Archive for 2017

Natural Family Planning: The Role of Menstruation as a Fertility Awareness Method

Sunday, October 1st, 2017

Within the current NFP Movement, more attention needs to be paid to the value of menstruation (or menses) as a marker of fertility and infertility among mothers who are breastfeeding. While this is very important among mothers doing Ecological Breastfeeding, it is also significant for all breastfeeding mothers.

There are two studies at our website that looked at the relative infertility of the time before a breastfeeding mother’s first postpartum period.  In 1895, Dr. Leonard Remfry found that only five percent of breastfeeding mothers became pregnant before their first period. In 1971, Dr. Konald A. Prem, working with La Leche League breastfeeding mothers, found that six percent of these mothers became pregnant before their first period. (Since today’s fertility awareness was unknown in Dr. Remfry’s time and not widely practiced in Dr. Prem’s time, I assume that the women in these studies did not practice fertility-based periodic abstinence from the marriage act.) To put that in terms of current “effectiveness” terminology, that means that breastfeeding-in-general has a typical-use delayed fertility effectiveness of 94% prior to the first postpartum menstruation. That compares favorably with the typical-use rate of today’s common forms of fertility awareness.

What are recognized fertility awareness methods? Two Day Method, Standards Days Method, rhythm, monitoring devices, mucus, temperature, and cervix. Sometimes the Lactational Amenorrhea Method is included. But ecological breastfeeding is ignored and so is menstruation.

With contemporary Western cultural breastfeeding, the first menstruation will occur very early, sometimes within a few weeks postpartum. The situation is significantly different among mothers following the Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding.  Our research found that these mothers will experience an average of 14.5 months of breastfeeding amenorrhea with a range of both shorter and longer durations.  Two recent breastfeeding surveys illustrate this well. An Italian mother experienced 37 months of postpartum breastfeeding amenorrhea, and a French mother went 16 months with breastfeeding amenorrhea. The Italian experience is at the far end of the spectrum of duration; the French experience is just a month more than the average. In both cases, the mothers regarded this first period as a sign that fertility was returning

In a regular cycle, menstruation is usually a sign of infertility and fertility. At the end of a cycle a woman can be infertile up until the heavy flow ends. Once menstruation lightens, we know fertility will return sometime in the near future of that cycle..

The bottom line is this: Relying solely on the first postpartum menstruation as a sign of returning fertility is a Fertility Awareness Based Method of Natural Family Planning. By “solely” I mean that the couple is not practicing fertility-awareness-based abstinence or any form of contraception. This has almost no significance for mothers doing Western cultural breastfeeding because fertility returns so soon. However, for couples doing Ecological Breastfeeding, this abstinence-free type of Natural Family Planning can be significant.

All couples have a right to learn these things. It is a basic principle of psychology that a person is not free to make a choice for something good unless he knows what it is. That’s why I think the Church should make sure that all engaged and married couples learn the Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding. That choice should be theirs, not that of a bureaucracy.

For the eco-breastfeeding mother, the long absence of menstruation is a sign of infertility and the return of menstruation can be a sign of returning fertility. In this sense, menstruation is a fertility awareness-based method.
Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor
All studies mentioned in this blog can be found at the NFPI website.

4. Why Believe? by J. F. Kippley

Sunday, September 24th, 2017

Why believe what the Catholic Church teaches?
At the Last Supper Jesus promised three times that the Holy Spirit would guide the Apostles and their successors into the fullness of the truth:
“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you” (John 14:26; see also John 15:26; 16:12-15).
I believe that Jesus keeps his promises.

Why believe in Jesus?
     I believe that Jesus is worthy of belief because of His resurrection from the dead.  That is not true about any other religious leader.  St. Paul was emphatic: “…and if Christ has not risen, vain then is our preaching, vain too is your faith (1 Cor 15: 12-19.)  The apostles—ordinary folks, not dreamers or religious fanatics—went to their deaths witnessing that they had seen and eaten with the Resurrected Christ.
It is vitally important to realize in our hearts that God really does love us and that His commandments are for our good.  Then we will want to love Him in return and say “Amen” to the Last Supper  words of Jesus, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Replies to two common questions.
     Conflict between the Catholic faith and science?  Not true.  The Catholic Church founded most of the ancient European universities.  A list of Catholic scientists would be very long indeed.  For example, the pasteurization of milk is named after its developer, Catholic scientist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895).  There is no contradiction between the Catholic Faith and true science.
     Moral evils by churchmen?  Of course.  Ordination does not eliminate free will and temptations.  For what the Faith looks like in practice, look at the lives of the recognized saints and also the millions of Catholics who do practice what the Church teaches.

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I wrote this brochure initially for prison inmates who asked for help to respond to attacks on their faith.  It probably has much wider applicability.   © 2017 John F. Kippley

Permission is hereby given to download single copies for free. Additional copies may also be downloaded without charge provided they are distributed for free.  See http://www.nfpandmore.org/brochure.shtml .

3. Why Believe? by J. F. Kippley

Sunday, September 17th, 2017

Forms of belief in God.  As former atheist Anthony Flew showed, there is more than one form of belief in God.  Is God just the great Watchmaker who designed and created the universe and takes no active interest in it, or is God very much more?

     Deism is belief in a God who created the universe and then left it alone except to energize it.  God is the first cause and the sustaining cause of the universe.  Period.

     Theism is belief in a God who not only created the universe but guides it and intervenes in it.

     Polytheism is belief in many gods—a god for war and a god for peace, a god for good weather, a god for health, etc.  This is common in the ancient pagan religions.

     Judeo-Christian theism is belief in the One God who is not only our Creator but who actually loves each individual man and woman, not just “mankind,” and who wants us to love Him.  Furthermore, this One God has intervened in human affairs as told in the Judeo-Christian history.  Easter celebrates as a real historic fact the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Deism or the God of Revelation?

As a believing Catholic, I believe that God loves his entire creation. I believe that God loves you and me and each one of us and that he has revealed His plan for our eternal happiness.  I believe that His commandments are from His love and are for our good, not His.

I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God in many different kinds of language.  I accept the first 11 chapters of Genesis as parable-like accounts that reveal extremely important truths about creation and our relationship with our Creator, similar to the parables of Jesus.

I believe that God entered human history with the call of Abram whose name He changed to Abraham as a sign of the Covenant.

I believe that Jesus worked true miracles like those more recently worked at Lourdes.

I believe that Jesus is true God and true Man, the Christ, the Messiah foretold by the prophets in the Church of the Old Covenant.  In turn, the Lord Jesus founded the Church of the New Covenant upon Simon, son of John.  Just as God had changed the name of Abram to Abraham, so also the Lord Jesus changed the name of Simon to Peter (rock) as a sign of headship in the New Covenant.

To be continued next week.
Permission is hereby given to download single copies for free. Additional copies may also be downloaded without charge provided they are distributed for free.  See http://www.nfpandmore.org/brochure.shtml .