Natural Family Planning International

Even without Ecological Breastfeeding the mother is irreplaceable, but it becomes more apparent with an extended pattern of breastfeeding.  Here is what John Paul II says about the mother.  “Women can never be replaced in begetting and rearing children….Women as mothers have an irreplaceable role.” (11th General Assembly of the Pontifical Council of the family, 1984)

“Children have a right to the care and concern of those who have begotten them, their mothers in particular.”  In other words, the baby has the right to be cared for by its mother (“Women, Wives, and Mothers,” Family and Life, January 1995).

“Mothers have an irreplaceable role.” For the mother “to abandon these tasks in order to take up paid work outside the home is wrong from the point of view of the good of society and of the family when it contradicts or hinders these primary goals of the mission of a mother”…[The goals for the mother are to give care, love and affection to her children so that they] “may develop into responsible, moral and religiously mature and psychologically stable persons” (On Human Work, September 1981).

In speaking of that irreplaceable role of the mother and the right for the baby to be cared for by its mother, how does God provide for this?  How does God in his wisdom ensure that the baby receives this kind of care?  The answer is breastfeeding during the early years.  In May 1995 the Pope recommended at least two years of breastfeeding.  How many Catholics know that?  Not many.

Sheila Kippley

First, both acts are necessary for the survival of the human race.  Both acts involve loving voluntary relationships.  The love between husband and wife brings forth a child and the love of the mother through breastfeeding ensures the child’s survival after birth.  Both acts are meant to be pleasurable so that the husband and wife will want to come together and so that the mother will remain committed to the task of breastfeeding.

Both are associated with the reproductive cycle.  The marital act puts the reproductive cycle at rest once a child is conceived.  The cycle remains at rest (no more cycling) while the child grows in the womb.  The reproductive cycle, by nature’s norm, continues to remain at rest with frequent and unrestricted breastfeeding by the mother.  According to nature’s norm, to have menstruation return within three months postpartum would be an exception—not the norm.  To go one or two years without cycling after childbirth is normal for a mother doing ecological breastfeeding.

In Love and Responsibility, Pope John Paul II has written that in the sexual relationship between the spouses, 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 the persons.  I submit that breastfeeding also has two orders that meet: the order of nature which has as its object the completion of the reproductive cycle, and the personal order in which it is an expression of love between mother and child.

Next week: Ecological breastfeeding and the mother being irreplaceable.

Sheila Kippley

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