Ep. 2: BASICS - Fertility Method of Choice: Creighton

There are many avenues to understand your fertility. We support all forms of fertility awareness! BUT - woven natural fertility care uses the Creighton Method for very specific reasons. Today's episode introduces the Creighton Model, the medical component (for restorative health & wellness), and why this method may be the perfect place for you to get started in understanding your fertility. 

This episode is appropriate for all ages. 

If you're interested in learning Creighton, the best way to get started is by attending an Introductory Session. To join this month's session, register at wovenfertility.com/join-us. We'd love to see you there! 

You can also read a transcript of this episode at wovenfertility.com/show-transcripts. 

If you found this helpful or informative, we hope you'll share it with a friend! You can do that by sharing through your podcast platform or this link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1901945/9881696

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to the woven well podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin ES I'm a certified fertility care practitioner with a master divinity degree. Each episode will cover a topic that helps educate and empower you and your fertility while honoring the deep connection your fertility has with your faith. Let's get started. Welcome back to episode two of our basic series. This series is really designed as a great way to kind of dip your toe into the water of fertility education and learn a little bit more about how your body works and why that matters. In last week's episode, we covered a brief overview of a woman's anatomy and physiology, as well as an introduction to what fertility awareness is. So we're gonna have more of these short episodes in the basic series. So if you're interested in hearing those as they're released, make sure to subscribe on your platform of choice, whether that's Spotify, Pandora, apple podcast, et cetera. So they're ready for you whenever you're ready to listen today, we're talking about a specific form of fertility awareness called the Creighton method. So this is certainly not the only method that's out there. There are many avenues you could use to better understand your fertility and regardless of whatever method you choose, I want you to know, I applaud you because fertility awareness in general is so beneficial to quality of your life. When you understand your body, you're more likely to honor that body and respect it in all sorts of ways. And you're better able to make truly informed decisions about things like treating underlying health issues, family planning, fertility treatments, all sorts of areas, but on this podcast woven well, you're gonna find that I'm a big fan of the Creighton method specifically. This is the method that I've personally used for years, and it it's the method that woven uses for fertility education. Now, I've already told you why I chose to use the Creighton system in our welcome episode, but I'm also going to share why out of all the available options out there, I chose the education provided through the Creighton method for my clients. But first I think it could be helpful to start with what is, is the C Creighton method that may be what you're here for to find out<laugh>. So, as one of the things we talked about in anatomy and physiology, we went over the fact that the woman's body creates a cervical mucus based on the reproductive hormones in her body. At that time, the Creighton method teaches women how to observe that mucus chart, what they're seeing and understand the underlying hormones that this mucus reveals, so that they're able to understand all that's going on in their reproductive health and whether they're fertile or infertile that day. So understanding your mucus, not just knowing it's that's there, but really understanding. It makes a huge difference for women. Now, some people get a little stuck here on mucus. Okay, I get that. I respect it. I will talk, talk you through that, but I do wanna start by saying all humans create some sort of reproductive mucus men and women. Okay. Both, but women's have the ability to tell us a ton of information about where she is in her cycle, whether she's fertile that day. And if there may be any hormone issues happening now, when the medical community first discovered this, it was a really big deal. It's a big deal now, but especially then now, Dr. OAD was a research scientist in Sweden, and he especially did a lot of incredible research on the cervix and cervical mucus. But then in the early 1980s and OB GYN and neuroscientists combine the current research of the day, along with their studies about cervical mucus to develop the Creighton method. Now why I'm even telling you that.<laugh> why I think that matters for you is that this method is incredibly tested and thoroughly objective. So if you lie like a system that is very black and white, it is really standardized. Then you're gonna love Creighton. There are no MAs with the Creighton system. You're gonna know if you're fertile or infertile on any given day and for a lot of couples, that's what they want. Like that's, they really need to know that they can have that kind of confidence. But because this was developed by two medical professionals, they were very quickly aware that the charts that they were getting in, in their effectiveness studies for family planning were also revealing all these underlying health conditions. Hormone imbalances, miscarriage causes a ton of information just from charting their cycles, just from the women, charting their cycles. Suddenly doctors had an entirely new avenue to understand what was going on in a particular woman's body. So around the same time, they also developed an accompanying medical component for OBGYNs and any other medical professionals. So Creighton is not just for family planning. It is for family planning, but it is not just for family planning. It's also an incredible tool for evaluating monitoring and maintaining a woman's gynecological health. And this is huge for women who are not married or generally active, but are looking for ways to understand their body and their health. So Creighton is for everyone. And that's one of the things I love about it. And this is one of the huge things that appealed to me when looking for the best method of fertility awareness to provide for my clients. So many years ago, I wanted medical resources for my clients. So many women have all these great instincts and information about what's going wrong in their bodies, but they get to the doctor's office and sadly, feel so often dismissed or unheard. And I just don't have the patients for that. Women deserve to be heard. They deserve to have their symptoms investigated. It's as simple as that now, thankfully there are a lot of really wonderful doctors out there who do just that. I'm so grateful for that, but I've never found a more consistent network of like-minded medical professionals than in the C Creighton community. And these doctors are professionals are often referred to as NA trained. So I just thought, I'd go ahead and share that NA stands for natural and procreative because that's how they treat their patients. They're working cooperatively with a woman's natural cycle. That means they're not gonna be forcing it to do something it shouldn't be doing. And they're also not preventing it from doing something that is completely natural for it to do. They want to honor the way it was created to function and work within that natural system for her to be as healthy as possible. They're specifically working with her body, not against it. And that makes a big difference. It's a totally different for philosophy of medicine. They're looking for the root causes of issues, not just these bandaid fixes that have you coming back in a few months or a few years with the same exact problems you had before, plus these professionals actually use your charting. Yes. And once you're charting, you know how much that's gonna mean to you?<laugh>, you've done all the, this work for a reason and Napa professionals honor that and they put it to good use. So ultimately you are always going to be your best health advocate. And I do wanna say that. So I'm always gonna encourage you to go to an appointment prepared with your questions and goals and of course, to follow up on results and treatments and things like that. But I do feel like with a NA doctor, you're starting with an advantage. So that's a huge reason why I was interested in this specific method. Also valued the dedication the Creighton team had to the study and research of the efficacy and usefulness of the method, and also the high standards they set for their practitioners. So in order to be a fertility care practitioner like myself, you have to complete a 13 month education program with practicums, intensives exams, et cetera. They also make sure that once you complete the program, you maintain your skills through annual education and organization, lots of different accuracy standards. They're not playing around<laugh>. And when it comes to health and family planning, I don't wanna play around either. And I know that clients don't want to either. And I really respect that about Creighton. Plus ultimately the method uses one observation that reveals a ton of help for information, and that's just doable for any woman in any reproductive stage, they can learn one observation, especially with all that it gives us. And really a woman's fertility is greatly influenced by her age and her reproductive stage of life. So women are only fertile for a certain season of life between puberty and menopause. And so the years closer to both of those ends can cause her to have some cycles that are different than what she's used to seeing for some, this can really throw things off, but a woman's cervical mucus can be on whether she's in those end stages, you know, where she's just beginning in her teen years or close to menopause, or if she's in the peak of her fertility. And that means that this one method can be used for her, her entire reproductive life. Yes. One and done. That's what we're all looking for.<laugh> the Creighton method, prioritizes partnership. This is not a method that you have to learn on your own. They want you to be successful and they want your data to be accurate because they want you to be truly informed and empowered regardless of your intentions. So in order to do that, you need to have the support audience from a trained practitioner. And I love that they honor that they don't ever want someone like you to feel like she's on her own. You know, that she's confused, she's frustrated. They want you to be successful. And I so appreciate that because as a practitioner, those are my same goals. That's what I want for you as well. I want you to be confident and successful as quickly as possible. And I see what difference it makes in, especially those first, that first month or two, when you have a practitioner that you can ask all of your questions to and check in with when you're maybe not sure if you're doing it right or not sure your cycle looks right. It makes a huge difference and learning any fertility. Meth can be intimidating. I mean, you're learning something brand new and it's kind of like learning a new language. Now, if you were learning a new spoken language, you would not try to do that on your own duo lingo can only get you so far<laugh> but you'd find an experienced teacher, someone who spoke the language and you knew how to teach someone else how to speak the language too. So learning the Creighton method always starts with an introductory session. This session goes over a woman's anatomy and physiology. It goes over how her body works. What's going on hormonally in each different phase. It explains the Creighton method in detail. It teaches you how to begin using the Creighton method that day and shows you how it can be used for things like health and family planning alike. It is a ton of information and it's primarily, you're listening to me. I'm sharing all of this information with you, so you don't have to share anything or talk. No one has to know you're there, but it's everything you need to take your first step in using the method from there. We work together. One on one, I get to hear your story. Talk about your goals, teach you more and more about fertility. Each time we meet. I love that time. It does take a little bit of time and investment at this art, but confidence really does come quickly. And remember, we want you to be successful. We're gonna set you up for success. Um, that's why we, that's why I'm not teaching you the Creighton method over this episode, because that just wouldn't do that would not, that would not be enough, um, that would not be setting you up for success. And I knew it can be. In fact, I surveyed a lot of my clients earlier in the year. And one of the questions I asked them was if you could have one thing to say to somebody who's considering using the Creighton method, what would it be? And tons of the responses said, just give it a try. Just do it. Just get started. You can do it. I know it's scary, but just get started. And I love that. I think that's great encouragement. So from them to you, um, they wanna encourage you as well. So if you're interested in giving the Creighton method a try for yourself, then I'd love for you to join us this month for our introductory session, it's online, it's a group setting, but like I said, you don't have to say a word or, you know, anything like that. I'm gonna be talking the whole time and attending doesn't mean you have to do anything else or move forward. Um, it's just a great time to learn a lot of information that you deserve to know, and then we can explore together how to utilize it from there. So if you wanna join us, then go to woven fertility.com and click, join us to see this month's intercession and to sign up to attend. I would absolutely love to see you there. Please let me know that you found us through the podcast. That would make me so happy. Um, so until that time, thanks so much for joining us today. As we continue to explore together how we are woven. Well,

Speaker 2: 14:09

I.