What constitutes adequate NFP instruction as part of Catholic education? First, instruction in Natural Family Planning should be in the context of Christian discipleship and chastity. Catholic moral teaching must be integrated into the instruction. The NFP course should NOT be just a course in female and male fertility.
Second, the course should respect the first principle of educational psychology: you can choose only something that you know about. That means that couples should be taught not just one sign of fertility but all three of the common signs—basal body temperature, cervical mucus, and the cervix itself. Only in that way can students be free to choose among common and morally acceptable systems of fertility awareness. I don’t care what sign or signs they actually use, but fairness in fertility awareness requires this much.
Many priests and bishops have been led to believe that the mucus-only systems are just as good as or even better and more effective than the cross-checking mucus-and-temperature system. The US Bishops’ Human Life Foundation (1968-1993) persuaded the NIH to conduct an unbiased study to resolve the conflicting claims of the contrasting systems. Their report in 1981 stated that the cross-checking system was more effective because the Billings mucus-only system had more unplanned pregnancies by a ratio of two to one. Yet many dioceses still offer only mucus-only systems or give them so much backing that the cross-checking system can be found only with difficulty.
Third, NFP instruction should also include the teaching and promotion of Ecological Breastfeeding. That’s the form of baby care in which mother and baby remain together, and that mother-baby togetherness thus encourages and enables frequent nursing via the Seven Standards. Every kind of breastfeeding does some good, but the frequent suckling of Ecological Breastfeeding maximizes the great health benefits of breastfeeding for both baby and mother. It truly is God’s own plan for nutrition, protection, and spacing babies.
John F. Kippley