Women’s Health Forum Update
Today we had our first Catholic Women’s Health and Fertility Forum. We had a good turnout for two weeks of advertising. We had about 30 people there and 5 speakers talking about the Church’s teaching, Fertility Care and Women’s Health, Modern NFP Methods, Osteoporosis and Menopause, Infertility and Fruitfulness in Marriage, and the prevelance of strokes among women. We had tables with information from: Creighton Model, Couple to Couple League, Stroke Scan, Total Health Chiropratic, Weight Watchers, La Leche League, Bradley Childbirth Method, Doulas, Blood and Tissue Center of Central Texas, Catholic Bioethics Center, and a bunch of miscellaneous info on Catholic teaching of NFP and contraception.
I walked away with something new from almost every talk. I found some of the new NaProTechnology research to be very interesting. Apparently, there is a lot of information about a woman’s health based on her mucus cycle. And Creighton teachers are starting to learn to ‘score’ a woman’s mucus cycle. This score can tell which health risks and procreative risks a woman is more likely to have such as infertility, miscarriage, osteoperosis, etc. Also one Creighton Model Medical Consultant in Ireland has some interesting findings that link infertility with food allergies and sensitivities.
I found the talk on Infertility and Fruitfulness very profound and beautiful. We live in a society that does not appreciate how a couple can be fruitful outside of bearing or adopting children. Certainly many infertile couples are called to adoption, but not all. The presenter gave her and her husband’s story on how their infertility has impacted their lives. They’ve always been open to life in their 15 years of marriage but never been gifted with children. They’ve never felt the call to adopt. But instead have put their lives into their ministry work and missionary work with an indiginous tribe in Brazil. And through that, God has blessed their marriage with much fruit through their spiritual parenthood.
I can see a lot of potential for next year with more time to put something together.