As someone who is now pregnant due to half-assed birth control, I implore you to please be very careful when trying to improvise. In my case, I took a devil-may-care attitude with my birth control because I am in a very good position to raise and care for a child right now and I figured "it will happen when it happens." Still, my pregnancy was largely unplanned.

Without going into statistics, even chemical spermicide is not effective as a primary birth control method. It should be used in conjunction with a barrier method such as a condom or diaphragm. A condom with spermicide is pretty effective at preventing pregnancy. A diaphragm with chemical spermicide is only about 80% effective. So, I could only imagine that the effectiveness would diminish if used with a natural alternative.

If you want to avoid hormones and chemicals, try using a non-spermicidal condom--but make sure it is lubricated to avoid breaking. And it's always a good idea to track your ovulation so you know when your fertile days are. Most women ovulate about 14 days after the first day of their last period. So they would be considered fertile for a few days before and after ovulation. Many women who have regular periods and have tracked their ovulation for a few months have found this to effective. Still, ovulation day can be altered due to stress, travel, illness, etc... It's not fool-proof.

In the end, it's better to be safe than sorry, so be real careful.

I'd be afraid of the honey, myself. Things with sugars, natural or otherwise, can cause nasty yeast infections.

I'm with the others -- use lubricated condoms, even if you don't go for spermicide. I won't recommend birth control pills, since they can play some major havoc on your body.

Do a ton of research, no matter what you end up going with. You might, too, want to tell your doctor about the burning feeling and see if you can be recommended a gentler form of over the counter spermicide.

I bought that whole acidic environment crap from someone who was into "all natural" stuff....


She's 17 now and all of my other children are boys...

so if you want a girl...


& yeah, sugars + moist bodily environment = yeast growth

I wouldn't put a ton of trust into this yet. I live in Berkeley, CA and know that the University is still doing studies on this method. As far as I know it hasn't been proven to work.

and as for yer boy...get his balls in some hot water.

Simple wet heat in the form of hot water, which is inexpensive and available to everyone, was the first contraceptive heat method discovered by the scientific community. In 1946 Dr. M. Voegeli, after more than ten years of experimentation with nine male volunteers, reported on this method. Although time-consuming, the method was perfectly effective and resulted in normal offspring after cessation (Corea 1985, Chap. 9).

Voegeli's program for temporary sterilization is as follows: "A man sits in a [shallow or testes-only] bath of 116 degrees Fahrenheit for forty-five minutes daily for three weeks. Six months of sterility results, after which normal fertility returns. For longer sterility, the treatment is repeated" (Corea 1985, 179). Although some men could support temperatures up to 125 degrees, water at 116 degrees Fahrenheit was found to reliably produce at least six months of sterility (Voegeli 1956).

Voegeli, a Swiss doctor practicing in India, taught the method to Indian men during famines between 1930 and 1950 (Segal 1962, 347). During that twenty-year period the doctor reported no substantial adverse side affects (Voegeli 1956).

The simple wet heat method in use today is not substantially different from what Voegeli developed in 1921, although various alternate combinations of temperature, time and heat source have been studied. More research needs to be done in this area. For example, hot packs or heating pads may work instead of hot water, and treatment at a lower temperature with a booster treatment every three weeks may be effective (Kandeel & Swerdloff 1988). Sun-baked rocks can even be used in areas where fuel and water are scarce and gathering them places a significant strain on women. In areas with higher incomes or with government support, men can have their infertility confirmed with a sperm count check.

Some might consider Voegeli's method inconvenient. However, it lasts six months, is separate from the sex act, appears to be safe and effective, and is readily available to everybody. Challenges to its implementation are that 1) not enough research funds have been directed towards this "folk" method to accumulate the huge body of evidence of safety that is required of a "new" method, and, more importantly, 2) since money can be made only from creative applications of the method (not from patenting the method itself), no large pharmaceutical firms will sponsor it (Segal 1988). Both of these problems could be solved by backing and research efforts by government and non-profit agencies.

In 1949, Voegeli began a twenty-year campaign to publicize the heat method so that, if the results of further studies were favorable, the method could be widely used (Corea 1985, Chap. 9; Robinson et al. 1968). Her attempts to publicize it were generally unsuccessful, although in 1954 the Japanese government requested the information and conducted several successful experiments (Corea 1985, Chap. 9).

fertility awareness + comdoms during fertile periods are about the best 'natural' birth control method ive found.

check out the book 'taking charge of your fertility' - knowing when your are fertile can be a bit of work, at least at first id reccomend taking temperature, checking cervical mucus, charting cycles, the whole 9 yards.