Breastfeeding and NFP

[Guest guest]

The issues raised by the Torodes about the hardship of practicing systematic NFP during breastfeeding concern me greatly.

I am the founder of a new apostolate, the Catholic Nursing Mothers League. Our goal will be to encourage Catholic mothers to nurse for at least a year, but we will also be promoting ecological breastfeeding and the Seven Standards, both as a way of facilitating nursing and as a useful means for natural child spacing. A third goal is to provide emotional and practical support for breastfeeding mothers who are committed to using systematic NFP. (We will refer to trained NFP teachers for actual instruction, but we will serve as a "support group" to encourage NFP use during all stages of life.)

I am also a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator and a La Leche League Leader, who taught the Billings Method for a time specifically in order to learn to assist breastfeeding mothers more fully with issues related to the return of fertility while breastfeeding. (I can't tell you how often this comes up in my work with both of these organizations.)

I have found in my own practice that the Billings information on breastfeeding is extremely helpful, but I have taught several couples who were unable to establish a reliable BIP for many months while breastfeeding, and they found this to be very frustrating. Couples who did not have a strong grounding in the faith (and non-Catholics) resorted to condom use during this time despite my counseling that barrier use is inconsistent with the Billings Method and with the Church's teaching on morality. The couples in question adopted a similar reasoning as the Torodes expressed. They felt that using barriers during the long periods of uncertainty were a kind of "lesser evil."

As more women breastfeed in our society, this will become a greater issue for NFP providers. Given that many women who are attracted to NFP are also attracted to the "naturalness" of breastfeeding, I would guess that the majority of NFP-practicing couples will deal with this problem, perhaps for the majority of their childbearing years.

I am thoroughly familiar with the Billings and the Couple to Couple League teaching on return of fertility while breastfeeding - and also with the resources on the NFPI website.

Are there any other tools or methods out there that I should be aware of as I direct breastfeeding women to NFP resources? What is the most promising new research? Who is making this problem a major focus?

It breaks my heart to see the very desire to mother one's baby according to God's own design also be perceived by many couples as such a stumbling block to following Church teaching on the truth and meaning of human sexuality. I encounter fairly frequently the question of whether a mother should wean her breastfeeding baby so that she can "get back" to regular cycles and be able to use NFP to avoid pregnancy.

I am also wondering about the goal of strengthening education, support and promotion of ecological breastfeeding - LAM and also use of the Seven (or Six) Standards after the first six months. With greater cultural support and increasing confidence among women for using these forms of natural fertility regulation, perhaps more couples would choose to rely on this method alone to space their children during the majority of their childbearing years.

Perhaps if women were comfortable enough to take advantage of the natural delay in return of fertility and knew how to extend it as much as possible, there would be fewer months in between children when couples were resorting to systematic NFP and perhaps less frustration that is damaging the NFP cause, even among its supporters. I don't know. It would be nice to see more research and focus on this form of natural fertility regulation by the professional community.

Pam Pilch, J.D., LCCE

Catholic Nursing Mothers League