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La Crosse Natural Family Planning Program Web Page. Take the
time to check out our site and learn more about the good
news of natural methods of family planning and Catholic
Church teachings on life and love.
Click Here to read about how NFP changed the life of one
married couple.
Local News
Healthy Youth Act of Wisconsin
On
February 24, 2010, Governor Doyle signed into law an act
that dramatically changes the way human growth and
development curriculums will be taught within the public
school systems of Wisconsin. The act requires all
schools providing health classes to include information
on sexuality that is medically accurate and age
appropriate in the following areas; importance of
communication about sexuality between a student and a
student’s parents, reproductive and sexual anatomy,
including physical and emotional changes during
maturation, puberty, pregnancy, parenting, body image
and gender stereotypes, skills for making responsible
decisions, including recognizing and refraining from
inappropriate verbal, physical, and sexual behaviors;
the benefits of and reasons for abstaining from sexual
activity, stressing abstinence as the most reliable way
to prevent pregnancy and STDs; health benefits, side
effects, and proper use of contraceptives and barrier
methods; the develop of healthy life skills; the affects
of alcohol and drugs on decision making; and the impact
of media on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in
relation to sexuality. The legislation does not weight
the amount of time spent on each element.
In addition to this information on
sexuality, health classes must promote self esteem and
positive social skills, identify resources for survivors
of sexual assault, and use materials and methods that do
not promote bias against certain pupils.
There are a couple of areas that are
truly detrimental in this bill. First, gender stereotype
information is mandated. The door is now open for
education on homosexuality. There is nothing that can be
done to close this door. Secondly, there is no way a
teacher can link sexual activity to marriage. The
legislature may look at a link of sex to marriage as a
‘bias’. The best one can do is link the research on
child development and well-being to the security of
marriage.
Because this legislation is the current
law of our state, parents are urged to find out more
about how their local school districts will abide by its
assurances. In general, we would make the following
recommendations to all children who are within a
Wisconsin public school.
1. Take the time to
review your local school district’s human growth and
development curriculum. Become familiar with the lessons
at your child’s grade level.
2. Remember, you are
the primary educator for your children. Do everything
you can to teach the correct information to your
children BEFORE they are subject to any of this
information in the classroom.
3. If your child seems
any bit annoyed or anxious about hearing this
information within the classroom, opt out of the
education. If you take this route, make sure you provide
your child with information on the beauty of human
sexuality. It is incorrect to opt your child out of the
classes and then provide no instruction at all.
4. If you opt to keep
your child in the class, view the entire curriculum
before the lessons take place. Then go through the
potential problematic areas with your child in advance
of the class. If you can, provide possible
questions/facts that your child may ask/present in the
class during the lesson.
NFP Classes Offered Online for Clients and Teachers!
The Natural Family Program for the Diocese of La
Crosse is now offering online Natural Family Planning
courses for clients! Click on "NFP
Class Registration" to see more information on all
three modes of instruction that are available in the
diocese. Registration forms for all three methods
are also available from that page.
The office has also developed an on-line
NFP teacher training program. Individuals or couples
interested in becoming NFP instructors for the diocese
can now complete their training through an on-line
course. If you are interested in becoming an instructor,
please contact us. We’d enjoy sharing the requirements
and responsibilities with you! (Instructors are needed
in the La Crosse, Eau Claire and Wausau areas.)
Both online programs are offered through Northwest
Family Services.
NFP & Contraception in Science
Oral Estrogen Linked to Unfavorable Vascular Effects in
Women Without Troublesome Hot Flushes
Laurie Barclay, MD as reported in
Medscape Medical News
October 1, 2009 — Oral estrogen is
linked to unfavorable vascular effects in women without
troublesome hot flushes, according to the results of a
randomized controlled trial reported in the October
issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
"Postmenopausal hormone therapy (HT) was
once recommended for the prevention of cardiovascular
disease," write Pauliina Tuomikoski, MD, from Helsinki
University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, and
colleagues. "This recommendation was based on the marked
reduction (approximately 40–60%) of cardiovascular
disease risk in the numerous observational studies when
recently postmenopausal women, typically with severe
vasomotor hot flushes, had decided to initiate HT.
However, when older women with no or minimal vasomotor
hot flushes were treated HT had no beneficial effect in
secondary or primary prevention of cardiovascular
disease."
"Women without troublesome hot flushes
are susceptible to unfavorable vascular effects after
oral estrogen treatment, resulting in less compliant
vasculature," the study authors write. "This could
partly explain the divergent results between
observational studies and randomized clinical trials in
which HT-related cardiovascular disease effects have
been assessed, since in observational studies, women
were likely to have experienced hot flushes when
initiating HT, whereas women entering clinical trials
did not have troublesome hot flushes.
For more information on this study
please refer to: Obstet Gynecol.
2009;114:777-785.
Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate Associated With
Fracture Risk in Young Women
Nancy A. Melville as reported in
Medscape Medical News
September 16, 2009 (Denver, Colorado) —
Long-term use of the contraceptive depot
medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) has been associated
with impaired bone-mineral acquisition in adolescents
and accelerated bone loss later in life, but new
research, presented here at the American Society for
Bone and Mineral Research 31st Annual Meeting, indicates
that the bone loss translates into a greater risk for
fractures in young women.
Concerns about DMPA's effect on
bone-mineral density were significant enough to prompt
the US Food and Drug Administration to issue a black-box
warning for the drug in 2004, yet more than 9 million
women continue to use the contraceptive worldwide.
With many users being teenagers, the concerns about the
drug's effects on early adulthood bone development are
particularly significant.
Compared with nonusers, women with 3 to
9 prescriptions and more than 10 prescriptions had a
significant increased fracture risk, with the highest
risk seen among women with long-term use, of more than
10 prescriptions, and a treatment duration of more than
2 to 3 years.
For the complete report, please refer
to: American Society for Bone and Mineral Research
(ASBMR) 31st Annual Meeting: Abstract 1057. Presented
September 12, 2009.
Another Reason to Reject Injectables: Increases the
Risk of Obesity
A study published in the American
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology involving 703
women who were beginning the use of either birth
control pills or DMPA (DepoProvera), and compared
them to women who used a form of non-hormone
contraception. Over the 3 year study period, DMPA
users gained significantly more body fat than oral
contraceptive (OC) and non-hormone (NH)
contraception users, the researchers reported,
adding that women of normal weight were found to
gain much more body fat than women who were obese at
the beginning of the study. "It is a concern that
women who were not obese at the start of the study
were twice as likely to become obese over the next 3
years if they selected DMPA over non-hormone
contraception," study authors Drs. Abbey B. Berenson
and Mahbubur Rahman of The University of Texas
Medical Branch, Galveston, write. (Baklinski,
Thaddeus M. Study Finds Injectable Contraceptive
Leads to Obesity. Galveston: LifeSiteNews.com,
2009.)
Mercedes Wilson, founder and president
of the natural family planning (NFP) organization,
Family for the Americas, observed that hormonal
contraception is devastating women's health in the third
world. "The pill, IUDs, injections, and the patch are
devastating to the poor because they all carry the same
steroids, which are known to be toxic and carcinogenic.
21 scientists with the World Health Organization in 2005
confirmed that estrogens in birth control methods are
carcinogenic of the number one type, which is the most
dangerous type of all," Wilson told LifeSiteNews in an
interview in 2008. "In the third world, however, they
are still using the 3-month injections the most," Wilson
noted. "It does so much harm to the poor. They are given
it while mothers' are breastfeeding their babies. The
steroids are going right through the breast milk to the
babies and that is a calamity. It causes cancer, heart
disease, you name it; the list is interminable. And with
the lack of the health facilities in the third world, it
is criminal."
Article from Northwest Family Services
NWFS Update. August, 2009.
Here's a List of All the Stories in
the Current "NFP Realities" Newsletter
