PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 45 – How Can We Change The World? - Part 11
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Episode 45: HOW CAN WE CHANGE THE WORLD? Part 11
Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy: Lovely to be with you again. Last session, we were talking about the blessings of nursing babies and how we enjoy oxytocin and all the wonderful, blissful things that God gives us to enjoy through the hormones we have when nursing a baby. Then, I did mention at the end of last session another wonderful blessing about nursing a baby is that we can have natural contraception. Now, I said we would talk more about it this time.
I know when I say a statement like that, many mothers can say, “Well, I was breastfeeding my baby, or I am breastfeeding my baby and my menstruation came back quite quickly. It didn't work for me.” It is an interesting thing, I know. I realize that we don't live in a perfect world today, but I do believe that this was God's original intention, that nursing would hold back ovulation. This is what it is meant to do—that nursing, the sucking stimulation at the breast, holds back ovulation, therefore, we cannot conceive.
Many women enjoy this wonderful blessing, and there are others who don't. I wonder why that is. It's not a phenomenon that is experienced in countries that are very primitive, that still mother very intuitively. They always have this longer time of amenorrhea between their babies.
I must tell you about one study I read in a book. It was interesting. The book where I read about it was called, What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. It was a book about many different subjects, and I was just thumbing through it. Someone gave me this book, and I looked at this chapter, it was called “John Rock's Error,” who brought in the pill actually. In that chapter, it told the story of this scientist, and it's very interesting.
A young scientist named Beverly Strassman went out to Africa. She went to the Dogon tribe of Mali, which was about 20 miles from Timbuktu. She was way out there in Africa, and she went to study the reproductive lives of these women in this tribe. They were a primitive tribe; they hadn't been influenced by our American culture. They hadn't read books about mothering; they just mothered intuitively. This scientist stayed out there for two and a half years, very faithfully keeping records of every woman and every menstrual period and everything about their whole reproductive life.
She found that, on an average, the girls started menstruating at about 16 years of age, and on an average, gave birth to about eight or nine babies throughout their life. She found that that the average time of the return of menstruation, while a mother was nursing her baby, was 20 months. Now that's nearly two years. That's pretty good amenorrhea, isn't it? These mothers nursed their babies day and night. Their babies came to the breast, sucked at the breast whenever they wanted to. There was no schedule. They slept with them at night and nursed off and on during the night. Usually, when mothers will breastfeed their babies in this fashion, they will have longer natural contraception. Most mothers will have a while of amenorrhea before their period comes back.
I remember when I was reading this story, it was a number of years ago now, I was in my kitchen and reading it out, and Serene was there, and I was telling her about it. She said, “Wow, I am right on cue.” It was her baby Breezy at the time, who is nine years of age now. She said, “I have just got my period back.” And Breezy was 20 months.
Now, why was she on cue? Because those of you who know Serene from Trim Healthy Mama, you know that she is the “purist” and Pearl is the one who will take a few shortcuts. Serene never does anything by half, she does everything to the absolute full. She does that with nursing her babies. There have been times where my daughters have had babies about the same ages of each other, and they've been nursing together, and they've all been wonderful mothers, nursing their babies, completely available to their babies, but Serene would always nurse her babies even more than the others.
A mother will wait until a baby is showing that she needs her and crying a little to pick it up and nurse it. Serene never waits for that. She puts her baby to the breast every time she looks at her or looks at him, so she is constantly nursing. Now, her baby is often in her carrier during the day, often nursing while she's carrying her baby in the carrier. She still accomplishes amazing things and so much, but she does it while the baby is nursing, still getting on with things, and her baby is just in the carrier. Then her babies nurse at night, so she has always had a lengthy time between each baby, not that she's trying to do that.
Oftentimes, she thinks, help, I need to wean this baby; I want another baby, but because she nurses so frequently, it holds back that ovulation. I have noticed oftentimes mothers will say to me, “I'm breastfeeding my baby, yet my period still came back.” In our western culture and the mindset that we have, I don't think we really have yet, perhaps, got the mindset of the primitive culture where they are completely available to their baby, and that's just their life, it's day and its night. Whereas even when we are an on-demand feeding mother, we still can limit it somehow, so there's not that absolute freedom and fullness of just nursing, nursing, nursing.
Especially for a new mother, a young mother, she maybe can't even understand that concept yet. I think it's different when daughters have grown up in families where mothers are and have experienced nursing mothers, and they see it so naturally in their home, and they are more ready to take on that lifestyle. For a new mother who hasn't experienced this, she's grown up in a family where maybe there were two of three children, and there were never any young babies around, and it's all new to her. It's new to her to learn how to breastfeed.
Breastfeeding is an art. There's a book that's called The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, put out by the La Leche League. It’s a wonderful blessing. Get that book if you need it.
It's a new thing for a new mother, but the more you nurse each baby, you'll find that most mothers find that every baby they just nurse more frequently; they are more relaxed in their nursing, and they put the baby to the breast more often. Then, often, they have longer amenorrhea, maybe 20 months like this tribe out in Africa had, which is typical of so many tribes today and peoples who have not yet been influenced by our American culture. It might be so sophisticated, but it's put a slight on motherhood. It's taken away the abandonment and the freedom of mothering and nursing.
Did I tell you about the chapter in Matthew, Matthew 19? This gives another little glimpse into the lifestyle of nursing a baby. This was a time when the Pharisees came to Jesus and they asked him about divorce. They were always trying to trip him up with questions, and Jesus answered them and said: “Don't you know that He which created them in the beginning made them male and female?” Now, we all know that. We know the Scripture from Genesis, and we know it from the New Testament. This is from Matthew 19, but we often don't know or understand the words that are used. When Jesus said the word “female,” He didn't use the normal word for female that is used in the New Testament, which is gune. It's the most common word for women meaning “wife, mother.“
This time, he used a different word. It's only used in this time when Jesus talked to these Pharisees and another time it's used in Romans chapter one where it says that their women even gave up the natural use or the natural function and God has to give them up (Romans 1:26). That's the two times it is used.
What is this word? It's the word, thelus and it comes from the root word thele, which means: the verb means to suckle a babe at the breast. The noun means a suckling mother. When Jesus said that word, female, he was saying to the people round about Him: “Don't you know that He who made them in the beginning made them male and suckling mother?” He used the words that personify a woman. She is a suckling mother. When she has a baby, she is not scheduling her baby to just nurse at certain hours of the day because all she's thinking about is giving her baby some food. No, the concept of nursing, dear mothers, far supersedes that kind of thinking. No, nursing your baby is mothering your baby and not mothering it just to give it some food. We talked about that in the last session how that in Isaiah 66, it speaks about consoling and comforting and all those beautiful words. Food is not even mentioned, therefore, as we do this, it becomes this lifestyle.
Then we have the blessing of amenorrhea, of natural contraception. God wants us to have this. He does not intend for a mother to have a baby year after year. God has planned the way our body is to work so that there is time between having babies. Let's get back to those of you where you say, “This didn't work for me.” Well, maybe, perhaps you're one of those who thinks you are nursing all the time but really, you're not. You may be nursing five of six times a day, seven or eight. How often are you feeding at night? Now, a baby who is intuitively mothered will oftentimes feed up to 20 or 30 times a day, and the baby will nurse off and on all night. Are you nursing that much? If you're nursing that much, you probably will have much longer contraception. Think about that.
Of course, I will admit there can be some, because of hormones, because of things that are not right in your system, because as I said before, often our bodies aren't perfect; they're not functioning perfectly hormonally, and they don't work as God originally intended, so that may not work for you. For those where that is a true problem, I have sometimes counseled those who would maybe keep having a baby year after year to maybe use the Natural Family Planning method, just until you would normally begin to start ovulating again. Then just forget that and be open and just relax for God to bless you as He wants to bless you.
Talking about different types of contraception, and of course, we know the only moral contraception is Natural Family Planning because you are not interfering with a baby that has been conceived and that can be aborted, which can happen with the pill. The pill can be an abortifacient. It doesn't happen every time, but there is always that opportunity, that possibility for the pill to cause an abortion, so if we are truly pro-life, we will not be able to go on the pill or any of its associates. Of course, there are more and more being invented all the time. There are so many different ones that you can use, and they all have the same way they ultimately work but in different ways. Usually three things are very important to happen, and one is that it stops ovulation. But they find that there is often breakthrough ovulation. Depending on how much the different way the pill or its associate is designed, it may be quite a bit or very scarce, but there can always be that possibility.
If there is breakthrough, then of course another aspect of the pill is that it causes the endometrium, the lining of the womb, to become shriveled. When an egg has been met by the sperm, and there's conception, because that happens the moment the egg and the sperm meet, a new living baby is beginning right at the moment, but then when it comes to implant a few days later, it cannot implant because the pill has caused the endometrium to shrivel up. Therefore, it is aborted. A little baby dies in the womb.
Dearest ladies, there are far more babies who are killed through the pill than even through abortion. Currently, we are hoping . . . I hope you are getting to see the movie Unplanned . . . My husband and I have already been to see it twice. We want to be a voice; we want to fill some more seats in those theaters. If it's still on when you hear this session, do try and go and watch this movie (if it’s too late, get the DVD, watch it and gather in others to watch it with you too). It's not a movie you want to watch. It’s a movie that is hard to watch. I found it harder to watch even the second time. You know it, but then to realize in the way this movie reveals how these babies are totally murdered in the womb, over 60 million have been murdered since Roe vs. Wade. But there are more through the pill.
It is so sad, because beautiful, godly couples who love God with all their hearts, often they may be in church worshiping God with all their hearts, but if they are on the pill and there is a breakthrough ovulation, and a little new baby is coming to implant in the womb, it can be lost—your own flesh and blood. Often, people who are so against abortion, they are not totally pro-life.
The weekend before last, my husband and I were ministering at an Above Rubies family retreat down in Louisiana. On that Sunday morning, we went to another church nearby. Well, actually, it was in Baton Rouge for the Family Retreat and then we went to New Orleans, the main city, and we were ministering at a church there. It was amazing to meet the pastor. This is a guy who has such a passion to bring down these abortion clinics. God has blessed him to shut down about nine abortion clinics in this city.
When he first started, he wasn't having much success, yet he had this passion to do it, and then God spoke to him. He said, “You're trying to shut down abortion clinics, but you're committing abortion in your own home.” He was arrested, “I beg your pardon. Me? I don't believe in abortion.” God showed him, “Your wife is on the pill.” He looked into it and began to see, yes, there is always the possibility of an abortion when you're on the pill. He came to his wife, and she wasn't very pleased to hear that news at all. In fact, it took her about a year, but God dealt with her, and God worked in her heart, and she also came to see that she could not do this any longer. She got off the pill and from that moment, God began to bless this man and from that time he was used to shut down about nine abortion clinics in that city.
You see, the devil is the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He comes as a trio, and he comes with contraception, sterilization, and abortion. If Satan can get rid of life through contraception and sterilization, then he is eliminating so many babies. Abortion becomes the back-up plan. If that doesn't happen and babies are conceived, then he can use abortion, which is horrific, of course. We have to keep praying that abortion will be outlawed in this nation because it is nothing less than the murder of human life. Don't forget to go and see the movie (Unplanned) if you haven't seen it (or get the DVD).
Anyway, getting back to this story. It's not a story, it's an actual scientific study that was done in Africa. Also, this scientist, Beverly Strassman, said that these women only menstruated about 100 times in their whole reproductive lives. Do you know the average number of menstruations in most modern women today? Most modern women are menstruating maybe sometimes 300, but up to 400 times during their reproductive lives.
This has never ever been God's intention. It is an abnormal lifestyle. God intended that there would be a resting time for the ovaries during pregnancy and during nursing. Therefore, that is why it is such a blessing for women to have babies. The more babies that they have, the greater blessing for them physically. The more babies that they nurse at the breast and the longer that they nurse at the breast, of course, the longer they will have the amenorrhea and the greater blessing for their bodies. Let me read something here. “Strassman believes,” (I'm reading from the book at the moment and other anthropological works back her up), “the number of lifetime menses isn't greatly affected by differences in diet or climate or method of subsistence but by the prevalence of nursing or sterility. It all comes back to this. Up until the demographic transition of 100 years ago from high to low fertility, and all this has happened in the last 100 years is, in evolutionary terms, abnormal. It's a pity that gynecologists think that women have to menstruate every month.”
Strassman continues: “They just don't understand the real biology of menstruation. To Strassman and the others in the field of evolutionary menses and this shift from 100 to 400 lifetimes menstruation is enormously significant. It means that women's bodies are being subjected to changes and stresses that we're not necessarily designed to handle.”
There is another book that's mentioned in this book; it's called, Is Menstruation Obsolete? I haven't read it. It's written by two doctors, and they say in their book, the doctors are Coutinho and Segal, they say, “Incessant ovulation serves no purpose except to increase the occurrence of pain, mood shirts, migraines, endometriosis, fibroids, and anemia.” The last of which they point out is one of the most serious health problems in the world. Most serious of all is the greatly increased risk of some cancers.
Every time a woman gets pregnant and bears a child, her lifetime risk of ovarian cancer drops ten percent. Ovarian and endometrial cancer are characteristically modern diseases. Consequences, in part, of a century in which women have come to menstruate four hundred times in a lifetime, instead of only about 100 times at the maximum.”
Precious ladies, often women think that it is abnormal to have quite a number of children and to nurse them, not for six months, but for two years, maybe three years, maybe even more because we were created to be sucking mothers. Why stop suckling when we are blessed with these beautiful hormones of oxytocin and prolactin, and also the blessing of amenorrhea, and the normality of how God created the body, and the less possibility of getting female cancers? You see, we have got so far away from God's way. If any of you are nursing today, don't limit your nursing. Nurse your baby whenever. Not just when he's hungry, just when you feel like nursing. Because it will bless you and of course, remember, your baby wants to suck.
Here's another thing. Does your baby use a pacifier? If your baby uses a pacifier, you will most probably get your menstruation back quite quickly because your baby is using the pacifier for its sucking instinct whereas God intended the breast to be the one where the baby sucks. The baby is not just sucking for food. The breast is not only for food, ladies. The breast is for that sucking, and the baby is satisfied through sucking. There's a contentment, there's a blessing the baby receives through that sucking, but ultimately, it's for you; IT’S FOR YOU. The sucking is for you. It holds back the ovulation. Don't give your baby a pacifier; it is a mother substitute. I know it's convenient, oh yes, and that's why many modern mothers get there periods back so quickly; they are used to an American lifestyle, where you are doing so many other things, motherhood is just one of the things you're doing. It's not your life; you've got so many other things in your life. But you see, in cultures where it's their life, they have that longer amenorrhea, because of that sucking. They don't plonk in a pacifier, or as we used to call it back down in New Zealand where I come from, we called it the “dummy.” I always feel so sad when I see a dummy or a pacifier in a baby’s mouth because I know it’s a mother substitute.
Another thing in our American lifestyle is we have to get the baby sleeping through the night. Somebody will say, “Now, is your baby a good baby?” “Oh yes, he's sleeping through the night.” That's not really a good testimony at all for a nursing mother. If your baby is sleeping through the night, you'll most probably get your period back pretty quickly because your baby needs to be nursing from you off and on all night if you want to have that blessing of amenorrhea up to nearly two years. You see, that's how it comes with total mothering. These are little things. Sometimes mothers say, “It didn't work for me,” but I see a pacifier in their baby’s mouth, I find that their baby is sleeping mostly through the night. That's not really how it works.
Anyway, I wanted to share those things with you, and I trust that they will be a blessing to you. Another thing too, I know, as we are talking about this, some of you precious mothers will feel so frustrated because you'd love to have another baby and you'd love to have the joy of nursing another baby, but your husband doesn't want another baby. I know that's so sad but keep praying. Don't nag, but don't give up praying. I think there's always that time where you have to sit down and talk about things. If your husband is a believer and especially a believer in God's word, well, we do need to challenge one another.
“Well, look Darling, we need to really look into the Word before we make a final decision about this.”
I did write a book years ago, Be Fruitful and Multiply. Currently, we are out of print, although we are looking at printing it again. This book was used to bless thousands of couples. Many babies have been born because of couples reading this book. I still have it as a download book, you can go to my webpage, aboverubies.org and go to Be Fruitful and Multiply audio.
You can go to this link to order: http://aboverubiesbookstore.mybigcommerce.com/be-fruitful-and-multiply-audio-book/
It's great for husbands who can listen to it while they are going to and from work. Half the time they don't want to read books anyway, but they will listen. It's something they can listen to. It's not read by me, by a woman. They don't have to listen to a woman, no. It's read by a man who is a professional broadcaster. They can hear it that way. Check that out on the website or go to the link above.
Let's pray.
“Father, we do thank You that we can share together again. I pray that You will bless all these young moms today and the older moms listening. Lord, we need to be encouraged in Your ways so that we are speaking the right words to the young mothers. O God, I pray that You will save us older mothers from speaking the wrong words to the young mothers. Lord, we've got to give them Your ways, Your answers. I pray that You will bless every family, every child, and every baby and every nursing mother. Bless them today and fill them with joy as they nurse their babies. Give them that joy of not having to do it at certain times but just relaxing and enjoying putting their baby to the breast, anytime, all day, all night, whenever, which is the lifestyle of a nursing mother. Bless them, I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”