Natural Family Planning International

In 2007, 10 years later after the 1997 studies, another study drew strong criticism from the two-working-parent families.  The National Institute of Child Health and Development’s  “Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development” followed 1300 children since 1991.  Their conclusion: keeping children in day care for a year or more increased the likelihood that they would later become disruptive in class.

That same year a bishop in Germany discouraged daycare for little ones under three years of age.  Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg, Germany reacted to the government proposal to expand day-care centers to allow for the care of 750,000 children under the age of 3.  He said it encourages mothers to rush back to work and discourages them from raising their own children.  “Nothing can substitute love and physical contact with the mother which the newborn needs.”  Another cardinal, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, came to Mixa’s defense, saying daycare should only be used as a necessity in an emergency or for exceptional situations.  (Catholic World Report, April 2007, page 15)

I’ll conclude with a quote from a couple who once provided full-time daycare for young children.  In their book, The Day Care Decision, they wrote about their experiences:

“Full-time day care, particularly group care, is especially harmful for children     under the age of three.  For two years we watched day care children in our preschool/day care center respond to the stresses of 8 to 10 hours a day of separation from their parents with tears, anger, withdrawal, or profound sadness, and we found, to our dismay, that nothing in our own affection and caring for these children would erase this sense of loss and abandonment.  We came to realize that the amount of separation—the number of hours a day spent away from the parents—is a critical factor.”  (William and Wendy Dreskin)

A mother’s care during the early years of a child’s life is not only important but crucial for that child’s optimal development. Unfortunately this topic does not get enough treatment in our society. Too often women are told they can have it all at once: motherhood and a career outside the home.  However, it is very difficult to do both well.

Pope John Paul II in The Gospel of Life praised mothers who dedicated themselves to the daily task of raising their own children.  Sacrifices by both mom and dad are often made so that the mother can remain with her baby and can keep up the breastfeeding.  Such a mother is giving her baby the best “head start” for her baby.  Besides the physical benefits to both, more importantly the mother and baby normally thrive emotionally as well.

A Happy Father’s Day to all dads and especially to Dr. Bill Sears from Chinese parents all over the world.

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding
The Crucial First Three Years

“On the basis of years of research, I am totally convinced that the first priority with respect to helping each child to reach his maximum level of competence is to do the best possible job in structuring his experience and opportunities during the first years of life.”
—-Dr. Burton White, director of the Parent Education Center, Newton, MA; 1975.

“But let us think, for a moment, of the many peoples of the world who live at different cultural levels from our own.  In the matter of child rearing, almost all of these seem to be more enlightened than ourselves—with all our Western ultramodern ideals…Mother and child are one.  Except where civilization has broken down this custom, no mother ever trusts her child to someone else.”
—-Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, 1967.

“The breast was intended to bind the baby and his mother for the first year or two of life.  If we read the biological program correctly, the period of breastfeeding insured continuity of mothering as part of the program for the formation of human bonds…A baby who is stored like a package with neighbors and relatives while his mother works may come to know as many indifferent caretakers as a baby in the lowest-grade institution and, at the age of one or two years, can resemble in all significant ways the emotionally deprived babies of such an institution.”
—-Selma Fraiberg, professor of Child Psychoanalysis at the University of Michigan Medical Center, Every Child’s Birthright, 1977.

Note:  Fraiberg credits lactation as part of nature’s way to keep mother and baby together.  Many parents place their children in Montessori preschool and regular school.  How many of these parents listen to Montessori when she emphasizes that babies should receive only breast milk for the first 6 months of life and that mothers should nurse for 1.5 to 3 years because “prolonged lactation requires the mother to remain with her child”?

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding
The Crucial First Three Years

In the spring of 1997 new studies demonstrated that problem solving skills and reasoning are largely established by age one and that the single most important predictor of later intelligence, school success and social competence was based on the number of words an infant hears each day from an “attentive, engaged person.”  That person would naturally be the mother, and breastfeeding provides that one “attentive, engaged person.”

The 1997 discussion centered on the importance of the first three years of life and especially the first year of life when the infant’s brain is growing at a tremendous rate.  Breastfeeding is also the best nutrition for nourishing the infant’s brain.

As a result of this research Newsweek published a 1997 issue in which the entire magazine was devoted to the “critical first three years of life.” (Some of this research is in The Crucial First Three Years available at this website. See below.)  All the research during that year could be summarized by two points.
1) It showed the importance of a consistent caregiver.
2) It showed the importance of breast milk.

Needless to say, prolonged breastfeeding as God intended for mother and baby already provides both the consistent caregiver and the breast milk for the baby. God’s plan is so good!

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding
The Crucial First Three Years