Natural Family Planning International

God’s Plan for Me

Things happened in my life that I didn’t realize were part of divine providence until way after the fact.  One step led to another.  Now I see God’s hand in these events.

A good marriage
First, I believe a good Catholic marriage was important for my ministry.   I look back at my childhood friends on the block.  A friend across the street and one friend who lived two houses up from our home had no siblings.  I only had one sister.  We were all Catholic.  Two Catholic families a short distance from our home, one up the street and one down the street, had three children whom we occasionally played with.  It wasn’t until high school that I became close to a friend from a large Catholic family.  I was impressed with this family and later wondered if this is why I longed to have a lot of children when I became a mother.

As graduation from college came closer to reality, many of my classmates were engaged.  Realizing that if I wanted children, I needed a husband, I began to pray earnestly for that.

Early in my college years I decided to date only good Catholic men.  If I became interested in someone and he wasn’t Catholic, we quit seeing each other.  Oftentimes I had male friends but the relationships were platonic.   With prayer and putting a little effort into it (I joined the Catholic Alumni Club in San Francisco), I met John prior to my graduation in 1962.  John forgets this, but at the end of our second date, he asked me if I wanted children.  The answer was “Yes.”  Then he asked me if I wanted a lot of children, and even how many.  We became engaged on All Saints Day in Church after Mass and married the following April.  We had eight pregnancies—five live births and three miscarriages.  I am forever grateful that the Lord brought us together.

A good science background
In my work, familiarity with science and medical journals would prove to be an asset.  How I ended up attending school at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco is a miracle in itself.  I never desired to go to college in those days.  My dad’s philosophy for his two daughters was that we should go to college for one year because he believed we should experience what college is like, that we wouldn’t feel inferior.  To encourage us to attend college, he would pay the tuition for the first year. If we wanted to go to college for additional years, then we were entirely on our own financially.

During the beginning of my junior year of high school, I was playing in a tennis tournament at Pasadena Community College.  Mother Wilfrid, principal of Mayfield School in Pasadena, liked tennis and came to watch me play that day.  She talked to my dad during the match about my attending Mayfield School.  My dad said that the only thing he could afford was the summer and winter uniforms. Mother Wilfrid offered me a scholarship to her high school.  The school was run by the Sisters of the Holy Child and taught girls from wealthy families.  In this atmosphere tennis was a popular competitive sport.  I took my first plane ride when I  competed on this school’s team!

The reason I bring this up is because every graduate from this school went on to college.  So I did.  But I soon agonized about what I wanted to do with my life.  After all, at college you are there for a reason, especially when you are paying for it.  I finally made my decision.  From then on I went from poor and average grades to all As in the science courses I had to take.  I did so well in organic chemistry at UCLA that my professor sent me a postcard asking why I didn’t become a chemistry major.  I was rejected from the University of California in San Francisco, however, due to my earlier grades.  That soon changed with the improved grades.  I received a notice saying that I was now the first one on the list for acceptance and most likely I would be entering next fall.  I was elated.

It was at this university (San Francisco Medical Center) that I was required to do assignments using the medical journals at the library.  When I became a mother for the first and second time and had many concerns about what was involved with natural child spacing, I made a quick trip to San Francisco and headed for that medical library to begin my research.  God was behind all of this.  He knew the steps I needed to take in order to be a disciple in this area of breastfeeding and natural child spacing.

To be continued next week.

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding

In June 1971 Dr. Otto Schaefer and his friend, Dr. Jack Hildes, presented a paper at the Circumpolar Health Symposium in Finland (Oulu, June 1971; Unpublished.  Acquired through O. Schaefer.).  They compared the fertility rate of the older Eskimo mothers who had nursed traditionally to the younger women who bottlefed.  The older women were 30 to 50 years old; the younger women were 17 to 29 years old.  When did these women conceive?  The older women conceived 20 to 30 months postpartum due to traditional lactation while the younger women conceived 2 to 4 months postpartum due to the bottle and shortened lactation.  Both doctors state that the Eskimos extended infertility was due to prolonged breastfeeding. This natural population control of breastfeeding, in their conclusion, “has been largely destroyed by the consequences of urbanization” (Ibid).

In 1981 Dr. Schaefer spoke at a women’s conference in Pangnirtung.  It was attended by native Arctic women from many places.  Their one complaint was having too many children (G. Hankins, Sunrise Over Pangnirtung, p. 182).  The women had lost the natural spacing of births due to traditional breastfeeding.  The traditional family size used to be 3 to 4 children.  Dr. Schaefer taught that the larger Eskimo family was “one of the consequences of giving up breastfeeding” (Ibid, 182).

While Dr. Schaefer was a strong promoter of natural child spacing, he also recorded the many diseases that accompanied the introduction of the bottle.  In Dr. Schaefer’s opinion, “breastfeeding had a greater influence on the life and health of infants than any other single factor” (Ibid, p. 179).   He worked hard to spread the truth about breastfeeding to the common Eskimo people and others.

Next week:  God’s Plan for Me

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding

Dr. Otto Schaefer

Through his reading when a young boy of eight living in Germany, Otto Schaefer dreamed of living in the Canadian Arctic.  As a medical doctor his dream was fulfilled.  In a book titled Sunrise Over Pangnirtung (The Arctic Institute of North American, 2000),  Dr. Gerald Hankins tells the fascinating story of this doctor who spent 32 years studying the Eskimos (or Inuit as they liked to be called), recording all his observations in his notebook, and even learning their language.  His research resulted in over 100 publications, and he won many awards and honors toward the end of his life.  He was outspoken about his concerns for the Inuit and about the negative impact the western ways had upon these people and their families.  His favorite topic was breastfeeding.

During his early days in Canada, Dr. Schaefer spoke highly of formula.  “In time, however, he realized he was quite wrong; thereafter, he could not keep quiet.  From his studies and surveys of health and nutrition in infants from many Arctic centers, he had ample evidence to support his views” (Ibid, p. 179).   He observed the bottle-fed baby who “lacks the intimate mother-child bonding and closeness” (Ibid, p. 171).  Schaefer saw another reason for the Inuit to go back to the traditional custom of breastfeeding for three years.  Prolonged breastfeeding “provided an effective type of birth control: the natural contraceptive action of lactation allowed for a desirable spacing of children” (Ibid, p.180).

Dr. Schaefer wrote and spoke frequently about the effect of breastfeeding upon fertility.  In 20 years he saw the Inuit experience a population explosion.  In just ten years the increase in the birth rate went “from less than 40 births per 1000 in the mid-1950s to 64 births per 1000 ten years later” (O. Schaefer, “When the Eskimo Comes to Town,” Nutrition Today, November-December 1971, p. 16).   A 60% jump!  In fact there was a “direct relation to the mileage of the family from the trading posts.  The shorter the distance, the more frequently they had children” (Ibid).  In his opinion:

“There is a clear relationship between the increasing use of bottlefeeding and the shortening of lactation.  This important point is usually overlooked in searches for explanations of the population explosion seen in developing countries (Ibid).”

More on Schaefer’s work next week.

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding