Contraception Books

I'm twenty-six, still in college, and soon to be married. A few months ago, I had a pulmonary embolism (blood clot), and I can no longer use any form of hormonal birth control. This was devastating for my fiance and I. I talked to a couple of doctors, and they had very little to offer me as a solution. Then, I ran into an old friend who has been married for four years, using this (FAM) as her only birth control method. She recommended this book to me. It is a lot of reading (the book is very thick, but don't be intimidated!), but it's worthwhile for the information it provides. It's also well written--the author has a great sense of humor, so it makes for an enjoyable read. This book has been so helpful to me!

I purchased this book shortly after getting married b/c we wanted to start a family. I bought this book in August, and was prego by mid-Sept. I only completed 1 full cycle of charting b/c I was pregnant my next cycle! Her methods work.
This book contains amazing information about a womens body (unless you are a biology major) and alot of it was new to me. I always felt I was very in tune with my body, but now everything relating to my cycle is explained and makes sense! This book truly lets you take charge of when/if you want to get pregnant. Full of great information - a must have for all women!!

Lots of info all under one book. You can find a lot of thoses info online but it's incredibly convenient to have it all under one book. I use the website fertilityfriend to chart my cycle and it's of great use. Loads of info there too, charting forum etc...
I would definitely recommend this book for the one curious enough to know what's going on with their own body.

There are not words to describe how great this book is. It is not only for women (or men) trying to concieve, but it also points out how to use natural birth control. I used this book to conceive my second child and it worked like a charm. I did not have fertility issues, but I found that I was not getting pregnant as quickly as I wanted to, and I got pregant the month that I read the book and implemented some of the suggestions. I cannot recommend this book enough!!

This book is amazing. My husband and I had decided to start trying for a baby in October. A friend at work had recommended the book "How to Choose the Sex of your Baby." When I looked it up on Amazon this book was also recommended. I decided to buy it instead. The book goes into detail about how to chart your basal temperature and cervical fluid and how to notice the changes in your body throughout your monthly cycle. I had talked to many women who told me that I needed to start trying around day 14 of my cycle. However my cycle is 44 days long instead of 28. Because I was charting I knew that my body wasn't ovulating around day 14. In fact, I didn't ovulate until around day 28! Once again, because of charting I knew when I was ovulating and was able to plan accordingly. Eighteen days later (18 high temps) I found out I was having a baby! This book gives you the tools you need to help you succeed in getting pregnant. I'm convinced that had I not read this book I would not be pregnant yet because I would be ignorant as to what my body's signs were. What a blessing to not have to worry and wonder about what I was doing wrong or having to wait month after month to get pregnant. This book was the key.

Contraceptive Technology is a must-have reference for anyone interested in birth control. As a freelance medical writer/editor, I have used several revisions of this useful book over the years. I was very pleased when the long-awaited 19th revised edition was finally available. I had preordered the book directly from the publisher, who didn't follow through. Amazon, however, got me the book in record time.

A must have if you provide health care to women or have to answer questions about birth control.

I find this text an excellent source of easy to read information. Every method of birth control/contraception is covered, including fertility based methods, surgical procedures, etc. There is also applicable information in regards to women's health issues and sexuality. Another reviewer stated that this book needs an update; I've heard that another edition is coming out soon and I would imagine that it would include new methods that have become available since the publication of this edition.

I recommend this text to any women's health practitioner.

Great book in great condition for a great price and I got it in less than a week!
Will definitely use this vendor again!

This is an integral desk reference for the reproductive health educator. This text outlines all that there is to know to date about contraceptive methods and their function. I don't inted to part with this until the 19th edition is released.

I have used this book since 1992, both as a student and as a provider. My past editions have been well thumbed through and open imediately to the charts I used most. It is invaluable in the decision making process of changing pills or starting OCPs. The ability to safely manage side effects and fine tune women's health is found in this book. I highly recommend this to the student and experienced practitioner. Well worth the money, many times over. Not sure I would want it in a PDA format.

I daily use this handbook in my practice and have bought every edition since the 7th. Every question is answered. Allows sense to be made of oral contraceptive choice and adjustment without relying on big pharma's propaganda.

This book has clear guidelines for prescribing oral contraceptive agents. It provides a section on bothersome side effects, causal factors and options. The section on contraceptive activity is good as is the composition and identification section. Very helpful, easy to use and it takes the guesswork out of oral contraception.

Consistent in it's format, easy to use,concise and up to date. Recommended to all medical personnel managing patients on oral contraceptives. I have purchased the last three editions over the last 7 years and have not been disappointed.

An excellent reference guide and teaching text for every clinician who has a personal relationship with patients of reproductive age. The book fits in a lab coat pocket and has a unique design, which enables the user to find critical information quickly and easily. It is strongly recommended to physicians, residents, nurse practitioners and all other medical professionals in an OB/GYN clinic or teaching hospital. The 11th edition includes the new patch, ring and all new pills available 9/02.

I bought this book through Amazon and quite happy with this service and book too.It is recommended for my masters course in Reproductive medicine.Thanks Amzone.

Dear Amazon--
In the hopes that someone will read this-- the title of the book with the error in the title (Leon Speroff's textbook) is Clinical Gynecologic Endocrinology and Infertility. That much is true. The subtitle is wrong. It is not, I repeat not, subtitled: :Cervical Spine Research Editorial Committee. The cervix Dr Speroff treats is in the pelvis, not the neck. Please correct this.
Sorry to notify you in this roundqbout way, but I don't know any other way to let your web masters know of this error. This "review" obviously is not for publication.
Sincerely, Irene M Piekarski, M.D.
206-522-3330 (O)
206-284-2003(H)

This is an incredible book. Speroff is still the king when it comes to infertility. In our OB/Gyn setting we refer to it many times in our treatment of basic infertiltiy and have had great success following the guidelines given by Speroff. It should be on the bookshelf of anyone who treats basic infertility!!

This text offers a straight-forward reference to assist in the management of gyn problems I commonly encounter as a Family Doctor. It goes into great detail about anatomy and physiology of gynecologic problems yet is well-organized for use as a "quick reference". For example, it took less than a minute to find the section on hirsuitism to refresh my memory as to what the initial work-up should consist of.

This is one of the bibles of the OB/GYN resident. Excellent reference for the in-service exams. Simple diagrams & tables make this text readable and easy to understand.

This guide is written very clearly. I am no student of science and, unfortunately, many Natural Family Planning books read like biology text books! If you've been put off by other NFP guides, or are confused about checking different fertility signs, you may want to get a copy of Honoring Our Cycles. An added bonus are the charts right in the back so you can refer to the "rules" very easily if needed.
Great for beginners, pretty cover.

This book was a very quick and simple read--I think that is one of the book's main strengths, it is written in very clear, basic English (maybe a sixth grade reading level?). However, it also makes it somewhat stilted or somehow "off" to read it though because it IS so simplistically written (makes you feel like you are none-too-bright or something! LOL!). Anyway, to be totally honest, one of the only reasons I wanted this book is because I'm so enraptured by the cover. I just love it. I think it is a beautiful, wonderful book cover.

The book is about using fertility awareness to avoid or promote pregnancy The book is clear and easy to follow. It contains some inaccurate breastfeeding information, which I'm very sensitive to--including such odd comments as, "sometimes, when a mother is away from her baby for an afternoon or more, her milk dries up." Huh?! This is where the overly simplistic approach does not succeed, because it is NOT correct (in this case).

I'm very interested and excited right now by fertility awareness--how coolly and magically women's bodies indicate where they are in their fertility cycle. I am regretful that I spend so many years hormonally manipulating my cycle rather than just paying attention to my own body (which clearly communicates with me). so, this book reinforced this "magic-ness." I guess I would recommend it to others. There is a certain "spark" missing because it is so basic (I think it is designed for use with low-literacy populations). That gorgeous cover makes up for a lot though! ;-)

Part of this review was originally posted to my blog, http://mollyreads.blogspot.com.

I have read "Natural Family Planning" and "Taking Charge of your Fertility" and have practiced NFP/FAM (fertility awareness method) for a while now. I bought this mostly so I wouldn't have to print and bind my own charts anymore because this one comes ready to use and is small and thin like a workbook. I am very pleased with the charts- they are the easiest to use of all the ones I've tried.



What surprised me was the incredible job the author has done of teaching the method in a very concise and easy to understand manner. I can't emphasize enough how much easier it is to learn how to chart to prevent or to plan a pregnancy with this book than with other books.



Most exciting to me was the way the author teaches how to use NFP while breast feeding. The other books make it so complicated and when I did finally think I de-coded what they meant, it didn't work for me because my mucus was too eratic while nursing to use their methods. But, Singer does an excellent job in this book explaining how to use NFP while nursing a baby and she does it in under one page! She makes perfect sense and her method is much, much easier to use and is actually doable.



Awesome, awesome book!

this is the perfect gife for newlyweds if you're looking for something outside of the box to give!

Katie Singer shares her plethora of knowledge in HONORING OUR CYCLES: A NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING WORKBOOK FOR KNOWING WHICH DAYS YOU CAN AND CAN'T GET PREGNANT.

I've been practicing Natural Family Planning (NFP) with success for several years and I know that many women hesitate to embrace NFP or Fertility Awareness because they are afraid to trust the method. With her gentle encouragement and ease of communication, Singer's confidence in the accuracy of fertility awareness transfers to the readers - at least it did for me.

It's very important to gain confidence in NFP if you are going to rely upon it. The examples helped clarify various issues and scenarios. I also learned a new technique by reading this book: the "coverline."

The cover design is so enticing that my teenage daughters were intrigued with HONORING OUR CYCLES. I highly recommend this book.

-Lynn M. Griesemer, Author of YOUR BODY, YOUR BIRTH: SECRETS FOR A SATISFYING AND SUCCESSFUL BIRTH

I had the pleasure of taking this class with Dr. King as an undergraduate and now use this text when teaching my own college course in sexual behavior. Dr. King's relaxed yet informative writing style make's it one of the few textbooks my student's don't seem to mind reading. It has a wealth of good information for anyone wanting to learn more about sexuality and sexual behavior.

Dr. King's human sexuality texts (any of the editions) are very good learning tools. They're very no nonsense and easy to understand, some things it it are very alarming to say the least, there's graphic pictures of STDs, some of the material can be disturbing as the book does review fetishes and sexual abuse cases. I had taken Dr. King's class the semester before he retired. I was rather inspired to direct my path towards sex therapy after taking his class. thanks dr king!

I recently had Dr. King's class at the University of New Orleans during the Spring semester of 05, his class is the best! I enjoyed every minute of sitting through his lectures! He's is a great professor and a great writer! Keep up the good work!

The book arrived in timely manner. Also, the book was in good condition
thanks

I had to use this textbook when I took Dr King's Psychology class at the University of New Orleans (Spring '06). I found it to be a very informative eye-opener. Dr King presents information in a clear, concise, just-the-facts way, yet it doesn't read like a 'boring old textbook.' The information really makes the reader think twice about the West's cultural, historical, and scientific perspectives on the nature of sexuality.

Read this book, for a class or personal education or whatever reason. At the very least you'll come out with some interesting facts about human behavior, but more likely you'll change your entire perspective on human sexual behavior.

Birth Control For Christians: Making Wise Choices by Jenell Williams Paris (Associate Professor of Anthropology, Bethel College, St. Paul, Minnesota) is a book of facts and choices, presented without judgmental overtones, written expressly to inform Christians of all denominations about the various means of birth control. A fertility awareness instructor with Fertility Awareness-Twin Cities, Paris expertly examines the pros and cons of behavioral methods, barrier methods, hormonal method, IUDs, and male and female sterilization -- however, abortion is not discussed extensively since Christian denominations generally oppose it. Birth Control For Christians: Making Wise Choices is a highly recommended resource on the subject of family planning and birth control technologies for all interested Christian couples.

This book was a wonderful way to resolve many of the questions my fiance and I had about birth control. As a Protestant Christian, I felt that there was a lack of information on birth control--I had taken Natural Family Planning classes through a local Catholic parish, but was hoping to find some counsel that combined both the medical perspective and the moral/religious aspect in a way seperate from the specific teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Paris' book was extremely helpful in my questions and concerns. I would highly recommend this book!

This book was invaluable, and I feel that it should be a gift to every engaged Christian Couple.

This books looks closely at the Biblical and moral issues of all the methods of birth control out there. You will walk away feeling informed and empowered by this book! Very well written and easy to read, but incredibly thorough, and well researched. Very solid theological explanations througout to help you make decisions that you can feel right before God about.

As a newlywed, this book has been very helpful. A few months into our marriage, I began to question the form of birth control we had chosen. A friend suggested this book, and I am so happy she did. Paris explains in clear language so many things about birth control, ovulation, anatomy, and sex that I didn't know before. The questions at the end of each chapter sparked conversation between my husband and I about issues we had not discussed before. While Paris writes from a moral Christian standpoint, the book is written in a frank practical way, not overly spiritual. Paris raises moral questions, but allows the reader to come to his/her own conclusions. This book has helped us to come to a point of feeling confident and comfortable with our choice of birth control, and it has also informed us of other methods we may want to consider later in our marriage. I would highly reccommend this book to anyone who has questions about birth control, especially those who are newly married or preparing for marriage.

This book exposes the fear that is at the heart of the modern reproductive rights movement: fear of female reproductive power. We need a women's movement that allows us to be ourselves, instead of a women's movement that demands that we chemically castrate ourselves. Angela Franks points the way to a new women's movement that is based on what is truly distinctive about women. We need to celebrate motherhood, not fear it. Angela Franks shows that Margaret Sanger and her movement were strongly eugenic, and feared too much reproduction by people they considered unfit. The women's movement has never recovered.

I can't say enough good things about this book. Angela Franks does a wonderful job exposing with thorough research how Margaret Sanger tainted the women's movement with an insidious agenda. Feminism should work to protect the vulnerable; instead feminists have joined forces with the population controllers to oppress low-income women in the U.S. and third world countries, all in the name of "reproductive health." It's hard to see how women can have a "choice" when they are subjected to forced abortions and sterilization. Shame on feminism for allowing Margaret Sanger and her cronies in the eugenics movement to advance their agenda under the guise of freedom and justice. Unfortunately the agenda of Planned Parenthood is engrained in our contraceptive culture.
This book is a must-read for anyone in the pro-life movement, whether your concern is eugenics, embryonic stem-cell research, contraception, abortion, euthenasia or the death penalty.

Those who're interested in this book might also want to check out a newly released book, Lady Eugenist: Feminist Eugenics in the Speeches and Writings of Victoria Woodhull and a companion book that will soon be released, Free Lover: Sex, Marriage and Eugenics in the Writings of Victoria Woodhull.

In her 1938 autobiography, Margaret Sanger noted that "Eugenics, which started long before my time, had once been defined as including free love and the prevention of conception." Eugenics and free love was a reference to Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for President (1872), for a time a fierce advocate of free love, and a life-long advocate of eugenics and state-controlled child rearing. In 1927, in what was perhaps Woodhull's last public statement, she praised Buck v. Bell, a US Supreme Court decision declaring forced sterilization constitutional and, according to the New York Times, told a reporter that she had "advocated that fifty years ago."

The two books mentioned above present detailed evidence that one of the nation's leading feminists was advocating eugenics, then called stirpiculture, in the 1870s, three decades before Francis Galton took up the cause in earnest and four decades before it acquired a significant following in Margaret Sanger and others. That demolishes the argument of those who claim that feminists such as Sanger only adopted eugenic rhetoric because the movement was too powerful to ignore. When Woodhull took up eugenics, she was virtually the only public figure in the U.S. speaking on the topic. She 'mainstreamed' an issue, controlled human breeding, that had previously only been discussed by strange utopian cults on the American frontier, such as the Oneida Community.

The historical reality is that, far from being united in defending 'reproductive freedom,' certain groups of well-connected and powerful women have been some of the strongest proponents of the government limiting the birth rates of women they consider "unfit" or inferior. (You see this in their sneers at 'stay-at-home' mothers.) Newspapers noted that Woodhull attracted those sorts of women in the 1870s-90s when she advocated eugenics. They continued to do so when Charlotte Perkins Gilman promoted negative eugenics in the 1910s, and when Sanger did so with her birth control movement from 1917 on.

Woodhull's speeches and pamphlets also demonstrate that there is a close connection between those who want to control who can have children and those who want to limit the rights of parents to rear their children after they are born, as illustrated by a recent Ninth Circuit decision denying the right of parents to protect their grade-school children from sexual questions. These are most emphatically not people who believe in protecting anyone's "privacy."

--Michael W. Perry, Seattle
Editor of The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective by Margaret Sanger
Editor of Eugenics and Other Evils by G. K. Chesterton

TIME magazine called Margaret Sanger one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century, saying that "her crusade to legalize birth control spurred the movement for women's liberation." While many remember her advocacy for birth control, few remember or give due consideration to the eugenic philosophy that drove Sanger and her allies in the birth control, and later population control or "family planning" movements. This book corrects that significant historical deficit.

In this book, Franks shows that any concern Sanger had for women's rights was secondary to her larger agenda -- helping to create a better race by controlling the fertility of those she saw as society's least "fit" members -- the poor, the disabled, the "feebleminded," the sickly, the epileptic, the alcoholic, etc. Where persuasion worked, that was fine, but as Franks points out, Sanger and her allies were prepared to use coercion when they felt it was necessary to achieve their eugenic aims.

Franks traces what she identifies as the "control movement" from its earliest days in the 1920s when sterilization programs began to spring up in Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina, and later California to the 1990s when U.N. "family planning" money helped support forced sterilizations and abortions in China. Along the way, she identifies the key players, policies, and programs that helped to mainstream many of the ideas that the world once found so abhorrent in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

There are those in our modern PC culture that might be tempted to dismiss such charges, but this book is thorough and well documented, with over 1,200 footnotes and a bibliography featuring about a thousand books, articles, and interviews on Sanger, her associates, and the organizations they founded and led.

The tone is academic, but the language is generally accessible, so that both scholars and activists alike will benefit from the reading of it.

Despite Sanger's celebration as a liberator of women and the feminist hagiographies that have been written of Planned Parenthood's founder, Franks argues that Sanger's eugenic ideas are antithetical to freedom and to true feminism, aiming to suppress precisely what it is that makes women women.

Sanger certainly had enormous influence, but before deciding whether that influence was good or bad, one would be well advised to read this book.

Pliny (23-79 AD.) "If a man makes water upon a dog's urine he will become disinclined to copulation." (Yeah, but what about the Dog?) He also suggests that; "If a woman's loins are rubbed with blood taken from the ticks upon the back of a black wild bull, she will be inspired with an aversion to sexual intercourse. (Yes, and so too, the tick gatherer, and tick blood spreader - I would imagine.)
This book The Pill by Bernard Asbell besides being full of useful and energizing information is more than interesting. It is a social as well as a religious experience. One thing is for certain - trying not to have babies has been going on for centuries; thank God.

I almost couldn't put this book down and read it in a few days. Asbell does a really good job of making the story of the Pill at once comprehensive and entertaining. He develops all the various characters involved in the story: priests, scientists, activists, doctors, funders of research and ordinary citizens in a way that makes gives you a sense of familiarity with their personalities and psychologies. He shows how risk taking, serendipity, and passion led some to succeed and left others virtually anonymous. He gives fair treatment to many of scientific disputes that went on during the invention of the pill and introduces us to the future of contraception. The way he describes science is very accessible and also honest; he does not idolize scientists or science and shows the pitfalls involved in research.
I don't think I fully appreciated how revolutionary the Pill was before I read this book. It has made me much more grateful and informed about the options I can now make. He presents the story with the gravity it deserves.

A wonderful account of the scientific, medical, political and social contexts surrounding the research and development of the oral contraceptive pill...something I realize that we take for granted and revolutionized our view of ourselves and our way of looking at the future.

This is a pretty good book and doesn't deserve to be out of print. The author's writing technique isn't scintillating but the book is very readable nonetheless. I was a little disappointed by the lack of biochemical details of how the pill works but other readers may see this as a blessing. The book does a superb job of making the people involved come alive. The descrption of a pre-birth control pill world which is unimagable to most people is simiarly excellent.

I have struggled my entire marriage with disabling feelings of shame, guilt regarding sex. In counseling I was able to use this book to pin-point the specific things that were bothering me, and with specific information I was able to approach my husband in a way that he was able to understand that he wasn't to blame and to change his methods to be supportive to my healing. We're both committed to life-long marriage, but this book may have saved our relationship.

Men who are loooking to give their spouces fullfilment in all aspects need to read this. It has helped us in our mariage.

My wife and I have used this book in working with the Penners and were able to transform our sex life from having problems to a fun filled and exciting time that has brought us much closer
together in our total marriage

This book is very thorough and offers great step by step guides to enhancing sexual intimacy among married couples with many biblical references. Great book and unbelievable resource. Still a work in progress.