Natural Family Planning International

John and I have sometimes been accused of promoting breastfeeding only for spacing babies.  Not so.  Those persons have not read our material.  Last week we mentioned a mother who breastfed primarily to avoid ovarian cancer. There are multiple good reasons to breastfeed and especially to do Ecological Breastfeeding because the benefits are frequently dose-related.

Mother and baby are one during pregnancy and remain one after birth because of the breastfeeding.  God has provided many benefits for both mother and baby,   and often these benefits last after the breastfeeding has ceased.  We published last week that the benefit of reducing ovarian cancer with a certain duration of breastfeeding lasted 30 years after the breastfeeding ceased!  Wow!

Another study published in Pediatrics this year, (AAP News, April), involved 217,112 children under the age of two years in 35 low and middle-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.   Principal finding: A longer duration of breastfeeding significantly reduced the mortality rates.  The researchers stated that “682 children’s lives could have been saved if each mother had breastfed her baby for 6 months.” 

They also calculated what their study would mean for a developed country like the United States: exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months followed by continued breastfeeding “for at least 12 months of age with the addition of solids could save 721 infant lives annually.”  Interestingly, 492 of those lives lost were calculated to be due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Once again, research-based evidence demonstrates the power of breastfeeding in saving lives. 

Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding

A fertility awareness organization recently promoted the benefits of having natural cycles because they were trying to discourage women from using hormonal methods of birth control.  Never mentioned were the benefits of having a natural absence of cycling due to breastfeeding.

Many women who have used a pattern similar to ecological breastfeeding have gone months and months without cycling, and they are very healthy for having done so.  These women may experience a few cycles between pregnancies, and some women may experience quite a few cycles before they are able to achieve pregnancy while breastfeeding.

God’s plan involves a close relationship between mother and baby through breastfeeding.  Breastfeeding meets the needs of the baby, especially the need to be close to his or her mother.  Ovulation is delayed with this natural feeding, and a breastfeeding mother may go 1 or 2 years—and occasionally a few go 3 years—without menstruation.  This is a natural occurrence and is God’s plan for nurturing both mother and baby and for natural birth spacing.

I mention nurturing of the mother because breastfeeding-related hormones help a mother to feel good about being needed in this way.  A friend’s relative had all kinds of problems; as a result her children were neglected.  My friend had to get those children to school and was concerned about their breakfast, etc.  This situation, however, improved greatly when the relative was breastfeeding. God knows that mothering is real work and provides hormones to help.

The option for spacing births through breastfeeding is too often ignored by the Church and by our culture.  With an emphasis on money and careers and little on mothering and family, the push is for mothers to leave their babies and go back to work. 

I realize that some new mothers have a serious economic need to work soon after childbirth.  Still, our government and Church need to promote the benefits of breastfeeding—both short-term and long-term—for mother and baby.  They also need to teach the option of natural child spacing as a breastfeeding benefit.

Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding