AUSTRALIA:John Billings, founder of the natural contraceptive system known as the Billings Method, has died in a Melbourne retirement home, aged 89.
Marian Corkill, director of the World Organisation Ovulation Method Billings International (Woomb), said Dr Billings was surrounded by family when he died late on Sunday after a short illness. "He changed the understanding of fertility through the work that he has done," Ms Corkill said.
The Billings Method helps women identify their fertile and non-fertile states based on their menstrual cycle. According to the system, if a woman does not wish to become pregnant, sex is avoided when she is most fertile. In trials where the method was correctly applied, pregnancy rates ranged between 0 per cent to 2.9 per cent.
At the request of Australia's Catholic Marriage Guidance Bureau, Dr Billings and his wife, Evelyn Billings, began working on what was initially known as the Ovulation Method in 1953. In the 1970s, a committee of the World Health Organisation renamed it the Billings Ovulation Method.
The doctors spent more than five decades refining and perfecting the contraceptive method known as the Billings Method. Dr Billings travelled the world setting up teaching centres and training teachers to educate women and couples about the method.
Ms Corkill says the Billings Method is now taught in more than 100 countries including China, where it is the only natural fertility method accepted by the government.
"His work was incredibly important - it has had a global effect. Australia has given people around the world a much greater understanding of fertility and it has given couples the opportunity to use that knowledge in a natural way to achieve or avoid pregnancy," she said.
Dr Billings served with the Australian army in New Guinea during the second World War.
After the war, he studied in London and then returned to practice in Melbourne. He later became the head of neurology at St Vincent's hospital and, from the late 1960s until recent years, was the hospital's consulting neurologist.
In 1991 Dr Billings was made a member of the Order of Australia, an award which accords recognition "for achievement or for meritorious service". He also won a papal knighthood for his work.
He is survived by his wife, Evelyn, eight of his nine children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.