Any reliable birth control option that doesn’t require pumping your body with synthetic hormones resulting in a permanently grotty mood, lowered libido and health problems later on, gets a big thumbs up from me. For those couples who use condoms all the time as a hormone free method but who wish for more physical intimacy, this method could be the holy grail — condom free fun for two weeks each month.

The World Health Organization reports that on average, women practicing periodic abstinence for a year have a one in four chance of becoming pregnant.

A new German study, however, has found that, when practiced correctly, a method of periodic abstinence known as the sympto-thermal method (STM) leads to an unintended pregnancy rate of only 0.6 percent annually. This rate is comparable with that of unintended pregnancies in women who use birth control pills, the most popular method of contraception in the U.S. More…

• Go Ask Alice! Natural Birth Control
• Getting started on the STM (includes charts you can print out and use)