Empowering women with new reproductive technology

By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent

 
For much too long, women have been lead to believe that reproductive technology is limited to hormonal replacement therapy, birth control pills, abortion-on-demand and in-vitro fertilization. Nothing could be further from the truth.
On Tues., Sept. 14, at 7:30 p.m. in the Marian Hall at St. Dominic’s Church, Dr. Jean Golden-Tevald, DO, NFPMC, will explain why these methods are failing women and how other forms of fertility care are on the verge of  revolutionizing women’s reproductive health care.
Perhaps the best explanation is a first-hand example. Megan McAvoy, a parishioner at Queen of Peace parish in Ardsley, went into post-partum depression when her first child was born three years ago. The baby suffered from an intestinal blockage that kept him at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for two months.
“I was running down to Childrens’ Hospital and spending seven to eight hours a day with him,” McAvoy said. “In between, I lost my job and shortly thereafter September 11 hit. I would come home and sleep for two hours. I believe I was going through depression the whole time, from the moment he was born, but it didn’t hit me until September 11 happened. That whole tragic thing happened and I just couldn’t get myself out of it.”
Doctors put her on anti-depressants and recommended that she go on the pill to avoid becoming pregnant. The McAvoys were not comfortable with artificial birth control, and decided to call Barbara Rose, a local nurse who had helped them to learn natural family planning years before.
Barbara had since become involved in a new area of natural family planning called Natural Procreative Technology (NaPro) that “listens” to the language of a woman’s body in order to identify the underlying causes of her health problems. This language is expressed through charts on which women are taught to keep a daily record of signs indicating where they are in their fertility cycle.
“Dr. Thomas Hilgers at the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha was researching the effectiveness of the Billings Method when he noticed that … women who had specific problems had a specific look to their charts — such as women who had ovarian cysts or endometriosis,” Rose said. “It became very clear … that these charts could  be an important diagnostic tool, and from that they developed NaPro technology.”
Relying on this technology, the researchers were able to diagnose the causes of specific reproductive problems such as infertility, miscarriage, still-birth and premature birth. In addition, the more common problems such as premenstrual syndrome, recurring ovarian cysts, menopause and postpartum depression. Instead of merely treating the symptoms with drugs, they were able to determine the actual cause of the problem, and then treat it.
McAvoy, herself, used natural methods of family planning and continued on anti-depressants until she and her husband began to think about another child.
“They slowly began to wean me off the anti-depressants,” McAvoy said. “When I finally came off them, my blood levels were checked to see if my progesterone levels dropped off after ovulation, which they did.” This is a common cause of some forms of post-partum depression.
“No other doctors checked my blood levels before,” McAvoy said. “My new doctor started to treat me with natural progesterone injections and I was pregnant a few months later.”
Her second child, James, was born a month ago.
“I feel really good,” she said. “I’m able to go about my day. I’m just exhausted from being up with him a couple times a night. If I knew this depression was because my progesterone levels dropped, I might not have had to go on these anti-depressants.”
According to Golden-Tevald, McAvoy’s tale is a typical story.
“Women’s reproductive health care is a travesty,” she said. “Women are under-diagnosed and over-treated.”
Golden-Tevald took seven years off from her medical practice to raise three of her own children, as well as adopt four children into her family — three sisters and a brother from Russia with special needs resulting from maternal-alcohol-syndrome. It was during this time that she began studying NaPro technology.
“NaPro technology focuses on an appropriate diagnosis and treatment that cooperates with a woman’s reproductive system, instead of just shutting the whole thing down. Basically, this is what the pill does — it turns off your reproductive system,” she said.
Depending on a woman’s problem, the pill can alleviate many symptoms but it leaves the underlying causes of the problem undiagnosed and, therefore, untreated. According to Golden-Tevald, many women are content with this solution until they reach their late 20s, when they start to want a family.
“So, when they try to get pregnant, they still have all these problems to deal with — especially when you add older age onto that,” she said. “There’s a natural pattern of decreasing fertility as we get older, but when you add on poly-cystic ovary disease, or endometriosis that hasn’t been treated for years, and now you’re in your mid-30s, it’s really difficult to get pregnant.”
Often the women are then herded into infertility and IVF clinics.
“Instead of offering women a chance to see what’s wrong with them so they can fix it, they just swing them over to IVF, blast their ovaries to produce a lot of eggs, implant them and see if they get pregnant.”
Golden-Tevald knows of one woman whose ovaries were so overstimulated to produce eggs for IVF treatments the ovaries had gotten as large as grapefruits, leaving her in constant pain.
“Women who have been on the IVF track … they come to me and the overwhelming feeling is that they were just a cow in the rack. You get on, they do all these things to your body, then you come out the other end. … They feel very used and abused when they come out.”
Golden-Tevald said there are many other options: “The whole in-between part of diagnosis and appropriate treatment is being overlooked. And sometimes its very simple treatment.”
Simple, inexpensive — and highly successful. NaPro technology is two-to-three times more successful than in-vitro fertilization at helping infertile couples have children. A recent study published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine found NaPro technology to be 99.5 percent effective as a method of regulating birth. It is also 79 percent effective at helping women have a successful pregnancy after they have suffered multiple miscarriages. Even the most common premenstrual ills suffered by millions of women are treated with 95 percent effectiveness with natural methods, not pills. Conception dates are more accurately known, and the rate of premature births are cut in half for women who use NaPro technology. It is also 95 percent effective at treating post-partum depression like Megan McAvoy’s. 
“It’s terrible that this kind of women’s health care is being sold as “empowering women. It’s just the opposite of that,” Golden-Tevald said.
The seminar is free. To register, call 215-884-2922 or 610-495-8821 or e-mail pafertilitycare@comcast.net

Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615

NaproTECHNOLOGY ® seminar

While people in our area know more about Natural Family Planning due to the work of the Philadelphia NFP Network (www.pnfpn.org) there still remain many couples who are faced with moral dilemmas. Women who suffer reproductive health problems are told that they must be treated with contraception. Infertile couples are told that their only hope for a baby is artificial reproductive technology. Today we have an answer. Come hear Dr. Jean Golden-Tevald, NFP, physician and Creighton Medical consultant, speak about NaproTECHNOLOGY®. The presentation will be at St. Dominic Church, Marian Hall, 8504 Frankford Ave. in Philadelphia, on Tuesday, Sept 14. For more information and pre-registration please call the FertilityCare Practitioners of Southeast PA at (610) 495-8821 or (215) 884-2922, or e-mail: pafertilitycare@comcast.net