FertilityCare and NaProTechnology Medical Consultant DR JAMES KHO writes about how an emerging technology not only reflects the beauty of Catholic teaching on sexuality, it actually works
The Magnificat FertilityCare Centre is a clinic dedicated to helping couples conceive naturally and women wanting to have a deeper understanding of their reproductive health.
In 2002, Amanda Lamont, with the support of St John of God Health Care Subiaco, established the first FertilityCare Centre in Australia, to provide a life-giving and ethical approach to fertility and reproductive health.
The Creighton Model FertilityCare System (CrMS) teaches couples to track the biological markers of their fertility, allowing for the interpretation of various aspects of the woman’s fertility and reproductive health.
It was developed by obstetrician and gynaecologist, Prof Thomas Hilgers at Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, USA.
Naprotechnology is the new medical and surgical women’s health science that developed from research in the CrMS and is designed to cooperate with the body’s natural cycle.
It was Professor Hilger’s response to the appeal of Pope Paul VI when he stated in Humanae Vitae:
“We hold those physicians and medical personnel in the highest esteem who, in the exercise of their profession, value above every human interest the superior demands of their Christian vocation.
“Let them persevere, therefore, in promoting on every occasion, the discovery of solutions inspired by faith and right reason. Let them strive to arouse this conviction and this respect in their associates. Let them also consider as their proper professional duty the task of acquiring all of the knowledge needed in this delicate sector, so as to be able to give to those married persons who consult them wise counsel and healthy direction, such as they have a right to expect.”
Woven into the very fabric of the CrMS, is a Catholic understanding of the personal nature of our human sexuality and the challenge to respect one’s spouse, to respect the workings’ of one’s body. In doing so this allows for further understanding and nourishment of the relationship between the couple.
In the CrMS fertility is observed as part of health and provides information dealing with the complete dimensions of procreative ability. By empowering the couples with knowledge and understanding of their naturally occurring phases and fertility and infertility, they are able to make decisions regarding the achievement and avoidance of pregnancy, and in addition, women are able to monitor and maintain their procreative and gynaecological health over a lifetime.
NaProTechnology involves a complex of medical and surgical interventions promoting gynaecological health that obviates the need for either reproductive techniques that exclude marital intercourse or the prescription of oral contraceptives for therapeutic or contraceptive purposes.
It is a reproductive health care that assists and optimises, rather than obviates and/or suppresses, the natural procreative system.
l It allows a woman to maintain her obstetric and gynaecological health and helps couples to understand and respect the full psychosomatic truth of their fertility.
l It is obstetric and gynaecological medicine that accurately evaluates and effectively treats a host of abnormalities which could be causes of infertility, miscarriage or general women’s health problems.
l It promotes fertility awareness that enables couples to avoid or achieve pregnancy in a way consonant with the comprehensive meaning of their conjugal union.
NaProTechnology is an example of where cooperation exists between science and faith. The Catholicism behind NaProTechnology has confidence in reason, and its human intellectual component is open to Catholic theology. The vision of its faith puts reason and faith at the service of the human family.
As Catholic doctors we are called to use science for the good of mankind and for the glory of God. In Fides et Ratio (“Faith and Reason”), John Paul II states: “I cannot fail to address a word to scientists, whose research offers an ever greater knowledge of the universe as a whole and of the incredibly rich array of its component parts…so far has science come… that its achievements never cease to amaze us.
“In expressing my admiration and offering encouragement to those brave pioneers of scientific research, to whom humanity owes so much of its current development, I would urge them to continue their efforts without ever abandoning the sapiential horizon within which scientific and technological achievements are wedded to the philosophical and ethical values which are distinctive and indelible mark of the human person.
“Scientists are well aware that the search for truth, even when it concerns the finite reality of the world or of man, is never-ending, but always points beyond to something higher in the immediate object of study, to the questions which give access to mystery.”
Staff at the Magnificat Fertility Centre offer educational and medical appointments to couples and women.
In the words of Dr Lamont, “FertilityCare is one tangible service which hopefully brings life to people, in a physical sense in helping them restore their health and receive the gift of a child if that is their aim, but also assisting them to be fully alive in the psychological, emotional, and spiritual senses, which may have been wounded by their experience of subfertility or illness.”
I myself was drawn to the work at FertilityCare when I observed the holistic approach and its correspondence with the Catholic ethos.
Not only does it cooperate with the body physically, it also strives to optimise and be in harmony with a person’s psychological, emotional and spiritual health. I believe that physical health is very much tied into the person’s spiritual and emotional health and to heal we need to encompass the whole person.
Most importantly, anything we do as doctors should be to uphold the dignity of each and every person involved, the woman, the couple and the unborn child, and this is the principle on which FertilityCare is based.
This article was first published in the Catholic Doctors Association Newsletter. Used with permission.