My wife was at the La Leche League International Conference last week in Chicago (any other readers out there make it to the conference?) and spoke for a while with a person with connections to Couple to Couple League International, on the changes going on at CCL.

CCL, by their own admission, is going through growing pains right now. As they explain on their website, they are overhauling their teaching materials because

we have seen a marked change in our audience, that is, the couples who attend our NFP class series. Twenty, or even 10 years ago, the classes were largely made up of married couples who were seeking NFP information on their own because they already had a commitment to living out the teachings of the Church. Now, our classes have many more engaged couples than in the past and some of them are attending solely because of a marriage preparation requirement. While that is good news in many respects, it also means that our teachers have couples who may not really care to learn NFP, and some may already be using contraception or living together. This change in the class environment demands a change in the way we deliver our message, and Pope John Paul II has provided us the best means to reach out to these couples.

So, that means they’re working on a new set of materials. It also means that they are pulling out a good deal of information on ecological breastfeeding from the basic class series, and doing supplemental classes on breastfeeding and natural child spacing, as well as premenopause. They do point out that they’re not eliminating any and all talk of EBF from the basic class series:

Not at all. We’re actually creating supplemental classes on both the postpartum time and premenopause, and this decision was based on feedback from our Teaching Couples. What we are moving into supplemental classes is the very practical lessons on how to determine your fertility at these times of life. For example, the supplemental classes will answer questions such as: When after childbirth should I start taking my fertility observations? How do I handle patches of on-and-off mucus? What kind of cycle changes can I expect at the time of premenopause, and how do I approach my fertility observations at this time? Our teachers have found that spending time on the specifics of using NFP at these times to classes of largely engaged couples was not working well as these scenarios are not their immediate interest.

The topics of breastfeeding and premenopause will still be addressed in the regular series, much to the same extent they are now. Regarding ecological breastfeeding, it is mentioned in all of the classes of the new program, but is a focus of Class 3 where they will learn its specifics and its impact on the return of fertility. They will come to understand the difference between ecological breastfeeding and “restricted” breastfeeding, they’ll hear the benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and baby, and they’ll learn that some couples are happy to space their family through breastfeeding alone.

So teaching about ecological breastfeeding and encouraging it remains part of the main class series, and what moves to the supplemental class is the practical application. The supplemental class reviews the above concepts from the main course, then moves on to the mechanics of fertility observation at this time, practice with interpreting charts from postpartum women, etc.

Interestingly, it seems that some of the vibe that my wife got from her conversation is that CCL is in fact trying to downplay ecological breastfeeding because it’s not Catholic enough. People could in fact use their babies to avoid fertility and therefore future pregnancies. Of course this is illogical – the whole point of natural child spacing is that it’s natural – when mom’s services are no longer as vital to the current baby, fertility returns because the body is theoretically ready to provide for the next one (and you can’t force a kid to nurse enough to keep your fertility in check.) For that matter, sympto-thermal NFP can easily be used to avoid pregnancy forever…so it seems a little twisted up.

Interestingly, it’s notable that CCL is no longer selling Sheila Kippley’s Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing or Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood. Also, as noted some time ago in this very blog, the Kippleys have started a new organization, Natural Family Planning International at which they have free charts, a free online manual to learning NFP, and a ton of other great information.

While CCL’s website is reassuring, it’s interesting that what we heard from an insider is different. We have financially supported CCL in the past, but it could be rather difficult to continue doing this if they are going to omit a key part of NFP. Their monthly Family Foundations magazine is also becoming a bit shallower and doesn’t talk about breastfeeding as much as it did 5 years ago when we start receiving it. It also doesn’t have nearly the same “attitude” as it did then, when there was more of an attachment parenting angle to it – of course if you take out breastfeeding, you preclude at least some AP also. This is clearly going to be a developing story over the next several months.

In the combox to this post, Sheila Kippley has left some notes of interest.  Also, I invite you to check out posts to her blog specific to this subject by clicking here.  It looks like indeed CCL is fleeing eco-breastfeeding and instead talking more about the (ineffective) LAM method…though their website continues to have a great deal of information on EBF.