“In my 30 years in Brazil, I saw many promising apostolates rise and then fall as they abandoned the charisms of their founders.”—Bishop Karl Jozef Romer, Pontifical Council for the Family, 2002 CCL Convention.
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Ecological Breastfeeding and CCL
The dropping of ecological breastfeeding
About three months ago, early in 2007, Andy Alderson, CCL’s Executive Director, called a CCL teacher and said that CCL is no longer using the term ”ecological breastfeeding.” The reasons given for this decision are that the term is only specific to CCL, no one has heard of it, and it is not respected in the medical community.
During this phone conversation Mr. Alderson added that there is no moral underpinning for breastfeeding. There is too much guilt felt by bottlefeeding mothers, so Fr. Virtue’s writings on this subject will be dropped.
Has anyone heard of ecological breastfeeding?
First, let’s examine the allegation that no one has heard of ecological breastfeeding or eco-breastfeeding outside the CCL circle. That certainly piqued my curiosity so I searched on Google and Yahoo. That day (April 16, 2007) I found 107,000 Yahoo hits and 350,000 Google hits for ecological breastfeeding and 1600 Yahoo hits and 711 Google hits for “ecological breastfeeding” in quotation marks. I found 20,900 Yahoo hits and 123,000 Google hits for the Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding and 34 Yahoo hits and 36 Google hits for “Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding” in quotation marks.
At the 2006 CCL Convention, attendees were told that the Roetzer breastfeeding rule or method will be taught in the new CCL program. Thus, I searched the Internet for those subjects. On April 16, 2007 I found 36 Yahoo hits and 46 Google hits for the Roetzer breastfeeding rule and 86 Yahoo hits and 294 Google hits for the Roetzer breastfeeding method without quotation marks. On two different dates I placed quotation marks around the “Roetzer breastfeeding rule” and the “Roetzer breastfeeding method” and found zero hits at Google or Yahoo. It is clear that eco-breastfeeding is much more widely referenced than is the Roetzer breastfeeding rule and/or method which can be used for only the first three months postpartum. It doesn’t make sense to say that eco-breastfeeding was dropped because only those in CCL have heard of it when even fewer have heard of the alternative.
One CCL teacher had written that eco-breastfeeding would not be used because “it confuses the general population.” If eco-breastfeeding is too unknown or too confusing to the general population, what about the Billings method, the Ovulation method, the Roetzer method or even the Sympto-Thermal Method (STM) or our online Cross-Check Method? What new student has heard and knows anything about the Lactational Amenorrhea Method? All of these are unknown to the general population and therefore possibly confusing. But all of them are understood once explained.
Additional support: In an October 2005 secular women’s magazine, an article pooh-poohed the idea that breastfeeding spaces babies. Toward the end of the article, however, the author wrote that there is one form of breastfeeding that actually does space babies—and it’s called ecological breastfeeding. The author did a good job of summarizing the Seven Standards. The Seven Standards of eco-breastfeeding were also promoted in a La Leche League article, “Breastfeeding and Fertility” by Christine Foster (New Beginnings, Sept/Oct 2006).
The scientific community
I don’t know how Mr. Alderson surveyed the medical community, but if ecological breastfeeding is not respected therein, that puts it in the same boat with systematic NFP.
Furthermore, I am happy to report that ecological breastfeeding has gained respect in the scientific community. H. William Taylor, Ph.D., a former CCL field representative and former CCL teacher, wrote in his doctoral dissertation that our 1972 report on ecological breastfeeding had stimulated many years of research. Our initial research was published in two scientific journals; one of those, Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing, is still available today. Dr. Taylor has researched primarily ecological breastfeeding in addition to other related breastfeeding issues and has published his work in at least seven different scientific journals.
Is there an obligation to do what’s best for our kids?
Mr. Alderson said there was no moral underpinning to breastfeed.
In 1994 Fr. William D. Virtue’s dissertation resulted in this priest claiming that “the testimony of the Magisterium and moral experts confirms that it has been the constant teaching of the Church that there is a serious obligation of maternal nursing” and resulted in his 1995 book, Mother and Infant. This obligation is not mortal-sin serious, but it is not trivial either. It is a positive obligation. “The natural law obliges mothers to nurse their babies with their own milk.” (All italics in the quotes given here are Fr. Virtue’s emphasis in his 1995 book.) Apparently Fr. Virtue’s work will no longer be referenced in CCL’s future writings.
How does CCL explain the dropping of the previous CCL teaching regarding an obligation to breastfeed? There seems to be an indication, according to a reliable witness, that CCL is saying that both breastfeeding and bottlefeeding nourish and nurture an infant. If there is a further explanation, I have not heard of it.
The timing of this new announcement by the Executive Director of CCL is truly ironic. Just when the U.S. federal government has embarked on an unprecedented evidence-based campaign that stresses a maternal obligation to breastfeed, CCL abandons the notion of obligation. The federal government had tried a purely positive approach and found insufficient results, so now it is trying to make parents feel appropriately guilty if they deliberately place their children “at risk” by choosing not to breastfeed. At risk for what? At risk for a variety of unhappy effects, mostly physical health, some quite serious, both short-term and long-term. For more information on the new federal campaign, see my article, “Born to be Breastfed,” published by the Diocesan NFP Ministry (USCCB Forum, Winter/Spring 2007, p. 7-10) or it can be read easily at http://www.nfpandmore.org/bfarticles.shtml.
The winter 2007 issue of INFACT Canada newsletter stated: “It is estimated that at least 720 infant deaths could be prevented in the United States each year if breastfeeding practices were improved” (p. 5). That means that better breastfeeding could save at least two babies a day in our country. In addition, numerous diseases of both baby and mother are reduced by breastfeeding. This is demonstrated in my above article and my latest book, Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood.
This issue highlights a significant difference between the founders of CCL and its current management. When we first read Fr. Virtue’s work on breastfeeding, his emphasis on the serious obligation to breastfeed made a big impression. We asked him for clarification. By “serious” did he mean “mortal sin” type of obligation? No, he replied, but he wanted to make it clear that this obligation to do what is best for your child is not a trifle. So we brought his insights into the Fourth Edition of The Art of Natural Family Planning. Now, we understand, the CCL current management has decided to abandon any obligation talk.
In an interview Fr. William Virtue said: “While we should be sensitive to those mothers who must go to work, or are unable to nurse, it is also vital to affirm the norm God teaches in the ‘book of nature.’ When women have an opportunity to do other things, it’s tempting to give up motherhood and leave the baby in the hands of others. The basic principle of my book is that every woman need not be a mother, but every infant needs a mother. The focus is on the right of the infant to have a mother, his or her own full-time mother. By starting with the needs of the infant, we reason to the duties of the mother. It is a matter of justice. As the infant has a right to be born, to be cared for by his mother, and to be nourished by her milk, so she has corresponding obligations.” (Our Sunday Visitor, May 12, 1996)
Who does not agree that parents have an obligation to do what is best for their children within their parental abilities. In the face of all the evidence that breastfeeding is the best for their baby, how can anyone say there is no obligation to breastfeed? It just does not make sense.
Ecological breastfeeding and the Seven Standards: The principle of the Seven Standards is frequent and unrestricted nursing, not mother-baby closeness. You certainly can have mother-baby closeness without doing the Seven Standards, such as sleeping with an adopted baby or while bottlefeeding. The specific actions of a nursing mother are important if she is interested in the breastfeeding infertility that is part of God’s plan for mother and baby through breastfeeding. For example, the baby should sleep with his mother. This is important. Research shows that the baby who sleeps alongside his mother breastfeeds twice as often and nurses three times longer compared to the nursing baby who does not sleep with his mother (James McKenna, Tri-State Breastfeeding Advocates Conference, Cincinnati,
For those who want to learn more about ecological breastfeeding, go to Part 3 of the NFP How-To manual at our website. Pages 1 and 2 cover the importance of breastfeeding, our topic above. Most women who say eco-breastfeeding does not work have not followed the Seven Standards; the subject of why eco-breastfeeding infertility did not work is covered on pages 9 and 10 in Part 3 of the manual. (We have been getting excellent feedback on this section of the online manual.) The 14 pages of Part 3 on eco-breastfeeding can be downloaded for free.
The online manual covers everything one needs to know about systematic NFP as well as eco-breastfeeding. It is free, short (84 pages), and easy to understand. Couples are learning from this manual and teaching from it as well. The obligation to breastfeed is covered also at our website in the Question Box.
What do you think about all these changes at CCL? You are welcome to respond privately at our website below http://www.nfpandmore.org/contact.shtml or at this blog site.
Sheila Kippley
NFP International
www.nfpandmore.org
Author: Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood (Sophia, 2005)
Co-author: Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book (e-book
at this website, 2005)