Doctor pioneers fertility treatment aligned with Catholic teaching

OMAHA, Neb. — A relatively new field in medicine that is aligned with the Catholic Church’s teaching on life is offering families real results in reproductive health and fertility issues — NaProTECHNOLOGY.

Most people have not heard of NaProTECHNOLOGY, but they have heard of the contraceptive mentality, the pill, the intrauterine device, in vitro fertilization (IVF), artificial contraception and abortion. The latter are promoted by many health care professionals, pharmaceutical companies, public education systems, government and media. These methods prevent or stop new life in the womb, and are many times favored in the secular world over respect for the dignity of new human life.

NaProTECHNOLOGY is a counter to the contraceptive mentality. It is the revolutionary scientific approach pioneered by Dr. Thomas W. Hilgers at the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction . The institute, which opened in 1985, is located within the territory of the Eparchy of Parma in Omaha, Nebraska. Despite being 30 years old, this science is not yet widely known.

Dr. Hilgers is also a clinical professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Creighton University School of Medicine. He has served on the Pontifical Council for the Family and is a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

This relatively new medical field that he began stands against the secular medical world of artificially suppressing a woman’s natural cycle; it does not view life in the womb as a disease, and it upholds the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding the dignity of the human person.         

According to the institute’s website, NaProTECHNOLOGY, which stands for Natural Procreative Technology, is “a women’s health science, which has as its main principle the ability to work cooperatively with the woman’s menstrual and fertility cycle.”

The website states that NaProTECHNOLOGY is “the first women’s health science to network family planning with reproductive health monitoring and gynecologic health maintenance.”

“This is a fertility-care based medical approach rather than a fertility-control approach that provides medical and surgical treatments,” the website states. This medical science “identifies the problems and cooperates with the menstrual and fertility cycles that correct the condition, maintain the human ecology, and sustain the procreative potential.”

NaProTECHNOLOGY can be applied to family planning, infertility and other reproductive disorders, abnormal bleeding, abnormal hormone conditions of the menstrual cycle, recurrent ovarian cysts, the dating and beginning of pregnancy, and postpartum depression.

There have been many attacks on fertility in recent history. In 1960, the use of the contraceptive pill was approved by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration. Since then, the divorce rate has climbed in a parallel fashion with the use of contraception and abortion. There has been a parallel increase in violence against women, teenage suicide, depression, infant prematurity rate, multiple pregnancies, IVF, STDs, the human papilloma virus, invasive cervical cancer, liver cancer, breast cancer, and HIV. Teenage promiscuity, multiple pregnancy rates, low birth weight babies, ectopic pregnancies, and family violence have also increased.

The disregard for pregnancy and human dignity has damaged marriages, women and families, while being largely ignored by the medical community, which still pushes artificial, mechanical and hormonal contraception to stop or prevent new life from developing in the womb. The pill also remains the treatment of choice for many women’s health issues in mainstream medicine. The secular practice of obstetrics-gynecology and reproductive medicine does not, in most cases, try to find a cause for these problems. Rather, the health care provider goes down the path of prescribing the pill, does not investigate the cause of the problem, and puts the woman at risk of serious problems. This is especially true if the pill is taken with a history of blood clots, hypertension, cancer, stroke, hyperlipidemia, smoking, or coronary artery disease. There is a long list of side effects on the package insert for any of the birth control pills on the market. The list for which the pill is used is long and it includes many common women’s health problems. Among these issues are premenstrual syndrome, menstrual cramps, polycystic ovaries, endometriosis, chronic pelvic pain, irregular periods, postpartum depression, infertility, premature births, and recurrent spontaneous abortion.

NaProTECHNOLOGY research indicates that the treatment of infertility with IVF demonstrates only a 28.4 percent live birth rate per cycle started. This result is inversely dependent on the woman’s age; it drops to only 4 percent when a woman is over age 42. The final numbers indicate that these reproductive technologies assist only 0.44 percent of all women suffering from infertility, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth and miscarriage. These programs are also associated with multiple pregnancies, frozen embryos, surrogacy programs, postmenopausal motherhood and embryo experimentation.

These fertility issues raise serious questions in the Catholic Church, which have been addressed in St. Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, “Humanae Vitae,” St. John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical, “Evangelium Vitae,” as well as “Donum Vitae,” issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1987.

Through NaProTECHNOLOGY, Dr. Hilgers offers an approach in the field of obstetrics-gynecology and reproductive medicine that has given solutions to many women with these issues, with an impressive 70 percent cumulative pregnancy rate at 36 months of treatment for infertility. His institute has a team of doctors, nurses, teachers, medical lab technicians, research assistants, ultrasonographers, a psychologist, and an ethicist, Sister Renee Mirkes. His adult children are also on staff: his son, Paul, as a lawyer, and his daughter, Dr. Teresa Hilgers, as another obstetrics-gynecology doctor.

My wife, Kathryn, and I traveled to the institute in Omaha and spoke with research assistant Pamela Yaksich and secretarial assistant Terri Green to learn first-hand about NaProTECHNOLOGY. Yaksich said Dr. Hilgers’ team has trained about 700-900 medical consultants, usually nurse practitioners or doctors who are obstetrics-gynecology professionals, pediatricians, or family practitioners. The 13-month training program leads to certification as a medical consultant by the Board of Fertility Care Centers of America. Dr. Hilgers also has a one-year fellowship training program for obstetrics-gynecology surgeons in the surgical aspect of NaProTECHNOLOGY at Bergan Mercy Hospital.

The institute has four obstetrics-gynecology doctors and a nurse practitioner. Most patients have very complicated issues. They have been treated at other facilities and are desperate for answers and results. The institute sees patients from across the country and abroad. It runs evaluations on hormone levels, follicular ultrasounds, and other medical exams. It has a national hormone laboratory on site, where hormone levels are run from doctors’ offices worldwide.

Insurance coverage for evaluation and treatment varies, but most insurance companies and medical care sharing programs cover treatment for illnesses related to infertility, such as endometriosis, but not infertility itself. The cost, too, varies depending on the problem being treated and if surgery is needed.

If a woman from another city or country wants evaluation, she can start with her obstetrics-gynecology doctor or be referred to a nearby NaProTECHNOLOGY obstetrics-gynecology doctor or teacher, who can communicate with the doctors at the institute in Omaha.

The patient learns to chart her cycle using the Creighton Model FertilityCare System, while hormone levels are drawn and correlated with the charting. Her doctor then decides whether she should travel to Omaha for evaluation or surgery or be treated locally. Local doctors have much of the preliminary charting and hormone levels recorded before an evaluation is done at the institute. Treatment could include bio-identical hormone therapy or surgery, based on a patient’s diagnosis, hormone levels and cycle history.

I had the opportunity to talk with one woman who was evaluated by the institute for post-partum depression, which she suffered after all her pregnancies. She learned of the institute from her midwife. Her local doctors treated her after a phone consultation with the doctors at the institute. She was prescribed an intramuscular injection of progesterone, which cured her symptoms of “lack of energy, paranoia, bleak outlook, and intrusive thoughts by the next day.” This treatment was continued monthly because it also helped her premenstrual symptoms.

Learn more at www.naprotechnology.org. Doctors who practice NaProTECHNOLOGY across the country are listed at www.fertilitycare.org.
 
Caption: Dr. Thomas W. Hilgers (back row, fifth from right) poses with his staff at the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction in this undated photo. (Photo courtesy of the Pope Paul VI Institute)

As published in Horizons, Nov. 17, 2019.
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