Natural Family Planning International

What every woman, man, and Catholic bishop and priest need to know about God’s plan for spacing babies.

Ecological breastfeeding is that form of nursing in which the mother fulfills her baby’s needs for frequent suckling and her full-time presence and in which the child’s frequent suckling postpones the return of the mother’s fertility.  The Seven Standards of ecological breastfeeding are necessary to experience breastfeeding’s natural infertility.

Researchers have studied cultures which use no contraceptives or abortion and in which the babies are naturally spaced about 44 months apart.  Their secret: the frequent nursing.  Dr. Otto Schaefer studied the Canadian Eskimos and discovered through their prolonged lactation that the traditional Eskimo family size was three to four children.

What do some of the researchers say?
“Throughout the world as a whole, more births are prevented by lactation than all other forms of contraception put together.”  Dr. R. V. Short, Scotland, 1976

“Breastfeeding offered more protection than all methods of contraception combined.”  Dr. Peter Howie, United Kingdom, 1986.

God’s plan for spacing births should be a prominent teaching of the Catholic Church and all churches involved with family ministry.  Sadly, despite years of research and solid evidence, this benefit is rarely taught.

Let’s change that!

Tomorrow: Mothers give witness to natural child spacing.

Further reading: The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor.  Both Catholic laity and clergy should read Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood.  It applies the papal Theology of the body to the bodily activity of breastfeeding.

Book Sale:  30% off Kippley books in print at lulu through August 7.

Sheila Kippley

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What every woman, man, and Catholic bishop and priest  need to know about God’s plan for spacing babies.

God has a plan for mother and baby after birth.  It starts with breastfeeding.  The mother’s breastfeeding provides nourishment and nurturing for the baby.  As a result both members of this symbiotic relationship receive many benefits.  In our manual, Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach, we list 27 benefits to the baby and 8 benefits for the breastfeeding mother.  Some benefits—for both parties—occur years after the breastfeeding has ceased.

One of the benefits known for years which has been ignored, and continues to be ignored by many in the Catholic Church and other religious bodies, is natural birth spacing with ecological breastfeeding.

Ecological breastfeeding is described by the Seven Standards.  These Standards are maternal behaviors that affect, one way or the other, the frequency of nursing that is associated with an extended natural infertility.  Those who practice ecological breastfeeding will, on the average, go 14 to 15 months after childbirth without menstruation.

According to nature, extended breastfeeding amenorrhea is the norm.  Some eco-breastfeeding mothers will have an early return of menstruation after childbirth but this is the exception.  With eco-breastfeeding, only about 7% of mothers will have an early return prior to six months postpartum, well over half will still be in amenorrhea at 12 months postpartum and one-third will still be in amenorrhea at 18 months postpartum.  The research has been done.  The conclusion from all the research done in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and more recently is that frequent breastfeeding does space babies.

Tomorrow: ecological breastfeeding in other cultures

Further reading: The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor.  Both Catholic laity and clergy should read Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood.  It applies the papal Theology of the body to the bodily activity of breastfeeding.

Book Sale:  30% off Kippley books in print at lulu through August 7.

Sheila Kippley