Customer Reviews

The Art of Natural Family PlanningĀ® Student Guide

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

My husband and I are Couple to Couple League instructors and are thrilled with the changes to the CCL course and student guide. The new manual presents the course material in a much more logical order, making it possible for the reader to more quickly and easily learn the method. Practice charts are now presented alongside the relevant instructional text, instead of in a separate section of the book. This means that students no longer need to flip forward and backward in the book as they learn.

The reasons why the Catholic Church supports Natural Family Planning (as opposed to contraception) are presented in the new student guide according to John Paul II's Theology of the Body, the most current development of Church teaching on this subject. Students relate so much better to this experiential approach, making it much easier for the typical student couple to understand.

The method itself has also been streamlined, as there is now only one rule for determining the fertile time of the woman's cycle. Student couples are finding this new rule far easier to understand and report less confusion and greater confidence in their ability to correctly interpret the woman's cycle.

Another welcome change is that the portion of the course that explains how to effectively use exclusive breastfeeding to extend the period of natural post-partum infertility is now taught in a separate short course, with its own detailed manual [...]. The main course and student guide now gives only a broad overview of this subject, meaning that couples who don't yet need this information are not required to sit through detailed instruction on this topic unless and until they actually need it.

We are very grateful to founders John and Sheila Kippley for all their hard work of establishing the Couple to Couple League and their pioneering work which made it easier for married couples to live out the beauty of Church teaching in their marital relationship; we wish them a very happy retirement from CCL. However, we are also extremely thankful for CCL's new leadership and their devotion to taking CCL to the next level.

This book has about as much theological depth as an appliance manual. Look, the old Art of NFP book was complicated, with too many rules and intricacies...I often complained that I felt like I needed an engineering degree to operate my uterus when I read that book! But for all that, it made me BELIEVE in NFP--I felt like I was embarking on something profound and life-shifting. I loved all the thick, dense, inspiring theology and philosophy--it really put NFP in an historical context.

But this book--oh, man--it's about as interesting and thought-provoking as the instructions to your cell phone! The rules may be easier to apply, but I was less excited about applying them. The book is also written at a much lower reading level than the Kippleys' version. The one really good thing I have to say about it is--I found the actual photographs of mucus very helpful.

And, seriously, why do you have to buy a whole separate book for postpartum?? That is completely annoying!

I say--go ahead and buy the older one--you get all the rules and a tons of good theory. And you save a lot of money.

But here's a note for ALL NFP writers, past and present--you can just call it "sex," not the "marriage act" or "marital relations." Or, my least favorite, the "marital embrace." Seriously, you can spare yourselves a lot of eye-rolling among the under-thirty crowd if you do that!

The "Student Guide" of The Art of Natural Family Planning is significantly different from the previous editions. My husband and I founded CCL on three concepts that became known as the "Triple Strand" of NFP: 1) ecological breastfeeding as a form of NFP; 2) support of Humanae Vitae via the covenant theology of sexuality; and 3) different rules for different situations. These teachings were incorporated into the previous editions of The Art of NFP.
The Student Guide has dropped both the covenant theology and ecological breastfeeding as a form of NFP. CCL now offers a single rule that, when analyzed, becomes three rules.
The new book's treatment of "exclusive breastfeeding" is problematic. There are three simple and well recognized rules for the infertility associated with exclusive breastfeeding: 1) the baby is less than six months old; 2) the mother is exclusively breastfeeding; and 3) the mother is still in amenorrhea, i.e., is not cycling. All three conditions are necessary for the infertility associated with exclusive breastfeeding. In two places of this book (pp. 161 and 254), the exclusively breastfeeding mother is said to be highly infertile during the first six months, but the book does not mention the third requirement of amenorrhea.
That omission is significant because research shows that about half the exclusively breastfeeding mothers will experience menstruation prior to six months postpartum.
Sheila Kippley
Author of The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor

We are really happy with the updated NFP guide from the Couple to Couple League. While the Kippleys' "Art of NFP" is very thorough, this new guide is much more streamlined and easy to follow. It does address postpartum and premenopause fertility awareness, but for a more thorough discussion, CCLI offers manuals specifically for those situations. This student guide discusses the moral and ethical reasons for practicing NFP, but it lacks the reproachful tone that we often found offputting in the Kippleys' book. Even though we have used NFP for several years, this new guide has given us a better understanding of the method and more confidence that we can achieve very high effectiveness in postponing pregnancy (without making us feel guilty about that choice).

As nurses, nfp teachers, plus nfp users for 25 years(still charting), my husband and I were very disappointed in this student guide. It seemed to us, like a counterfeit attempt on the original "Art" by the Kippleys. Maybe it could be useful in a beginner class setting, as the first reviewer said, but for serious natural family planning users, a more thorough and complete treatment of the scope of the subject can be found in the Kippleys' original "Art of Natural Family Planning", based on their 40 years of work and research. We think this newer "one rule fits all" is too simplistic for lifelong nfp users. Why buy several books when one will do?

For those interested in NFP but don't know where to start, this is definitely a good jumping off point. The book is well written and easy to understand. The best part is that it contains many do-it-yourself exercises so you're able to learn by using examples and not just reading. I would definitely recommend it.

Very well written. Relevant for today and much easier to understand than the 30 year old copy I had previously. Useful pictures and lots of workbook style pages that let me know if I was understanding it as well as I thought I was.

I love this book. Very informative. Very concise and much easier to learn than than the old book. It was very smart to move the breastfeeding and postpartum to a separate book as most people don't need that information until a different stage in their life. There was a previous reviewer that complained about the lack of breastfeeding material. She should check out their Art of Breastfeeding book instead. The information was moved to that book in order to make this one more readable. I highly recommend this book.

This book is a simple to understand instruction in how to practice Natural Family Planning. It tells you how to keep track of temperature and mucus to know which days are fertile and which are not. Helpful for postponing pregnancy or trying to become pregnant. There are lots of example charts for the reader to interpret, with the answers included in the back.

Found this much easier to follow & practice than the traditional book. Color pictures and explanations make it possible for anyone wanting to practice NFP and not wanting or able to attend the classes. Highly recommended for those looking for alternative ways to modern birth control or having a hard time getting pregnant.