fix” all your hormonal symptoms with birth control. Or a doctor who doesn’t have any answers for you, or can’t tell you what’s going on with your body. Or won’t help unless you’re trying to conceive. Because they just aren’t educated about fertility from a natural or holistic perspective.
“Mainstream medicine” is necessary for acute and emergent health situations. But when it comes to chronic health or holistic health management they’re slow to catch up. Despite the fact that all of the evidence based fertility awareness methods in use today were originally developed by medical doctors and scientists, only 6% of doctors know the basic facts. Because of this, it can be hard to find a doctor willing and able to help with hormonal health and fertility management. Remember: fertility isn’t just about making babies!
What do I mean by “fertility friendly doctor”?
Some of the doctors you’ll find through the below resources are going to be fertility awareness friendly. Meaning, they may have some training in fertility awareness methods, may teach a fertility awareness based method, and/or utilize charts to manage your hormonal health and fertility. Some of the doctors may not have specific fertility awareness training, but are more likely to be fertility friendly in that they’ll be willing to work with your fertility and not against it (eg. hormonal birth control).
I’ve compiled a list of resources where you can locate a fertility friendly doctor near you.
Fertility Awareness Specific:
- FACTS Directory (Fertility Appreciation Collaborative to Teach the Science)
- One More Soul Directory Catholic
- FAMBC Physician Directory – Short list of recommendations from patients
- FEMM Medical Provider Directory (Fertility Education and Medical Management) – Utilizes FEMM method but more open to various fertility awareness methods
- NaProTechnology Directory (Natural Procreative Technology) Catholic – Expect you to chart with the Creighton Model FertilityCare System
- NaPro Consultants Map – Additional physicians to the directory above
- Fertility UK – UK based physicians
- Natural Womanhood Telehealth Directory
Other Directories:
More likely to be open to fertility awareness and natural fertility management but may or may not have specific fertility awareness training
- MyCatholicDoctor
- Pollie – Mainly PCOS focused but does list practitioners with multiple specialties
Can’t find one near you?
Many of the physicians in the above directories offer telehealth. But if you prefer a doctor near you or if you want to stick with the doctor you’re currently seeing but don’t know how to talk to them about fertility awareness, there are resources for you too!
Natural Womanhood put together a brochure that you can print and share with your doctor. It details various fertility awareness based methods and the evidence supporting them, including efficacy rates. You can also refer them to FACTS, which is an organization that was created to educate medical professionals.
If you find that your doctor is receptive to learning about fertility awareness based methods, you could also recommend that they check out some of the training programs for physicians, notably FEMM and BOMA-USA.
