The Couple to Couple League is an international non-profit organization based in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, dedicated to teaching and promoting

Natural Family Planning Natural family planning (NFP) comprises the family planning methods approved by the Catholic Church and some Protestant denominations for both achieving and postponing or avoiding pregnancy. In accordance with the church's teachings regarding h ...

. Specifically, CCL promotes the sympto-thermal method of

fertility awareness Fertility awareness (FA) refers to a set of practices used to determine the fertile and infertile phases of a woman's menstrual cycle. Fertility awareness methods may be used to avoid pregnancy, to achieve pregnancy, or as a way to monitor gyne ...

, and also promotes exclusive and continued breastfeeding. CCL views natural family planning as "a way of life, not just a method of birth regulation", and includes moral and religious values from a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

point of view in its publications and classes.

History

The Couple to Couple League was founded in 1971 by John and Sheila Kippley, and lay Catholics, with the help of Dr. Konald Prem. The League was the first organization to teach a symptoms-based method of fertility awareness that relied on all three primary fertility signs: temperature, mucus, and cervical position. CCL has grown to be the largest natural family planning provider in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, teaching the sympto-thermal method to almost 8,000 couples in 2004. In addition to various chapters throughout the United States, CCL has a presence in 23 other countries. CCL focuses on countries where English or Spanish is an official language.

Structure

CCL has 16 paid employees, all working at their headquarters building in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2006, the financial rating organization

Charity Navigator Charity Navigator is a charity assessment organization that evaluates more than 230,000 charitable organizations based in the United States, operating as a 501(c)(3) organization. It provides insights into a nonprofit's financial stability, adh ...

gave CCL a 4-star (the highest) rating for "organizational efficiency", but due to several years of declining programming expenditures, they decided to give a 1-star rating for "organizational capacity". CCL recruits married couples who are current members of the organization as ''teaching couples.'' Teaching couples undergo training and a certification process at no further cost to themselves. Teaching couples are required to agree with and live by the moral and religious beliefs advocated by CCL. While teaching couples are volunteers who receive no compensation, their students are being charged a fee to cover materials used in the class, and a one-year membership with the Couple to Couple League. The membership includes a subscription to CCL's bi-monthly magazine and counseling or assistance in interpreting sympto-thermal charts. Classes normally contain moral and religious content, but teachers will sometimes honor requests for private classes with no religious information.

Publicity

CCL has volunteers called ''Promoters'' or ''Public Relations Representatives'' who work to increase the visibility of the organization. Like teachers, promoters are required to agree with and live by certain moral and religious requirements. ''Family Foundations,'' a bi-monthly magazine, is used both as a communication tool with CCL's current supporters and as an evangelizing tool. CCL also uses the Internet as a tool for spreading its message. In addition to ''ccli.org'', the url ''birthcontrol.org'' redirects to the organization's website.

Systems being taught

While CCL strongly encourages use of their sympto-thermal method, they also teach mucus-only and temperature-only systems. In addition, their materials contain information on a

calendar-based method Calendar-based methods are various methods of estimating a woman's likelihood of fertility, based on a record of the length of previous menstrual cycles. Various methods are known as the Knaus–Ogino method and the rhythm method. The standard days ...

and a proposal for a cervical-position only system. CCL believes that by teaching all these methods, couples have more freedom in choosing a natural method with which they feel most comfortable. CCL also teaches and promotes ''ecological breastfeeding'', a stricter variant of LAM. Like LAM, ecological breastfeeding provides guidelines for identifying and extending the natural period of infertility caused by breastfeeding. The Seven Standards of ecological breastfeeding were developed by Sheila Kippley. The first edition of her book ''Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing'' was published in 1969. CCL was recognized as an authoritative source of information on breastfeeding amenorrhea in a magazine published by

La Leche League La Leche League International (LLLI) () is a non-governmental, non-profit organization that organizes advocacy, education, and training related to breastfeeding. It is present in about 89 countries. The aim of the charity is to provide mother-t ...

, an international breastfeeding support organization. The popular

writer Katie Singer has written about the important role Sheila Kippley and CCL have played in conducting and promoting research on lactational amenorrhea.

Footnotes

External links

Couple to Couple League US home pageCouple to Couple League in the UK home page
{{Authority control Anti-contraception activists Non-profit organizations based in Cincinnati