“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
If you have wondered why I am writing these blogs, I make no apologies for saying that my primary reason for co-founding CCL stemmed from my interest in promoting ecological breastfeeding as a form of natural child spacing. For 35 years the advocacy and teaching of ecological breastfeeding as a form of NFP made CCL unique in the natural family planning (NFP) movement. It attracted couples who had never thought about breastfeeding. The practice of eco-breastfeeding also brought couples to the NFP movement. So it is understandable that I am disappointed with the new direction CCL seems to be taking.
Individual Reaction to the Likely Changes on Breastfeeding at CCL
Below are comments of individuals who have expressed their concerns about what appears to be a new direction of CCL with regard to eco-breastfeeding. Each individual’s comment(s) is contained within the lines.
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If CCL is dropping entirely the teaching of ecological breastfeeding with its extended infertility, this is truly a step backwards.
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That the term “ecological breastfeeding” has not been generally adopted by the medical profession cuts no ice with me. All the more reason to promote it. If we adopted what the majority of doctors think, we would be promoting contraception, abortion, etc.
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Your blog is sorely needed.
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I have seen your blogs. Please keep them up.
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Several friends and I miss “the old CCL.” I found it interesting during our conversation some months ago that several friends had individually come up with that phrase. We miss the type of support from the old Family Foundations. My husband and I really appreciate all that you and John sacrificed and worked on to help couples see the beauty of God’s plan for marriage and family. What you both wrote resonated with us and made a lot of sense. It’s what we have tried to do for our family. We wrote CCL a long while back regarding breastfeeding and the new materials. CCL’s new approach doesn’t resonate with us beyond Church teaching, but I pray that CCL will be able to reach a lot of couples with it.
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I will do everything I can to continue to promote ecological breastfeeding. CCL also said they doubt that very many people use ecological breastfeeding to space their babies anyway, but I can tell you from experience that almost every woman I know who uses NFP has used ecological breastfeeding once she was made aware of it and loved it!!
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EEEEEEYYYYYYYAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
I AM RUNNING SCREAMING FROM THE ROOM!!! I AM HOLDING MY HANDS OVER MY EARS!!! TELL ME IT’S NOT TRUE!!! TELL ME IT’S NOT TRUE!!!! Okay. I knew it was true. Or I suspected it from what I read. I just don’t want to face it. ;)USING a baby?! USING a baby? And anyway who nurses solely to suppress ovulation? It’s a blessing!! Charting and abstaining is so much greater?! Ai yi yi.
What do they mean in the objectives about how a breastfeeding mother could “use” her baby? Are they going to argue that doing ecological breastfeeding for natural child spacing is “using” the baby as an object? I’ve heard recently that you can try to push a baby to continue to breastfeed beyond the time the baby really needs to. This is not true. You cannot make a baby nurse. Babies need to nurse. Continuing to nurse them frequently is good for them and the natural-child-spacing effect is a good benefit for both baby and mother.
I know tons of people who space their children only through ecological breastfeeding. I am one of them. Do we do it ONLY for the child spacing effect? Of course not! So then all the arguments about improving your relationship and your sex life through the practice of NFP “ONLY” to delay fertility make charting and abstinence illegitimate? CCL is now only about periodic abstinence and their advocacy of breastfeeding is just more of the culturally mainstream “breast is best but…” message.
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I have been saddened that CCL will be replacing the term ecological breastfeeding with either exclusive or extended (I am not sure at this point which they will use). The whole point of ecology is necessary and their argument that it hasn’t been taken in by the medical community is of no concern. Many things have not been taken in by the medical community—specifically NFP itself and we have not thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
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It doesn’t make too much sense to say that breastfeeding could ever be irresponsible. It doesn’t make sense that choosing to breastfeed in order to space children is irresponsible and a form of using the baby as an object. Wouldn’t bottle-feeding a baby, for no matter what “responsible” reason, be more prone to abuse than breastfeeding? I am no philosopher and so I must keep these matters on the practical level. I sense that the author behind these statements is not much of one either.
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NFP without breastfeeding (and LAM) as an integral component seems an oxymoron.
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This blows me away!
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That makes me very sad.
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I read this and I am stunned. Interesting that just when everyone is getting on the breastfeeding bandwagon they are getting off.
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This is terrible since they are missing the whole point that exclusive breastfeeding for six months is not only an NFP tool, it is a health issue for babies and mothers in this country. It seems that someone has not gotten the breastfeeding message that has been coming from Health Care Providers, the US government, HHS, etc. concerning the health of this nation. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. What can we do? Sigh!!!!!!
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I am very sad about this. I think it’s a HUGE mistake for them to drop ecological breastfeeding. Only ecological breastfeeding has the long-term infertility benefits, as research has shown. There are just some at the top making decisions who seem determined to completely turn the ship around and take it in another direction.
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How so very sad! It sounds to me like this is a way for someone who did not breastfeed to give themselves permission not to and to not feel guilty about it. I have many moms in my homeschooling group as well as my La Leche League group that have been wanting me to teach them a mini class on NFP and ecological breastfeeding. I have already printed out the info on ecological breastfeeding from your website.
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CCL wants to be in the NOW. They want the young clueless couple to “like” them. Instead of meeting couples where they are and then LEADING them to the truth, CCL wants to massage the truth to keep their numbers up and the memberships rolling in. They have become more like work projects for the employees and less like apostolates. To promote ecological breastfeeding is to promote mother-baby togetherness, and to promote mother-baby togetherness is to DEMOTE the validity of a two-income household with babies and young children. If you never LIVE cue-nursing and mother-baby togetherness, you are never going to EXPERIENCE lactational amenorrhea, and if you never experience lactational amenorrhea you aren’t likely to have that light-bulb moment where you realize BREASTFEEDING IS NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING!
For most of my married life I practically rolled my eyes at all the fuss over teaching the newly married mucus and temperature taking! Please teach them how to breastfeed and how to live off one income!!!! When a mother experiences lactational amenorrhea, she will want to learn systematic NFP for the time when she needs it.
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I was thinking how CCL is throwing out its emphasis on ecological breastfeeding. Therefore, Catholic Nursing Mothers League (CNML) is needed even more. Now CNML and NFP International are the only organizations promoting ecological breastfeeding.
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I am so sad that CCL has made this shift in philosophy. If breastfeeding and natural mothering is NOT the natural God-given plan for spacing human babies, may I seriously ask what is? Our bodies have a wonderful built-in plan already in place for spacing babies.
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Why does CCL say that breastfeeding cannot be considered NFP? In the training elsewhere, CCL defines NFP as ONLY the knowledge, and add the term “responsible parenting” to mean the APPLICATION of NFP “knowledge.” I need help sorting through this and to make sense of it!
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What nonsense! All this wishy-washy talk about responsible vs. irresponsible. Lord, have mercy! May Catholic Nursing Mothers League take over to spread eco-breastfeeding through all the parishes of America!
P.S. John’s article for New Oxford Review (March 2007) was excellent. We need such clear thinking more than ever!
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Astounding!
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Horrible! We did not expect this from CCL. We heard about the natural spacing of breastfeeding years ago; that was the first thing we learned about breastfeeding. So I guess we were interested in breastfeeding at first only for the natural infertility. And I guess that makes us irresponsible!
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It seems Catholic Nursing Mothers League is a true prompting of the Holy Spirit because God knew what changes would be made in CCL. It seems CCL is trying to modernize itself, so as not to offend anyone and their circumstances. Kind of like “I’m okay; you’re okay” sort of thing if that makes any sense to anyone.
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It seems that Mr. Alderson is saying that there is no moral obligation for a mother to breastfeed. If that is the case, I think we can be spinning wheels. If women were blessed with this gift and if it is so beneficial to children, family and mothers, why wouldn’t anyone use this gift from God?
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I’m not sure CCL should rush to change their position. You have served everyone so well for years. Yes, breastfeeding is part of God’s delay of fertility. It’s legitimate to “use” this; that’s not use of the person. You might as well say one shouldn’t “use” the monthly cycles of NFP to delay conception because NFP is “using” the person as fertility is part of the human person. (cf Humanae Vitae, n 10).
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You and John had made ecological breastfeeding a pillar of the CCL curriculum. Maybe a little comfort can be had in knowing that often “founders” have been at odds with those who have followed in their ministries. That said, since you and John have a good internet NFP course online, why not consider a completely electronic teacher training program to go with it? Getting the program approved by the USCCB is a real possibility.
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From Sheila:
A good outreach ministry is Catholic Nursing Mothers League (CNML) which promotes eco-breastfeeding with spiritual and practical support in the hope that mothers at the parish level will nurse their babies for at least one year. Many of you have had successful breastfeeding experiences, but statistics show that many breastfeeding mothers quit during the first few weeks after childbirth for lack of support. This organization is sorely needed in our parishes. CNML uses the Seven Standards for longer duration of breastfeeding as well as natural child spacing. This organization supports NFP and Church teaching and will give referrals to all NFP teachers in the area when a woman or couple need NFP instruction. Likewise, CNML will give referrals for breastfeeding-management problems. The facilitators of this organization are volunteers. This organization is in its beginning stage, but the founder, Pam Pilch, is encouraged by the interest shown by women who want to start chapters in their area or parish. For more info on CNML, go to www.catholicbreastfeeding.org.
This parish or religious approach is occurring in some Protestant churches where they have a “breastfeeding cafe” at church and mothers meet there once a week to discuss breastfeeding and its spiritual aspects and to offer support to breastfeeding mothers. In addition, there are two mothers who have written books on eco-breastfeeding for their faith; one is Protestant, the other is Mormon. Jenny Silliman’s Breastfeeding and Fertility book for Protestants is mentioned at our website (see “Not Just for Catholics” in the “and More” section of the Home Page). The Mormon mother, Celestia Shumway, believes that “it [eco-breastfeeding] and NFP are God’s way of family planning.” She is in the process of finishing her book on ecological breastfeeding and hopefully I will see a copy at the La Leche League Convention this summer. She and her husband are going to start an organization similar to the former CCL for the Church of Latter Day Saints for the promotion of eco-breastfeeding, systematic NFP, whole foods, leadership education, and their religion.
Among our fellow Catholics, there is also hope. One NFP director read John’s article in New Oxford Review on the USCCB’s “Married Love & the Gift of Life“, March 2007 and, you might say, she had a “conversion.” She became convinced of the importance of eco-breastfeeding as a form of NFP and decided to look for ways to incorporate the promotion of eco-breastfeeding into her program.
It is exciting to see such enthusiasm for eco-breastfeeding in these various endeavors.
Sheila Kippley
NFP International
http://www.nfpandmore.org/
Author: Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood (Sophia, 2005);
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book (e-book
at this website, 2005)