Ecological Breastfeeding spaces babies naturally. No periodic abstinence is required for this form of Natural Family Planning. I first learned about this in 1964 and wanted to learn more. I was excited to begin my research on natural child spacing in 1966 at the University of San Francisco Medical Center library. I continued my research in 1968 at the public health department library in Regina, Saskatchewan. For fun and for this series of blogs, I reviewed all the research I collected up through 1968. Here are the totals: 1 study in 1895; 2 in the 1930s; 6 in the 1940s; 7 in the 1950s; and 14 from 1960-1968. All these papers dealt with the effect of lactation upon the reproductive cycle. These papers dealt with full or mixed breastfeeding, but none of them dealt with the maternal behaviors which we have found are important for natural spacing. We teach these behaviors with the Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding. These Standards will be discussed soon in this series of blogs for World Breastfeeding Week. The published research for each Standard or behavior required for natural spacing is in my book, The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor. It is a short book, easy to read and costs little. We give the book free to every couple who attends our local NFP classes in Cincinnati.
The daily blogs for this World Breastfeeding Week will focus on the research showing that a long absence from menstruation can occur for certain breastfeeding mothers. Why? Because a certain type of breastfeeding continues to keep the reproductive system at rest.
Because this information has been made available since 1969 through our books and our NFP apostolates, we are amazed that this information is ignored by most of those in the Natural Family Planning movement as well as by the Church and the government.
In 1983, Daniel T. Halperin covered this topic for his master’s thesis: “Infant Feeding in Honduras: Mixed Feeding, Child Spacing and some Policy Implications.” He was a strong promoter of natural birth spacing through breastfeeding. He was exposed to parents and health workers in Honduras who laughed at the idea that breastfeeding could space babies. “Neither of three family planning officials with whom I spoke believed that lactation had significant influence on fertility.” Yet the women in Honduras said they would prefer “two years or more” spacing. This culture, however, favored bottles, pacifiers, early solids, and practices which cause fertility to return early. Most parents were Catholic and feared “the widely-reported physical dangers associated with birth-control pills, IUDs, injections, etc.”
Mr. Halperin stated that while technological contraceptive devices work “against God’s will,” lactation and its child spacing effect are forms of the natural carrying-out “of His will.”
Tomorrow. Today we saw a Honduran culture where natural child spacing via breastfeeding was uncommon. Tomorrow we will see a culture where traditional breastfeeding does indeed space babies.
Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding