The National Catholic Health Service’s (NCHS) efforts to promote and sustain the Natural Family Planning Method in its facilities, has received support with the donation of 1,000 pieces of Cycle Beads from the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the USAID in Accra recently.
The Cycle Beads is a scientifically proven effective way to plan or prevent pregnancy by simply tracking the start dates of women’s menstrual period.
Presenting the beads on behalf of the GHS, Dr. Ernest Konadu Asiedu, Co-ordinator of Community and Institutional Care at the NCHS, noted that the Cycle Beads would go a long way to enhance the Natural Family Planning Methods in most Catholic Health facilities in the country.
Mrs. Margaret Louis-Tagbor, Administrative Officer at the Health System Management Unit at the NCHS, who received the beads on behalf of the NCHS Directorate, thanked the GHS for the donation.
She stated that it would help in training the personnel from selected health facilities on its use and procedure.
She observed that the use of the beads reaffirms the Catholic Church’s principle to promote natural family planning methods in all its facilities, stressing that a lot of married women were signing on to the Cycle beads, since it had no side effects.
Although Catholic facilities have long promoted the Natural Family Planning Method, readers would recall the recent charge by Pope Francis and Bishops in Ghana, to promote the natural family planning method in the country, which was re-echoed during the Pro-Life Campaign staged in Ghana in August 2015.
The Cycle beads are based on the Standard Days Method of family planning, which is a fertility awareness-based family planning method, that identifies a fixed fertile window for women with cycles that are between 26 and 32 days long.
According to experts, the method identifies days eight through 19 as potentially fertile days for women with cycles in the range of 26 and 32days. A user simply tracks the start date of her period and the days of her cycle to know if she is on a day when pregnancy is possible or not.
Recently, Researchers at the Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health developed this family planning method and tested it in large-scale clinical trials, which is proven to be more than 95% effective at preventing pregnancy.
Experts agree that the Standard Days Method in family planning is free from side-effect, easy to use, and inexpensive as compared to other birth control methods.
The Cycle beads are made of brown, white and red beads and also contains a calendar to aid its use.
Present at the brief ceremony were Madam Roberta Asiedu, Deputy Co-ordinator, Community and Intuitional Care and Mr. Simon Hevi, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the NCHS.
