Influential Persons
In preparing this blog, I thought about people who advocated natural child spacing, who published their research, whose work went beyond the medical journals, and who influenced me in the earlier years of my life. Their work and their message reached the common person. In a sense, their “natural spacing” work became an active apostolate for them. I want to call special attention to Rose Gioiosa, RN and Otto Schaefer, MD. These two persons were pioneers with their breastfeeding infertility work. They were involved with natural child spacing well before I became actively involved with this topic. Both pioneers are now deceased, and I am grateful for the correspondence I had with both of them.
Rose Gioiosa
In the spring of 1953 Rose Gioiosa conducted a study among breastfeeding mothers at the Catholic Maternity Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her purpose was to show that a mother could “space her babies naturally without the use of rhythm, basal temperature methods, fertility testor, or other family planning techniques” (“Breastfeeding and Child Spacing,” Child & Family, 1964). After all, in other countries where prolonged breastfeeding of two or three years was the culture, breastfeeding was valued for the spacing it provided before the conception of another child.
In 1955 Miss Gioiosa’s Santa Fe research was published. (“Incidence of Pregnancy during Lactation in 500 Cases,” Am. J. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 70:1, July 1955). She concluded that nine months of breastfeeding is a natural means of spacing babies with an interval of 18 to 24 months, that 95% of American nursing mothers would not conceive during the first nine months postpartum as long as the nursing mother did not offer “additional supplementary or complementary formula” during that time, and that the other 5% of nursing mothers who conceived during the nine months postpartum were weaning or offering “supplementary or complementary feedings” (p. 173).
In 1961, the La Leche League Board sent a survey to its members. Part of the survey asked questions to determine if breastfeeding spaces babies (Child & Family, 1964). Rose Gioiosa did a comparison study between the results of the La Leche League survey and her own published study; this resulted in her previously mentioned article (Child & Family, 1964). This article, “Breastfeeding and Child Spacing,” was published in pamphlet form and distributed widely among La Leche League mothers. When I was interested in the natural spacing mechanism of breastfeeding, this article found its way into my hands through my La Leche League contacts in the mid-1960s. In her comparison study, Gioiosa reached the same conclusion: “The early use of other milks or formulas or solid foods in the infant’s diet automatically decreases the demand on the mother’s milk while she is breastfeeding. There is a subsequent decrease in the supply of milk available, and this tends to diminish the amount of time afforded by the natural spacing mechanism” (Child & Family, 1964). Rose Gioiosa’s work in the early Fifties and again in the Sixties with the La Leche League survey is probably one reason why La Leche League stated and continued to state in its manual the following:
“While a mother is wholly breastfeeding (no solids or
supplements), she will most likely not menstruate at all.
In fact, the average nursing mother will not have a period
for about seven to fifteen months after giving birth. When
she does begin to have menstrual periods, at least one and
often several of these will be without ovulation, or sterile, in
most cases. Only a fraction of 1% of women are likely to
conceive while wholly breastfeeding before having any
periods” (The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, 1963, p. 49; boldface
not in the original).
Rose Gioiosa’s work on natural child spacing helped to inform mothers that pregnancy could best be postponed by nursing for the first nine months and waiting six months before beginning solid food. Her work supported the bold-faced statement above. In those days—the 1960s and early 1970s—there was very little support for natural child spacing except through La Leche League International. The main Child & Family article by Rose Gioiosa bolstered the idea, especially among Catholic mothers, that breastfeeding has something to contribute to the natural spacing of babies.
Gioiosa’s work to be continued next week.
Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding