Natural Family Planning International

1) With both pregnancy and ecological breastfeeding, the mother provides continuous nourishment for her baby.

2) With both pregnancy and breastfeeding, the baby has close physical contact with the mother’s body.  After leaving the womb, a baby continues to receive much needed touch and close physical contact from the mother through the breastfeeding.  A baby has a need for his mother’s presence just as much as he has a need for her milk.

Just as babies were nourished and nurtured in the womb of their mother during pregnancy, so they were meant to be nurtured and nourished at their mother’s breasts after childbirth.

3) With both pregnancy and breastfeeding, amenorrhea is a natural condition.  God provided a natural baby spacer through nine months of pregnancy and many more months of breastfeeding.  In His wisdom, God knows mothers need a break—both physically and emotionally.  Unfortunately most mothers do not know about ecological breastfeeding, and they nurse in such a way that their fertility returns soon after childbirth.  If 100 American mothers follow the Seven Standards of ecological breastfeeding, they will average 14.5 months without any periods after childbirth.

4) The most important point is that the oneness of mother and baby during pregnancy continues with the oneness of the mother and baby during breastfeeding.  This oneness of the nursing mother and baby should be encouraged and protected both by society and by the Church.

Next week: The mother is irreplaceable.

Sheila Kippley

4) Breastfeeding helps the mother become a “gift of self” to her baby.
Breastfeeding helps a mother learn to put her baby first and to give of her time for the needs of her baby.  This learning process occurs in an easy and natural way.  God knows that mothers are very busy and can very easily ignore their babies.  His plan keeps bringing the baby back to the mother for food and comfort at the breast and in her arms.

5) Breastfeeding has some similarities to the marital act.
John Paul II has written in Love and Responsibility that in the sexual relationship between the spouses or in the marital act two orders meet: the order of nature which has as its object reproduction and the personal order which finds its expression in the love of persons.  Breastfeeding likewise has two orders that meet: the order of nature which has its object the completion of the reproductive cycle and the personal order which finds its expression of love between mother and child.

Both acts, the marital and breastfeeding, involve a communion of persons.  Both should involve the service of life and should involve loving fidelity.

By following the natural order, we mean that the mother uses her own God-given equipment—her breasts to nourish and comfort her baby, her arms, back or chest to carry the baby, and her lap and arms to hold the baby.  The mother remains physically close to her baby, follows the baby’s cues with regard to his hunger, his tiredness, his alertness, and his need to be comforted.  This natural type of mothering is called ecological breastfeeding.

6) Breastfeeding has some similarities to pregnancy.
In 2 Maccabees (Ch. 7, verse 27), a mother tells her youngest son  “I carried you nine months in the womb and nursed you for three years, and have reared you and brought you up to his point in your life, and have taken care of you.”  The care of this mother began in pregnancy and continued at the breast.  During pregnancy and breastfeeding, mother and baby are one biological unit.  The only difference is that after childbirth the baby has switched positions.

Next week: More on how breastfeeding is similar to pregnancy.

Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding

1) Breastfeeding is a pro-life activity.  
Breastfeeding provides many benefits—both emotional and physical—to mother and baby.  These benefits provide a fuller, healthier life for the baby as well as for the mother…now and later.  By later, I mean that years after the breastfeeding has ended breastfeeding is still providing benefits and thus is a true “gift of life.”  As Pope John Paul II said so well—breastfeeding “benefits the child and helps to create the closeness and maternal bonding so necessary for healthy child development” (“Breastfeeding: Science and Society,” May 12, 1995).

2) Breastfeeding is essential for life.
It is God’s plan for the child’s survival after birth.  There are only two acts that are essential for the continuation of the human race: the marriage act between husband and wife and the breastfeeding between mother and child.  God made both acts pleasurable and good to ensure the race would continue.  Unfortunately in our society, we can produce babies without mom and dad, and we can feed babies without the mother.  Thus, we tend to forget how important both acts are in maintaining life.

3) Breastfeeding is God’s plan for mother and baby.
Are we obliged to follow God’s plan for us?  Is breastfeeding a biological law that should be followed?  Certain encyclicals and writings by the Pope stress the importance of following or adhering to the biological law of our very nature.  For example, when reading Humanae Vitae, we are told in Section 11 that “God has wisely arranged the natural laws and times of fertility so that successive births are naturally spaced….and that the teachings based on natural law must be obeyed.”   One can argue that breastfeeding is the most natural form of baby spacing. By directly respecting the divinely ordained ecology, mother and baby indirectly postpone the return of maternal fertility.  On the other hand, periodic abstinence takes conscious effort.

Getting back to the encyclicals again, in Humanae Vitae, Section 31, we are told to “observe the laws inscribed on [our] nature by the Most High God” and that we must cultivate these laws if we are to be happy.

In The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II expresses similar thoughts.  In Section 22, he writes:  “There is a plan of God for life which must be respected.”  In Section 42, he tells us we are subject to the biological laws.  In Section 97, we are told to “respect the biological laws inscribed in [our] person.”

God’s plan for us with respect to breastfeeding should be given serious consideration and be followed unless there is a sufficiently serious reason not to breastfeed.

To be continued next week.

Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding