Teenagers & young women
It can teach girls from their first periods how their cycles work, and help them recognize when a cycle isn't following a normal pattern — especially useful for irregular cycles, unusual bleeding or other concerning symptoms.
Whole-cycle health
Creighton Model FertilityCare™
A standardized way to learn the language of your own cycle — for achieving pregnancy, avoiding pregnancy, or simply understanding your reproductive health.
What is the Creighton Model?
The Creighton Model FertilityCare™ System (CrMS) is a standardized method of observing and charting the naturally occurring biomarkers of a woman's menstrual and fertility cycle. With professional instruction, a woman learns to recognize when she is fertile or infertile, and couples can use that information to achieve or avoid pregnancy.
But the chart can become much more than that — it can become a health record. Changes and patterns in the cycle can provide information that helps a trained FertilityCare Practitioner and physician investigate reproductive or gynecologic concerns.
Who can benefit?
Women with heavy or painful periods
Charting documents patterns of bleeding and other cycle biomarkers that can offer useful information when investigating heavy periods, painful periods, PMS, abnormal bleeding or other gynecologic concerns. Charting doesn't diagnose these conditions — medical evaluation may still be needed.
Women with irregular or unusual cycles
Creighton doesn't require perfectly regular cycles. It can be learned even when cycles are irregular, anovulatory, postpartum, breastfeeding, or changing after stopping hormonal contraception.
Couples trying to conceive
The system identifies the naturally fertile times of the cycle, so couples can time intercourse appropriately when trying to achieve pregnancy — and it can help highlight patterns associated with infertility that may call for further medical evaluation.
Couples wanting to avoid pregnancy naturally
Couples can use the fertility information to identify fertile and infertile times and make informed decisions about whether to achieve or avoid pregnancy. Reported effectiveness for avoiding pregnancy ranges from about 96.8% to 99.5%, depending on the measure and how consistently it's used.
Postpartum & breastfeeding women
The system adapts to different reproductive stages, including postpartum and breastfeeding, when cycles can look very different from a woman's usual pattern.
Women experiencing fertility or hormonal concerns
Charting provides longitudinal information about cycle patterns and biomarkers that can be useful alongside medical care for concerns like PCOS, abnormal ovulation, progesterone-related issues, infertility or recurrent miscarriage. NaProTECHNOLOGY physicians may use the chart as part of their evaluation.
Women approaching perimenopause & menopause
You don't stop needing to understand your cycle as you get older. Creighton can be used through perimenopause, when cycles become unpredictable, giving you a structured record of what's happening hormonally and reproductively.
“Creighton isn't simply a method for avoiding pregnancy. It's a way for a woman to learn the language of her own cycle.”
That knowledge can be used to achieve pregnancy, avoid pregnancy, understand your fertility, recognize changes in your cycle, and build a meaningful reproductive health record you can share with appropriately trained medical professionals.
A FertilityCare Practitioner teaches and interprets the charting system — they don't diagnose or medically treat conditions. When a concerning pattern appears, the right next step is evaluation with a qualified healthcare professional, including a NaProTECHNOLOGY-trained physician when that kind of care is desired.
As a FertilityCare Practitioner intern, I work with the Saint Gianna Center. Click here to see their page.