1) Breastfeeding is a pro-life activity.
Breastfeeding provides many benefits—both emotional and physical—to mother and baby. These benefits provide a fuller, healthier life for the baby as well as for the mother…now and later. By later, I mean that years after the breastfeeding has ended breastfeeding is still providing benefits and thus is a true “gift of life.” As Pope John Paul II said so well—breastfeeding “benefits the child and helps to create the closeness and maternal bonding so necessary for healthy child development” (“Breastfeeding: Science and Society,” May 12, 1995).
2) Breastfeeding is essential for life.
It is God’s plan for the child’s survival after birth. There are only two acts that are essential for the continuation of the human race: the marriage act between husband and wife and the breastfeeding between mother and child. God made both acts pleasurable and good to ensure the race would continue. Unfortunately in our society, we can produce babies without mom and dad, and we can feed babies without the mother. Thus, we tend to forget how important both acts are in maintaining life.
3) Breastfeeding is God’s plan for mother and baby.
Are we obliged to follow God’s plan for us? Is breastfeeding a biological law that should be followed? Certain encyclicals and writings by the Pope stress the importance of following or adhering to the biological law of our very nature. For example, when reading Humanae Vitae, we are told in Section 11 that “God has wisely arranged the natural laws and times of fertility so that successive births are naturally spaced….and that the teachings based on natural law must be obeyed.” One can argue that breastfeeding is the most natural form of baby spacing. By directly respecting the divinely ordained ecology, mother and baby indirectly postpone the return of maternal fertility. On the other hand, periodic abstinence takes conscious effort.
Getting back to the encyclicals again, in Humanae Vitae, Section 31, we are told to “observe the laws inscribed on [our] nature by the Most High God” and that we must cultivate these laws if we are to be happy.
In The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II expresses similar thoughts. In Section 22, he writes: “There is a plan of God for life which must be respected.” In Section 42, he tells us we are subject to the biological laws. In Section 97, we are told to “respect the biological laws inscribed in [our] person.”
God’s plan for us with respect to breastfeeding should be given serious consideration and be followed unless there is a sufficiently serious reason not to breastfeed.
To be continued next week.
Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding