A Review: Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing

Several years ago during conversations with friends about birth control and God’s design for families, I remember one young man insisting to me that I would end up having many, many children all in 9 month intervals for the next 20 years if I let God plan my family.  Through his statements, he implied that God, who had made bodies to reproduce, had not made them to naturally space babies.  I knew vaguely at the time that this was not true, but I was not aware of the specifics as to how this happened.  Because of our culture’s self-centered demand for convenience and our elevation of man’s inventions over God’s provisions, we have no idea how to feed babies in the way that God intended any more.

From the book Be Fruitful and Multiply by Nancy Campbell, I was directed to another book called Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing by Sheila Kippley.  Kippley lays out the principles of what she calls ecological breastfeeding, or natural mothering, to explain the way which God has created in female bodies to space babies.  Many people falsely assume that breastfeeding alone will naturally space babies; however, natural mothering has seven standards by which natural spacing occurs.  They are:

• Do exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life; don’t use other liquids and solids.
• Pacify your baby at your breasts.
• Don’t use bottles and pacifiers.
• Sleep with your baby for night feedings.
• Sleep with your baby for a daily-nap feeding.
• Nurse frequently day and night, and avoid schedules.
• Avoid any practice that restricts nursing or separates you from your baby.

Obviously, this is not how our culture practices breastfeeding.  Kippley explains how each of these standards is played out in the life of the mother and baby.  The way she describes parenting clearly reflects her love for her children and her willingness to sacrifice for them.  For me, this was a very refreshing perspective of nurturing Christian mothering that values children instead of a view that sees children as little more than animals to be trained to eat, sleep, and play on our adult-mandated schedules.  This way of mothering not only provides for the physical and emotional needs of the baby, it also has the side effect of extending natural infertility, on average, to 14.5 months postpartum.

The book is a good mixture of philosophy, medical evidence, and personal experience.  The author, a Catholic, is also author of a book on Natural Family Planning, so I would tweak some of her statements slightly.  But all in all, I gained a lot of insight from this book, and I was continually amazed through my reading of all the little ways that God has provided for us and for our children through breastfeeding.

Some helpful links:

Breastfeeding God’s Way by Nancy Campbell

How does milk production work? by Kelly Bonyata

Examining the Evidence for Cue feeding of Breastfed Infants by Lisa Marasco and Jan Barger

Mothering like the Church

Chapter 2 of Praise Her in the Gates compares the Church’s role as the bride of Christ to that of a wife and mother in an earthly marriage. As the Church submits to her head Christ, the wife also must submit to her husband. The Church is also maternal in that it teaches truth, disciplines and corrects its members, and bears fruit (or at least that is what it’s supposed to do). Submission to your husband is a necessary foundation for these activities, as the Church also takes its direction from her husband, Christ.

The first role Wilson discusses is the mother’s responsibility to teach and build up. None of our children can “slip through the cracks” because we are busy or have many other children. Wilson writes, “if God blesses a household with many children, just as He blesses some churches with many members, it is no excuse to say that there were just too many to teach” (17). Mothers must make sure that their children are learning truth and growing through the teaching they are receiving, either from her or from another that she delegates.

As the Church nourishes and feeds the flock, so too does the mother nourish and feed her children. She nourishes them with spiritual food that lets her children know she loves them. With breastfeeding, a child receives physical nourishment but also emotional nourishment through the close bond that is established. A mother must set aside all distractions for a time of communion with her child. As a child is attentive to the milk he is receiving, so also should Christians be attentive to the teaching they receive from the Church.

Mothers also should discipline their children as the Church disciplines the people of God. Because she is with the children most of the time, the children will receive most correction from her. She must submit to her head in this also, and seek his advice and wisdom in this task (though fathers may also administer the correction when they are home). “Correction must be judicial, kind, and loving, even when it is painful, and it must be done promptly and consistently,” Wilson says. When the Church discipline is this manner, members are happy; children are also happy and balanced when they receive correction from their mother.

The last paragraph of this chapter deals with fruitfulness. It is so good that I don’t believe I can do it justice with a summary, so I will include it in its entirety here:

Finally, the Church is fruitful. While evangelism brings more worshipers into the Church, childbearing brings more disciples into the home. A mother should be fruitful like the vine in Psalm 128. Children are not to be viewed as a hindrance, an intrusion, an interruption, or a burden. Fruit is not viewed in such a way. Of course fruit requires tending, and tending can be hard work. But it is good work. Women should see that their view of children is shaped by Scripture an not by the world. Hard work, when it is good work, is soul-satisfying and soul-prospering. No matter how many children the Lord may give you, be it two or twelve, you must rejoice in the number and be fruitful in the rearing of them. The Church becomes barren when it is disobedient. Women today embrace barrenness as freedom, and yet barrenness is always a curse in Scripture. But fruitfulness includes more than just childbearing; it is descriptive of a lifestyle. “For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (19).

Motherhood

Tonight I just started reading Praise Her in the Gates: The Calling of Christian Motherhood by Nancy Wilson. For my own purposes and hopefully for the benefit of any one or two readers that stumble upon this oft-forsaken blog, I’m going to summarize my reading here.

The first chapter discusses the “big picture” of a mother’s role in her home, to build her house, and not pull it down as the foolish (Prov. 14:1). This role takes a vision of the end result, just as builders need blueprints to get the desired end result. The results that Christian women are to be looking toward are found in Psalm 127 and 128 and Proverbs 31. Your children will be as arrows in the hands of a warrior, and your husband will be happy as he “gains stature in the community as a sign of the Lord’s blessing” (12). We see in Proverbs 31 that her husband and children rise up and commend her for her obedience. In Psalm 128, the mother is a fruitful vine that is central to the home – God uses her to bless her family, her husband, her church, and the community.

God desires godly offspring (Mal. 2:15), and women must work toward fulfilling God’s desire through diligence, hard work and faith. Though this is not always easy, we see in Proverbs 31 that this work satisfies the soul, and she can look with pleasure on her years of hard work. By the grace of God, her children will one day rise in her presence to bless her. Mothers of young children must maintain this view as they are dealing with diapers and discipline. She must, in her obedience, pass on her love for God and trust the Lord with her children.

Titus 2 also shows us the role of women in the Church. Older women should teach the younger to “be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.” The older women are very important in the Church as the younger women are to turn to them for help in learning mothering and home-making skills.

The whole Church is strengthened when a woman fulfills her duties as a wife and mother. “This is actually their ‘ministry’ to the Church: being obedient wives who are raising godly children,” Wilson writes. Doing this makes for a healthy family which makes for a healthy Church.

Wilson concludes by saying: “When mothers see how valuable their contribution can be, they should be overwhelmed with gratitude to God for bestowing such good work upon them” (14).

I think my “summary” is barely shorter than the four-page first chapter. Everything seems so important that it’s hard for me to actually summarize. Perhaps I’ll do better next time.

June Menu

I saw that Chelsey posted her June meal plan yesterday, and while I was making mine on our calendar tonight, I realized the benefit of writing it down on something other than a dry-erase board.  I forgot half the things I made this month and had trouble filling in certain days for next month.  So this time, I’m blogging my month’s menu, and making it easier for myself to find for July.

I have never planned meals before I actually got hungry until I got married.  Now I have a lot more reminders and a greater sense of responsibility.  And, as I’ve noticed as a new budgeter, it’s really easy to save money if you actually realize what you’re spending your money on.  So, planning my meals for the month helps to cut waste as well as give me peace of mind when my husband asks after work, “What’s for dinner?”

I don’t plan for Sundays because we usually just make sandwiches or pancakes.  Something quick and easy.  Last month, I made Wednesday ground beef night, so I continued that this month, and added two other designated nights that don’t include meat.  Gus gave me thebook Miserly Moms for my birthday last week, and one of the money-saving suggestions was to make a soup and bread night once a week, so Tuesday is now soup night.  I figured we might as well make Thursday rice and beans night to save some more money there, too.   This will be interesting since I like neither soup nor beans.  So we’ll see how it goes.  Maybe I’ll end up making myself some chicken at the end of the night, but we’re flexible.

I’m only including the main course, and for the most part, these dinners will include vegetables, bread, fruit, and an ice cream cone.

Mon. June 1:  Salad with chicken
Tues. June 2:  Vegetarian chili (New Cook Book Bridal Edition page 505)
Wed. June 3:  Hamburgers
Thurs. June 4: Black beans & rice
Fri. June 5:  Steak (We’ve had steaks frozen for awhile.  Hopefully they’re still good.)
Sat. June 6:  Crock-pot roast (enough for entertaining a few friends)

Mon. June 8:  Stir-fry chicken
Tues. June 9:  Vegetable soup (Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen page 48)
Wed. June 10:  Spaghetti with meat sauce
Thurs. June 11: Black beans & rice enchiladas
Fri. June 12:  Grilled chicken
Sat. June 13: Chicken, broccoli, rice, cheese mixture (We call this “Old Favorite”)

Mon. June 15:  Salad with chicken
Tues. June 16:  Broccoli soup (New Cook Book Bridal Edition page 503)
Wed. June 17:  Tacos
Thurs. June 18: Amy’s spicy beans and rice
Fri. June 19:  Chicken marsala (New Cook Book Bridal Edition page 425)
Sat. June 20:  Cubed steak

Mon. June 22:  Stir-fry chicken
Tues. June 23:  Six-Can Slow Cooker Chili (Pillsbury’s The Home Cooking Library page 33)
Wed. June 24:  Meat loaf
Thurs. June 25: Cheesy beans and rice
Fri. June 26:  Grilled chicken
Sat. June 27:  Fettuccine alfredo

Mon. June 1:  Old Favorite
Tues. June 2:  Garbanzo bean stew (Pillsbury page 38)

Getting started

Although I used to love blogging and lie awake at night thinking of topics to write about, I have only blogged a handful of times in the last year at my old Xanga.  For some reason, I still can’t bring myself to delete that blog, but I think this new blog will provide a “fresh start” for my new life as a married woman.

I graduated with a print journalism degree, and I used to love writing.  But, sometime during my senior practicum at The Carolina Reporter in the Fall of 2007, writing became a burden and a stressor.  Hopefully with the encouragement of my husband, I will learn to love writing again through this blog.

Hey bloggers, we’re back…and married!

My wife Emily and I (especially me) haven’t been blogging much these days, but we’re going to make an effort to do so now that we’re finally married.  We’re really excited to share our thoughts together as one flesh.  I hope you enjoy what you read…