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Couples sought for family-planning study

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated Jul 16, 2010 05:08PM

University of Utah medical researcher Joseph Stanford is looking for couples to participate in a national study into the Creighton method of Natural Family Planning (NFP).

Stanford is the lead researcher for the study, which is being funded by the U.S. Office of Public Health and Science. It will be conducted at 13 centers that teach couples to use the Creighton method, including the nonprofit that Stanford is involved with, Intermountain FertilityCare in Salt Lake City.

The Creighton method teaches couples how to know when the woman is ovulating and likely to get pregnant through charting of her vaginal discharges.

Though the method also can be used by those trying to get pregnant, researchers are looking for 300 couples who are beginning to use it to avoid pregnancy.

It has been 11 years since the last in-depth study, and the data need refreshing, Stanford said.

Plus, this study will look specifically at a dynamic practitioners have noticed: that 20 percent of the couples using the Creighton method to avoid pregnancy will at some point in the first year begin, instead, to use it to conceive.

So far, 50 have signed up, none of them in Utah.

Participants will need to get training in the Creighton method, which costs about $295 in the first year depending on how many times the couple meet with a trainer, and roughly $30 to $60 each year after that.

Most of the data will be gathered online and participants will be paid a small stipend, Stanford said.

Kristen Moulton

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/49935011-80/method-couples-creighton-information.html.csp