The Need
“After contraceptive use, breastfeeding duration is the major determinant of the birth interval length… In many countries the duration of breastfeeding is more important in determining the length of birth intervals than is contraceptive use.” (Becker, Rutstein, & Labbok, “Estimation of Births Averted due to Breastfeeding and Increases in Levels of Contraception Needed to Substitute for Breastfeeding,” J. Biosocial Science, 2003, 35: 559, 560)
It is noteworthy that these researchers did not stress that the best way to have a good birth interval was to practice systematic natural family planning (NFP). By systematic NFP, I’m referring to the natural method whereby couples use the bodily signs of the woman’s cycle to determine the fertile time. What the researchers are telling us above and what other researchers have been telling us for years is that breastfeeding can be an excellent way to space babies. (Past research is available at this website.) Breastfeeding is the strongest natural influence in spacing babies in an individual family and in maintaining a slow rate of population growth. As the researchers above stressed, in developing countries where contraceptive use is low it is rare to have birth intervals of less than two years, thanks to breastfeeding. They add: “Today [2003], it is clear that breastfeeding, as a major biological determinant of fertility return postpartum, contributes significantly to this interval” (Becker, Rutstein & Labbok, p. 559).
I am disappointed when the breastfeeding aspect of NFP is ignored at natural family planning events. When I attended an NFP conference in 2002, I picked up the literature from the various NFP groups and found that none of them taught anything about the spacing benefits of breastfeeding. The only organized programs I know of that give any serious attention to the form of breastfeeding that normally delays the return of fertility for over a year postpartum are those organizations founded by my husband and myself and now the Catholic Nursing Mothers League founded by Pam Pilch.
With systematic natural family planning, the couple deals with fertility on a regular basis with their cycles. Many of these couples abstain during the fertile time of each cycle to avoid pregnancy. With breastfeeding the couple deals with infertility. Breastfeeding couples usually enjoy a year or more of infertility, and thus abstinence is not an issue. Breastfeeding Catholics might practice abstinence for spiritual reasons during Advent and Lent or periodically at other times, but abstinence is not normally required for spacing purposes when a couple breastfeeds properly.
The key phrase here is “when a couple breastfeeds properly.” “Properly” means that the mother and baby are doing “ecological breastfeeding” that I will describe later. I use the term “couple” because a mom who is doing ecological breastfeeding definitely needs the support of her husband in a bottle-feeding culture.
What we need in our Church and in our society is a strong emphasis on breastfeeding and natural child spacing. Wouldn’t it be a teaching moment to have a conference on natural child spacing with speakers who have experienced this aspect of breastfeeding in their professional work or in their personal lives? There are still countries or areas where breastfeeding is a primary factor in family size. Couples from these countries would have much to share with us. At the 1994 Family Congress in Rome, a man from Africa told us at one of the workshops that the women in his area rely primarily on breastfeeding to space their babies.
Dr. Roger Short from the Department of Physiology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia contributed to the United Nations symposium report on Nutrition and Population Links – Breastfeeding, Family Planning and Child Health (Nutrition Policy Discussion Paper No. 11, May 1992). Dr. Short concluded:
“Since the dawn of civilization, we have been interfering
with breastfeeding. The rearing of infants on artificial foods
has been the largest uncontrolled clinical experiment ever
undertaken, and it is still going on, despite the disastrous conse-
quences. It has brought untold suffering, disease and death
to countless millions of babies. The erosion of breastfeeding’s
natural contraceptive effect has been a major factor in bringing
about the recent explosive growth of the human population.
There is no cheaper or more effective way of improving
maternal and infant health and lowering fertility, than the
promotion of breastfeeding.” (Ch. 4: Breastfeeding, Fertility and
Population Growth, p. 11; my emphasis in the quote)
While breastfeeding should be promoted for its many health benefits to mother and baby, in these series of blogs, I will direct my attention to the natural child spacing benefit of breastfeeding.
Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding