Price:
$12.95
Fertility Awareness
To use CycleBeads a woman simply moves a black ring over a series of color-coded beads that represent her fertile and low fertility days. CycleBeads help women understand how their bodies work and know when they can get pregnant and when pregnancy is most unlikely. They cause no side effects because the user never puts anything into her body.
Use CycleBeads for Birth Control or to Plan a Pregnancy
CycleBeads can be used for family planning both as birth control or to plan a pregnancy. To avoid pregnancy, a woman and her partner can choose to either use another method or not have sex on fertile days. To achieve pregnancy, a woman and her partner can easily determine which days she's most likely to get pregnant.
Highly Effective Family Planning
CycleBeads were developed and tested by the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University, which focuses on the development and testing of natural family planning methods. CycleBeads are based on the Standard Days Method, a natural family planning method. CycleBeads are easy to use, inexpensive, and they enable women to manage their fertility.
CycleBeads are a color-coded string of beads that represent a woman's menstrual cycle. Each bead represents a day of the cycle and the color helps a woman to determine if she is likely to be fertile that day.
The day a woman starts her period she puts the rubber ring on the red bead. Each day she moves the ring one bead, always in the direction of the arrow. When the ring is on the red bead or a dark bead, there is very low likelihood of pregnancy, so she can have intercourse on these days without getting pregnant. When the ring is on a white bead - Days 8 through 19 - there is a high likelihood of getting pregnant if a woman has unprotected intercourse.
Please note, the Standard Days Method, on which CycleBeads are based, works best for women with regular menstrual cycles that are between 26 and 32 days long. Women with cycles outside this range should use a different method of family planning.
Q. How can I determine if my cycle length is between 26 and 32 days?
A. A woman does not need a record of her previous cycles, but we ask a woman to answer a few questions that will help her or her provider to know whether or not she is in this range. These questions include:
Do my periods usually come about when I expect them?
When did my last period start?
When do I think my next period will start?
How many days are there between the day my last period started and the day I think my next period will start?
If you can tell by answering these questions that your cycles are likely to be between 26 and 32 days long, you can use CycleBeads. If you are still not sure, it would be a good idea for you to use the CycleBeads or a calendar for two or three cycles just to keep track of your cycle lengths. But you should not rely on this as a way to prevent pregnancy until you are sure your cycles are usually between 26 and 32 days long.
The Scientific Basis for the Standard Days Method, which CycleBeads is Based On
The Standard Days Method is based on physiological evidence that the woman’s fertile phase starts five days prior to ovulation and lasts through the day of ovulation. This fertile phase is related to the life span of the sperm, which can remain viable in the woman’s reproductive tract for approximately five days, and to the fact that the ovum can be fertilized for up to 24 hours.
The probability of pregnancy increases from 4% five days before ovulation to almost 30% just before ovulation, and decreases again to 8% on the day of ovulation. The probability of pregnancy is then virtually zero for the rest of the cycle.
Implications
If a woman doesn't want to get pregnant, she should use another method or not have sex on days 8 through 19 of her menstrual cycle. On the other hand, if a woman does want to get pregnant, these are the days when pregnancy is most likely.
