H. William Taylor was an NFP teacher with his wife, Donna. They both wanted to promote ecological breastfeeding or natural mothering through research. Below are quotes taken from Dr. Taylor’s work dealing with breastfeeding amenorrhea. His work supports the Seven Standards of ecological breastfeeding.
The results [of this study] “indicate that supplementation and scheduling of breastfeeding, as well as episodes of mother/baby separation, all increase the mother’s chance of ovulating after childbirth.” (“Ovulation Rate after Childbirth: The Effect of Mother-Baby Closeness,” January 2, 1991)
“The analyses indicate that for women who nurse their babies for comparable total amounts of time each 24 hours, those with patterns of short, frequent bouts are less susceptible to early ovulation after childbirth than are those who nurse for longer bouts associated with longer inter-bout intervals…. The behavioural variables of a fixed nursing schedule, the introduction of liquids, nursing interval, frequency, and total daily nursing duration, in contrast, all do significantly affect the hazard of ovulation and, in our population, the length of the post-partum anovulatory interval.” (Post-partum Anovulation in Nursing Mothers,” Journal of Tropical Pediatrics, December 1991)
“’Mothers following the natural mothering program…bring their baby into bed at night so that nursing can take place there. A style of nursing develops whereby the mother takes clues from the baby and offers the breast before crying begins. In bed, rooting and latching onto the breast takes place without either mother or baby fully waking. The mother who gets up at night to nurse her baby and then puts her back in a crib (which may be in a separate room) may be behaving so as to hasten the return of her ovulatory cycles…..Results..indicate that supplementation and scheduling of breastfeeding, as well as episodes of mother/baby separation, all increase the mother’s chance of ovulating after childbirth.” (“Human Population Ecology,” 2nd Scientific Conference on Overpopulation, International Population & Family Association, June 10, 1995)
“Stated positively, when babies (1) sleep with the mother, (2) are held close to the mother’s body, and (3) accompany her everywhere, the resulting easy access to the breast may be a causative factor in the ecology of breast-feeding’s contraceptive effect.” (Continuously Recorded Suckling Behaviour and Its Effect on Lacational Amenorrhoea,”Journal of Biosocial Science, 1999)
“These observations lend credence to the claim that an intermittent pattern of short, frequent sessions is more effective for the continuance of postpartum amenorrhea than a dosed pattern of scheduled, long-interval sessions….The study shows that a style of lactation, which includes specific behaviors, is significantly associated with extended postpartum anovulation and amenorrhea.” (Survival-Time Analysis of the Postpartum Anovulatory Interval as Measured by Rise in Urinary Pregnanediol-3-Glucuronide in Lactating Women,” Proceedings of the 25th Annual International Conference IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, September 17-21, 2003)
In personal correspondence to me, he stated the following:
“When we eliminated mothers who returned to work outside the home, did not let their baby sleep with them at night, introduced solids before six months and nursed less than a median of 9 times a day in the first three months, we ended up with a group that might be said to follow the natural mothering norm. For these 55 mothers the median wait to their first menses was 15.9 months.” (May 27, 1998)
Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor