Health
symposium focuses
on fertility
By NADIA MARIA SMITH
CS&T Staff Writer
As more women discover the Creighton Model FertilityCare System and the
NaPro Technology component of it, they are speaking up about their profound
health benefits.
Those benefits include assistance for infertile women in conceiving; empowering
women to uncover the mystery of their bodies in order to identify problems
and seek gynecological attention quickly; assisting couples in planning
their families naturally — without introducing chemicals into
their bodies — and increasing the quality of marriage for couples.
March 23 to 29 has been designated “Worldwide Fertility Care Week”
by FertilityCare Centers of America, Inc. And a local group, called Friends
of FertilityCare, is collaborating with the Archdiocese in sponsoring
a health symposium featuring Thomas Hilgers, the founder of NaPro Technology,
on Sept. 13 at the Sheraton Philadelphia Hotel in Center City.
“The Creighton Model FertilityCare System teaches couples how to
identify their fertile and infertile days by observing and tracking physical
signs that are present in the woman,” explained Barbara Rose, a
Creighton nurse practitioner in Jenkintown and a member of Philadelphia’s
Friends of FertilityCare.
“These signs are easy to learn and easy to interpret when taught
by a qualified Creighton Model FertilityCare practitioner,” Rose
said.
NaPro Technology, a gynecological health care component of the Creighton
System, advocates “listening to nature.”
It cooperates with the natural procreative mechanisms and functions of
a woman’s body in such a way as to preserve the woman’s procreative
potential.
The system was developed over the past 25 years at the Creighton University
School of Medicine in Omaha, Neb. It is scientifically based and has a
proven success rate, Rose said.
She said NaPro Technology’s success rate in assisting couples in
achieving pregnancy is up to a 76 percent — a percentage that is
superior to the low success rate of other, non-natural methods.
For postponing pregnancy, the technology has a 99.6 percent degree of
accuracy, Rose said.
One women who raves about the Creighton model and NaPro Technology is
Christine Algeo, a new mom.
Algeo, a member of St. Titus Parish in East Norriton, was introduced to
the Creighton system six months before she married her husband, John.
The couple learned that she was suffering from low levels of progesterone,
the hormone that helps a baby implant once it is conceived and then sustains
the pregnancy. She also learned that she could have problems becoming
pregnant. But the couple followed the Creighton system, and she conceived
on her honeymoon.
“When I got pregnant, I knew I needed to get blood work done right
away to test the progesterone,” Algeo said. She found out that she
had low progesterone, and her husband administered shots of natural progesterone
to her twice a week for the first two-and-a-half months of the pregnancy.
Then her own body kicked in.
Now they have a healthy 5-month-old boy, Joseph Daniel.
“[Non NaPro doctors] would not usually test for [low progesterone]
unless they know it is an issue, and as a result, many women have a miscarriage,”
Algeo said. “Praise God for NaPro — or else I don’t
think this little guy would be here today. It is amazing how miracles
can unfold when a woman just knows her own body.”
To learn more visit www.fertilitycare.org or contact Friends of FertilityCare
Philadelphia by calling (215) 884-2922.
CS&T staff writer Nadia Maria Smith can be reached at npozo@adphila.org
or (215) 965-4614.