’Tis the season to be thankful. In keeping with the season, we would like to give special thanks to Dr. Konald A. Prem.
Our first knowledge of natural family planning came from a poor understanding of the rhythm method. As a high-school student, I played tennis with a woman in her late twenties who was getting married in the Catholic Church. She was informed by the priest that she and her future husband could use the rhythm method only if they had a serious reason to do so, that this method involved abstaining about a week in the middle of the cycle and, if you had a really serious to avoid pregnancy, you abstained for two weeks in the middle of the cycle. That was not the rhythm method and I hope no one follows such advice today. That was also John’s understanding of the rhythm method when we entered into marriage: that if you had a sufficiently serious reason for postponing pregnancy, you abstained a few days before and after Day 14 of the cycle. After all, everyone ovulated around Day 14, or so it was commonly thought by those who thought they knew. Again this knowledge was incorrect. We learned the rhythm method correctly some years later.
Our first accurate understanding of systematic natural family planning came from an article written by Dr. Konald Prem in a 1968 issue of Child & Family magazine. Soon after reading that article we moved to Salina,
Two years later we moved to the Twin Cities where Dr. Prem lived. I noticed that both he and I were scheduled to be on the same panel at the La Leche League Convention in the summer of 1971. We called him and scheduled a meeting to discuss what each would cover on the topic of breastfeeding infertility at the upcoming convention. But our primary purpose was to ask him about starting an organization to teach natural family planning to couples.
I had been closely associated with La Leche League (LLL). I had seen how the teaching of successful breastfeeding was spread by one ordinary mother teaching other mothers. I had started the first LLL group in Saskatchewan. Why couldn’t the same approach be applied to the teaching of natural family planning by ordinary couples? Dr. Prem was 100% supportive of this idea. In fact, he was enthusiastic. I remember him saying that he had been involved with other approaches through clinics and hospitals and these approaches eventually failed.
We began our first class at St. Odilia’s school in the St. Paul suburbs, a few blocks from our apartment, in the fall of 1971. We started with four meetings and the content of those meetings was very similar to what many couples learned through the years through the Couple to Couple League. To this program John brought the covenant theology, I brought the eco-breastfeeding, and Dr. Prem brought systematic natural family planning.
Dr. Prem also went beyond the call of duty by coming to every class that first year. Besides helping with the teaching, he reviewed the couples’ charts after class. John especially used Dr. Prem’s knowledge to learn the method well. John would say to Dr. Prem, “How did you know that couple was in Phase III tonight?” I remember Dr. Prem’s response to a couple who doubted they were in Phase III: he assured them they were in Phase III and said that if they had a baby, he would deliver it without charging.
For those interested in what materials we used to teach the classes, the visuals were us, a blackboard, and a single-page handout that the couples could take home with them. Dr. Prem used a slide program with charts. The mimeographed manual did not develop until after we moved to Cincinnati. The couples learned well.
A friend recently stated that she couldn’t understand all the trouble the current CCL is going through to make all its changes. As she said, “It’s so simple. Why change it?” It was simple then and that is why couples learned it well.
My thanks go to Dr. Konald Prem for encouraging us to start a national natural family planning organization and for his support of our teaching on the theology and the breastfeeding.
Most do not know that Dr. Prem did research on the effectiveness of breastfeeding as a baby-spacer, but never published it. I recently found a copy of his paper, and at present he is reviewing it. We plan to eventually place it at our website. We are also considering placing his Child & Family article at our website.
John and I thank him for his attendance at those first NFP meetings and for his review of each new edition of the manual that we published. There were others who helped by reviewing our work and we appreciate their help also. We had a policy of always sending out the manual to various experts and teachers before publication, another effort at quality control. Dr. Prem was always generous in giving of his time for this review work.
Some may have wondered why we call our rules the Kippley-Prem rules in our teachings and at our website. After reading this blog, I think you can begin to appreciate what Dr. Prem brought to the Couple to Couple League and now to Natural Family Planning International.
Without his enthusiastic support of “let’s do it,” we probably would have never started CCL or NFPI. Because of this doctor, about a half million couples have learned natural family planning, have enjoyed natural child spacing through breastfeeding, and have deepened their faith and their marriage. Thank you, Dr. Prem.
This January (2008) John and I will teach our first NFP classes for NFP International. We will again start with simple visuals or power point. We will be thinking of Dr. Prem as we begin again.
Interestingly, Dr. Prem and my husband share the same birthday, November 6th, a time of the year when they make it a point to talk to each other. Dr. Prem is now 87 years old. May God bless him and his wife abundantly at this time in their lives. And thanks, Dr. Prem, for your role in the natural family planning movement and in our lives and those of many others.
Sheila Kippley
NFP International
www.NFPandMore.org
Author: Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood (Sophia)
Natural Family Planning:The Question-Answer Book (e-book
at this website)