Archive for July, 2007

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Natural Family Planning: Breastfeeding’s Impact on Birth Interval

Sunday, July 22nd, 2007

God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws (Humanae Vitae, n.11).

To draw attention to Natural Family Planning Week (July 22-28, 2007), I am blogging daily on breastfeeding and natural child spacing.

My husband has blogs in honor of Humanae Vitae on July 23, 25 and 27 of this week at CUF’s new blog, www.cuf.org.

“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 say 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 whether they are fertile or infertile. What the researchers are telling us above and what other researchers have been telling us for years is that the most important form of natural family planning is breastfeeding. (Past research is available at our website.)

Breastfeeding is the strongest natural influence in spacing babies within 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, 559).

For me it is uplifting to hear a speaker rave about the mucus sign or the sympto-thermal method to couples, but, on the other hand, it is dismaying when the breastfeeding aspect of NFP is ignored at such events. When I attended an NFP conference in 2002, I picked up the literature of the various NFP groups and found that none of them taught anything about the spacing benefits of breastfeeding. The only organized NFP 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 headed up by my husband and me. A newly formed organization, Catholic Nursing Mothers League, also teaches eco-breastfeeding and natural child spacing.

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 often not an issue. Breastfeeding Catholics might practice abstinence for spiritual reasons during Advent and Lent, or periodically at other times, but abstinence is not 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 in these daily blogs. 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 natural child spacing so couples will learn how to use breastfeeding to space their babies. 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 life? There are still countries or areas where breastfeeding is the primary family planning method. 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 consequences. 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)

While breastfeeding should be promoted for its many health benefits for mother and baby, in this blog and the upcoming daily blogs for NFP Awareness Week I will direct my attention to the natural child spacing benefit of breastfeeding.

Tomorrow: A pioneering nurse

Sheila Kippley
NFP International
www.nfpandmore.org
Author: Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood (Sophia, 2005)
Natural Family Planning: Question-Answer Book (e-book
at this website, 2005)

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The Covenant Theology: Is It Helpful for Natural Family Planning?

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

Since I first began to enunciate the covenant theology of human sexuality in 1967, I have had little or no criticism from orthodox Catholics. Thus it was surprising to learn that Father Richard Hogan has pejoratively labeled it as deductive, objective, and principled and therefore irrelevant in a day when thinking is inductive and subjective. Not just once did he level those allegations in a public forum, but twice. I wrote him twice by email (12/05/2006 and 04/20/2007) and asked him to explain what he meant, but he has not replied. The irony of this dismissal of my work is that it was done in the context of promoting the papal theology of the body (TOB), a work that is commonly thought to be about self-giving love, i.e., charity.

Father Hogan is known as a defender of Humanae Vitae, and it’s not pleasant to criticize one of the few priests who have national reputations for upholding that teaching, but public accusations invite a public response. Father Hogan is also on the Board of Directors of the Couple to Couple League and apparently has a lot of the responsibility for replacing, in CCL’s new teaching program, the covenant theology of sexuality with his interpretation of the papal TOB. So, until Father Hogan lets me know what he means by his allegations of “deductive, objective and principled” etc., I don’t know what to think of his statements. Perhaps there is something to them. On the other hand, perhaps he has never looked seriously at the covenant theology of sexuality and doesn’t understand it, or perhaps his comments are simply that familiar form of promotion that starts with bashing one alternative instead of promoting another alternative on its own merits. He also said that the covenant theology of sexuality is “arguably” more difficult to understand than the papal TOB, a statement that strikes me as far off the mark.

In actuality, the covenant theology of sexuality is extremely easy to understand. It can be stated in 17 words: “Sexual intercourse is intended by God to be at least implicitly a renewal of the marriage covenant.” I suggest that the person who cannot grasp that the marriage act really ought to be a true marriage act may lack the capacity to enter into marriage.

It is also easy to explain. God invented sex, God has a plan for sex, and God has revealed that sexual intercourse is meant to be exclusively a marriage act. When husband and wife engage in the marriage act, they ought to be renewing the love and the lifelong gift of self they pledged when they married each other.

The covenant theology is realistic, and thus the words “at least implicitly” are important. They mean that the spouses do not have to be consciously thinking “I want to renew my marriage covenant with you” as they approach the marriage act. At the least, however, the spouses must not be acting against the love they pledged at marriage. The covenant concept helps spouses to see that the physical expression of their love for each other in the marriage act ought to express the caring love and commitment of their wedding day when they pledged their love “for better and for worse until death do us part.” That is, the covenant insight helps spouses to see that the sex act is not just a way to have sexual pleasure or just a way to try to have a baby. Adulterers and fornicators do the former and some unmarried folks do it for the latter reason. But married couples are invited to understand that the marriage act ought to express and renew the self-gift they made without reservation on their wedding day. The covenant concept gives meaning to the sex act. It gives unmarried persons a meaningful reason to postpone sexual activity until they are married.

I have written somewhat on this subject, and I invite you to read “A Covenant Theology of Sex” that was published in 1983. Or, if you want the long route, go to www.NFPandmore.org, then to NFP Resources, then NFP Articles, and as of this writing it’s the 17th item in the column. I hope you’ll keep going back for other articles as well.

How is the covenant theology of sexuality helpful for natural family planning? As mentioned above, this concept helps spouses to understand more fully the God-given meaning of the marriage act. It also helps them to understand why contraceptive behaviors are wrong. When we marry, we marry “for better and for worse” or we don’t marry at all. That means that if one or both of the spouses go through a wedding ceremony with the idea that “I’m giving this person exactly one year to meet my expectations or I’m out the door,” that’s not a marriage no matter how elaborate the ceremony. That sort of arrangement would be an invalid marriage, null and void from the beginning. It would beg for a legal divorce and declaration of nullity.

In the authentic marriage act, the spouses are implicitly saying with their bodily actions, “We take each other once again, for better and for worse.” But in the contracepted sex act between spouses, they are saying with their bodily actions, “We take each other once again, but definitely NOT for the imagined worse of possible pregnancy.” Such an action contradicts the “for better and for worse” of the marriage covenant. It pretends to be what it is not. Such pretense is dishonest, and therefore the act is objectively sinful. I believe that this is what Pope Paul VI had in mind when he wrote in Humanae Vitae that marital contraception is “intrinsically dishonest” (n.14).

The covenant concept is also helpful for teachers of natural family planning. They can ask, “When is having sex truly ‘making love’?” They can answer the question by explaining the Christian Tradition. First of all, the entire biblical Tradition teaches us that sexual intercourse ought to be exclusively a marriage act. Every other sexual act is condemned in the pages of the Bible. (For more on that, see Chapter 17, “Biblical Foundations,” in my Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality.) Second, within marriage, sexual intercourse ought to be a symbol of the self-giving love they pledged at marriage, a true renewal of their marriage covenant. Third, the teacher can point out the content of the previous paragraph, namely, that marital contraception contradicts the “for better and for worse” of the marriage covenant and thus renders the action dishonest as a true marriage act –- and thus objectively sinful.

Sometimes it may be helpful to preface such an explanation by getting the agreement of NFP course attendees that not every act of sexual intercourse within marriage is automatically a true marriage act. The most obvious example is marital rape. Marriage is not a license to do any and every sexual act that can be imagined. It is not a license for one spouse to demand sex from a spouse who has a very good reason to refuse it. It is not a license to physically force a spouse into sexual submission. It ought to be a renewal of the caring, committed love pledged at marriage. If people agree that any one form of sex contradicts the marriage covenant, then in principle they agree that other forms of sex can also contradict the marriage covenant.

Explaining the sin of marital contraception in terms of dishonesty may have more effect with some than teaching that it is a form of lust. In our culture, it seems almost a point of pride to call oneself lustful or to be known as that by others, but I suspect that very few people like to think of themselves as dishonest or want others to think of them in that way.

In brief, the covenant theology of sexuality with its teaching that the marriage act needs to be a TRUE marriage act offers a platform from which teachers can more fully explain the true marital meaning of sexual intercourse. The fact that the marriage act is intended by God to be more than just a legal means for the release of sexual tension may come as a surprise to some engaged and married couples. Some may be surprised to learn that mutual masturbation and marital sodomy contradict the marriage covenant. Others may know this in their hearts but need to hear it clearly stated. Almost no one will be offended to learn that the marriage act really ought to reflect the covenant they made with God and with each other on their wedding day. On the other hand, it may be that few have previously connected their marriage covenant with the physical expression of that covenant in the marriage act.

It is, of course, necessary to flesh out such teaching with the gospel message of love. Whether engaged, newly married, or married a long time, we all need to be reminded that nowhere in the Gospel does Jesus tell us that loving is easy. If it were easy, would He command us to love one another? That this applies to loving one’s spouse is evident to anyone who knows anything about marriage.

In summary, NFP teachers who explain the evil of marital contraception in terms of the marriage covenant do their students a lifelong favor. Pope John Paul II incorporated the covenant renewal concept into his own teaching in his 1994 Letter to Families, (n. 12). The covenant theology of sexuality has not been rendered obsolete by the papal TOB; it remains a valuable tool for conveying the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church.

For further study about the relationship of the covenant theology and the papal TOB, see “John Kippley’s Covenant Theology of Sex” by Tracy Jamison at www.nfpandmore.org/fa_jameson.shtml.

Sheila Kippley will offer daily blogs on breastfeeding during Natural Family Planning Awareness Week, July 22-28.I will offer blogs dealing with Humanae Vitae on July 23, 25, and 27 at the blogsite at www.cuf.org.

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius, 2005)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, a short, readable, free and downloadable e-book available at www.NFPandmore.org.

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What’s Important for a “Successful” Marriage?

Sunday, July 8th, 2007

What do Americans think is important for a successful marriage? According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, only 41% of those surveyed thought that having and rearing children was “very important” for a successful marriage. This contrasted sharply with a 1990 survey that found 65% of respondents saying that children were “very important to a good marriage.”

Such published results beg for critical analysis and interpretation. For example, what is a “successful marriage”? What are the criteria for success? What were the questions? How were they asked? Were the respondents forced to make a ranking of various factors as first, second, etc. or could they rank every factor as very important, important, etc.? Could they balance factors or did they have to put one ahead of another?

Then there’s the problem of prior interpretation. I read about the Pew survey in a copyrighted AP story on CNN.com updated as of July 2, 2007. To what extent has the text of the original study been selectively edited along the way?

It appears that respondents had to rank various factors for their relative importance for a successful marriage. If success is defined as lack of conflict, then it is easy to understand why children were ranked in eighth out of nine places, behind “sharing household chores,” “good housing,” “adequate income,” “happy sexual relationship” and “faithfulness.” Any seasoned observer knows that difficulties and tensions come with children. Further, the normal challenges of raising children are aggravated today by constant reminders of how expensive children are. The usually quoted figures are astronomical and highly unrealistic for most families, but they contribute to the fear of having children.

The survey also found that by a margin of almost 3 to 1 the respondents said that the main purpose of marriage was the “mutual happiness and fulfillment” of the spouses as contrasted with the “bearing and raising of children.” Here it appears that respondents were forced to rank one above the other. The story did not indicate if they could rate them as equal purposes of marriage.

These survey results came from 2,020 American respondents via a telephone survey in February and March. Is any of this surprising? The article quoted Barbara Defoe Whitehead about the culture in which these respondents live. “The popular culture is increasingly oriented to fulfilling the X-rated fantasies and desires of adults… Child-rearing values — sacrifice, stability, dependability, maturity — seem stale and musty by comparison.”

Despite the problems inherent in the study and its editing, the survey may reflect contemporary culture fairly well. So what is to be done? One social critic said that the downgrading of the importance of children may reflect “America’s relative lack of family-friendly workplace policies such as paid leave and subsidized child care.” I have to wonder. They have those things in some of the European countries whose attitude toward childen is reflected in birth rates below the 2.1 replacement level.

So again, what can be done to help change contemporary attitudes towards having children?

First of all, it seems to me, we need to improve the cultural meaning of a successful marriage. Certainly we have to aim higher than the mere absence of conflict and tensions. How about a notion of success that measures the success of marriage by the criterion of helping each other on the path to eternal happiness with God? That would lead to some rephrasing of survey questions. How about this: “What factors are important for a successful marriage defined as one that prepares all family members to be welcomed by the Lord on the day of their earthly deaths?” Let’s modify the wording so that the children factor is listed as “having and raising children in the ways of the Lord Jesus.” Lastly, let’s give respondents the opportunity to list both purposes of marriage — the procreation & education of children and the total welfare of the spouses. Both-and instead of either-or. Actually, having a sufficient number of children is sociologically the most important because without a sufficient number of children the society will disappear.

Second, let’s hear from Christian pulpits all across the country the call to recognize that marriage is about family, that having children is not an option like having a ranch or a two-story house. How about hearing from the pulpit some words of congratulation and praise for parents of large families? How about hearing in pre-marriage courses, NFP courses, baptism courses, and from the pulpit that it’s morally wrong to use contraceptive behaviors? How about hearing that we need a sufficiently serious reason to use systematic NFP for avoiding pregnancy, that we are called to generosity not selfishness, that the two-child family as an ideal is a recipe for the destruction of society as we know it? How about hearing about ecological breastfeeding with all its advantages for baby and mother plus its natural spacing effects?

Third, let’s hear it from the pulpit every year that marriage really is for keeps. Let’s hear our priests remind us about the sins that lead to adultery and the breakup of marriages. Just today I learned of a father of several children who has been living adulterously for a year and has recently left his family and wants to marry or do whatever with the other woman, a mother of several children. What happened? I guess he found out that his spouse is imperfect. Well, of course his spouse and your spouse and every spouse is imperfect. He should have been looking at his own faults and counting his blessings instead of engaging in x-rated daydreams and behaviors.

The time is past when the leaders of the Church and society could take marriage and family for granted. I keep hearing over and over again from the pulpit that we are called to share the faith with others. How about our bishops, priests and deacons sharing the faith from the pulpit? Dear reader, how often have you heard from the pulpit that seeking after happiness, even in marriage, is illusory? that happiness comes not from seeking it but from seeking first the kingdom of God? And that this applies in every aspect of life including marriage? None of this is new. It’s all in the gospel. But to paraphrase Romans 10, how can people be expected to believe it if they don’t hear it preached to them?

The bottom line is that the answer to our family and other cultural problems is the Lord Jesus. We need to hear his teaching applied in specifics to these problems.

My thanks to the gentleman who asked me to comment on the study. You can find the AP article by clicking here.

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius, 2005)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, a short, readable, free and downloadable e-book available at
www.NFPandmore.org

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