Periodic Continence

The regents of the University of Wisconsin received a petition last week. The petition, signed by the Women's (students') Self-Government Association, asked that a course on sex & marriage be included in the curriculum.

An even more poignant cry for information on this touchy subject (see p. 57) rose in Manhattan last week. At a discussion on marriage, conducted by the New York Province of College Catholic Clubs, a young woman asked: "Is the rhythmic cycle [of infertility] reliable in the average woman?" Replied Obstetrician Frederick Walter Rice: "The rhythmic cycle is the only recourse left to the Catholic. It will be only when physicians can give data about each woman in regard to the cycle that Catholics can live freely within the moral law."

For Roman Catholics and for others who dislike or disbelieve in birth control, there was encouraging news last week. Dr. Arthur George Miller, who operates a thriving women's clinic at Hobart, Ind., reported in Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics that in 30,000 cohabitations 480 of his clients have not had a single unwanted child. All had practiced periodic continence according to his calendar specifications. His patients bring him a written report of the time of their menstrual periods for from six to eight months. These records, said Dr. Miller, have shown "that the old. time-honored 28-day cycle has been largely a figment of the imagination, and that the average healthy woman will have a cycle which varies between a minimum of 26 or 27 days and a maximum of 30 to 32 days."

Dr. Miller tells his patient: "1) Ovulation occurs 14 days before the following menstruation; 2) the egg cell can be fertilized only during the twelve-hour period immediately following its emergence from the [ovary]; 3) the fertilizing ability of the sperm cell in the female genital tract is maintained for not more than 24 to 36 hours." From those biological facts and the woman's record of her longest period Dr. Miller marks a calendar by which she and her husband may guide themselves. As an added precaution he advises continence two days before and two days after ovulation, thus allowing for a five-day period of fertility instead of the biological three-day minimum.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.