Expecting Baby #7 and thinking about the future

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ewohdrol said:
So I’m not sure exactly what they could actually teach.
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I did not say that breastfeeding on demand prevent pregnancy.

have you learn of LAM? If not, it is important for you, as a Catholic, to go to WHO website to start. After it can leads to others studies and you would be able to have scientistic conversations with people.
 
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JMMJ said:
With seven children, I dare anyone to judge you by saying you aren’t open to life.
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First off, no one should Judge someone that way. But I want to caution you about this idea of how many kids you have indicates your openness to life. It is false. Not only are there many many people with no kids or a few kids who may indeed be extremely open to life there is also the very common flip side.
7 kids does not mean one is currently or has always been open to life. My wife and I discussed this at length before our current pregnancy. My cousin’s parents had 11 kids. After number 11 the husband got a vasectomy. So that is a final decision that certainly took all those other times and closed them that decision is certainly not open to life. And for my wife and I, NFP, or birth control was thoroughly discussed after numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 and now 7. By not choosing to avoid or to sinfully contracept we remained open to life.

The point is, being “open to life” is not a tally of your kids or lack thereof but is only a state of your last decision…

I will also say that being “open to life” is not a requirement for every day of every married couple’s life. It IS a requirement for every marital act. NFP of course brings a sliding scale to that “openness”
 
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I think you misunderstood me. I am on the side of believing number of children and how they get here (or don’t) are strictly between spouses and God. Nobody else. I certainly dont believe any one should judge a couple based on the number of kids they have or don’t have.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard one person shame another for “only” having X number of kids and not being open to more. My point was that, by having 7 kids, how could you be anything but “open to life”. There are actually people here who would tell a couple that if they have 7, but aren’t willing to risk an 8th, then their sexlife doesn’t include an “openess to life”. I disagree. 7 kids deserve a life with parents who have a fulfilling marriage (and yes, for most people that includes sex). Every day that passes that parents lovingly raise their children, they are demonstrating they are open to life. I believe it is wrong to attach such a concept to the intimate relationship (physical) between a husband and wife. I find it puts the emphasis in the wrong place and on the wrong thing.

Anyhow, I don’t agree with anything the Church teaches on this matter. I think it is absurd. I really don’t like to discuss it because it causes me upset. But I did want to let you know I wasn’t encouraging judgement of any kind, on this matter. It isn’t appropriate under any circumstance and it is antithetical to everything I believe.
 
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Thank you for this post! As someone “open to life” my entire marriage and it taking over 20 years to conceive, all while seeing many has 6+ kids and then vasectomies or tubes tied because they “did their part” this post means a lot to me. It has nothing at all to do with the size of your family and all to do with what is contained in your heart.

I will pray for your family. Stay strong for them, and don’t be afraid to lean on them either. That is what family is for.
 
JMMJ said:
I think you misunderstood me. I am on the side of believing number of children and how they get here (or don’t) are strictly between spouses and God. Nobody else. I certainly dont believe any one should judge a couple based on the number of kids they have or don’t have.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard one person shame another for “only” having X number of kids and not being open to more. My point was that, by having 7 kids, how could you be anything but “open to life”. There are actually people here who would tell a couple that if they have 7, but aren’t willing to risk an 8th, then their sexlife doesn’t include an “openess to life”. I disagree. 7 kids deserve a life with parents who have a fulfilling marriage (and yes, for most people that includes sex).

Anyhow, I don’t agree with anything the Church teaches on this matter. Ithink it is absurd. I really don’t like to discuss it because it causes me upset. But I did want to let you know I wasn’t encouraging judgement of any kind, on this matter. It isn’t appropriate under any circumstance and it is antithetical to everything I believe.
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You are correct that it is between the couple and God.

You are incorrect that the Church’s law is absurd.

Since you dont agree with anything the Church teaches on this matter I wonder two things.
  1. How helpful is it to others for you to vocalize that on a thread such as this? Is it a spiritually safe thing to do on the Catholic boards? Does it benefit you? Does it benefit others?
  2. Since I DO agree with what the Church teaches, you are also saying that my beliefs in openness to life and the purpose of marriage and sex is absurd. And frankly that sounds judgmental to me. Which would be antithetical to everything you believe. Or do I misunderstand you?
 
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I am completely fine with agreeing to disagree. Not so much with people or the Church getting in the middle of private business between a couple. I have witnessed a lot of harm done because of this. So when I see or hear someone struggling, I do weigh in. What seems absurd to me, very well may seem very logical to someone else. I am OK with that. If the tables were turned, which they are often here on CAF, I feel the same way.
 
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Well I am a scientist. And a researcher so I’m pretty familiar with scientific discussions 😉.

I still stand by my argument. Teaching that breastfeeding can be used as a contraceptive is not backed up medically. This doesn’t negate its many other benefits.
 
ewohdrol said:
Well I am a scientist. And a researcher so I’m pretty familiar with scientific discussions 😉.

I still stand by my argument. Teaching that breastfeeding can be used as a contraceptive is not backed up medically. This doesn’t negate its many other benefits.
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I too, as a scientist and researcher, affirm this.
One CAN say that breastfeeding and ecologically breast feeding MAY delay a return of cycles for SOME women. It is false and irresponsible to claim that it can be used as a form of birth control for all or even most women…
 
To the people who answers to my posts on breastfeeding:

I stand by what I said.
Again, you both try to said what I have not said. I don’t know why?

So, I will have to go into the explanations that I wishes to avoid, because it is medical…

World Heath Organisation promote it, so not something that we can simply object on scientistic basis.
Lactational Amenohrea Method is a well rescherch standard that permits to affirm, according to WHO that by following the rules, 98% of mothers are their fertility deleated, until a condition changes:
  • baby less than 6 months
  • exclusive feeding at breasts only (so, no formula, bottle, others food, no water) day and night
  • mother who don’t have had her period come back
nights feedings, at least 6 feedings/a day, and no more than 4 hours gap between feedings the day, and 6 the nights, are important in maintening the ammehnorea. No physical separation is important too.

If one of the criteria is no longer met, the method do not apply anymore.
Women are not stupid, they know, if they are instructed, when they cannot rely on this, and have to take decisions on their fertility according to their new situations.

98% of effectiveness, it is approximately the same as NFP.
which means 2% of women would fall pregnant when they are still on all the criterias of the method.
If we object to that, we can also said NFP is not reliable to.
It seems that western women have shorter postpartum amenorhea than some others.

Knowing that, all arguments such as" I know someone who has Irish twins", or “I fall pregnant when breastfeeding” are very pointless.
Some women will have their fertility come back quickly, some will experienced nany months or even years of delay.

It is very injust to deprive women from objective knowledge and deprive them from choices. Many complains that post partum nfp can be challenging.

I hope that we can all agree and close the debate.
thanks you for reading.

 
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I do understand what you are saying because I have read what WHO says as well. I think that for some women it will work well but it isn’t something a person can know until after the fact. My mother spaced all of us with nursing. She nursed is all until we self weaned and we were all about 3 years apart. Her cycle did not return for nine months.

I was pregnant before I had my first cycle. My babies are 10-1/2 months apart. I am so thankful I was able to conceive and carry both so for me it was no problem. My first cycle was when baby #2 was 5 weeks old.

The way I read the WHO data is that if you are nursing day and night exclusively AND your baby is under 6 months AND your cycle has not returned THEN it is 98% effective. I was in that 2% I guess. I haven’t conceived after baby #2. Some women never fit the criteria at all (cycles return early) so they are not part of the group who can use that method.

There really is no way to know whether you are in the group that this works for until you either start your cycle early or are pregnant. That is what makes relying on LAM for spacing can be problematic if there are serious reasons.

I wonder if better nutrition in western women accounts for higher rates of women with early returning cycles. There are close in age siblings all over the world but it does seem to happen in higher numbers in more developed countries.
 
thanks you for your answer.

Yes, as you said we cannot know for the first child if we are a woman who have a breastfeding that is not able to delay ovulation, even if we followed all the criterias. For the others time, we are generally more aware.
From what I have read, hormonal levels at the end of the pregnancy can be a factor that can predicts an early return.
For the differences between developped countries, I think nutrition can be a factor, as you wonder, others hypotheris I read included if the woman usually carry her baby or do physical exhauting tasks.

For the perfect effectiveness rate of the method, he is around the same as NFP, so if we cannoy accept him (apart from knowing before it would not worked), I guess NFP cannot be accepted too.
 
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The original comment was about spacing children around 2-3 years. Not 6 months, which is entirely different. This was never directed at you, I and another poster, quoted the original poster that stated this.

Your own resource does not count breastfeeding as a reliable contracep, rather it discusses it under traditional methods and gives the evidence.
 
Yes. And it seems this post was delated?

Why do you speak ogfcontraception? It is not a catholic perspective, we should not promote it, so it is irrelevant…
Of course, LAM is not contraception. But it bears an effectiveness. As NFP does.
 
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Anicette said:
For the differences between developped countries, I think nutrition can be a factor, as you wonder, others hypotheris I read included if the woman usually carry her baby or do physical exhauting tasks.
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These are very good points as well. Even if we carry our babies all the time, the physical demands are so different!
 
I have some sources, nut in ranceh, unfortunately…and this too https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/16/12/2540/2919156

For food, during breasteeding, for a woman to have her fertility come back, she have to eat more calories, because a lot are need to produce milk. So, when food is difficult to find, it is a key point.

For hormones, women who experiences a fertility come back in the 6 1st months, they usually have prolactins levels less high than others. The women who have a very delated fertility come back, have prolactins levels while pregnant, twice higher as others, and oestrogens levels twice lower than others.
 
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Wow. You are inspiring. I just had a baby at 43 years old. My other 2 are teenagers. This was due to using non Catholic approved methods to avoid pregnancy for 16 years. I fell closer in love with Christ and His church recently and decided with my husband I could no longer continue that way of avoiding pregnancy so I downloaded an NFP app to avoid having children in a way acceptable to the Church I’ve grown to love and be in awe of…and my son is 5 weeks old now.
I have looked into the Clearblue digital touchscreen to be used with the sticks for the Marquette method going forward, that is as far as my research has gotten me as far as “best” method.
God bless your precious family, I admire you, sister in Christ. Thank you for your living witness.
 
Yes the post was deleted. Hence the confusion as to whom I was responding to.

As for mentioning contraception - when posters make claims that breastfeeding prevents pregnancy - let’s be honest here, that is a form of contraception. Natural yes - however it was discussed as a means to avoid pregnancy in quick succession. The church is against artificial contraception - not natural family planning (NFP).
 
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