As a bilingual educator at Dignity Health’s Women’s Services, teaching women and married couples the Creighton Model FertilityCare System of Natural Family Planning, Veronica Pintor carries on a tradition of service from the Mercy hospitals to the Sacramento area that spans almost 40 years.
Given the proper training, motivation and cooperation, the Creighton Model is safe and can be as effective – if not more – than most other methods of family planning, says Veronica, a longtime member of St. Christopher Parish in Galt, who since 2011 has been program director and coordinator of Dignity’s FertilityCare Center. Successful use of the Creighton Model, she adds, requires cooperation between both partners and contributes to growth, communication, understanding and respect for their joint fertility and their relationship.
The Creighton Model relies upon the observation of signs essential to fertility, she notes. The method is based upon the fact that during a woman’s cycle she will experience characteristics that indicate times of fertility and infertility. These signs can be easily observed and interpreted and indicate when a woman may avoid pregnancy and when she may become pregnant.
In addition, the same chart that a couple uses to track the biomarkers of fertility within a woman’s cycle can also be used by a trained medical consultant/physician (using NaPro Technology) to diagnose gynecological abnormalities and infertility, offering women an excellent means to maintain and evaluate their health.
As a professional FertilityCare practitioner certified through the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction (at Creighton University School of Medicine), Veronica says she is fulfilling her dream of helping couples conceive, deal with infertility issues and identify women’s health issues.
Any Dignity Health patient may access FertilityCare services and clients come in for a variety of reasons, she says. “Some Catholic clients are referred by their local parish. Some couples inquire because they are struggling with infertility or gynecological issues and want to work with a NaPro doctor. We also serve adolescents struggling with health issues or couples who want to stop using contraceptives because they want to respect their bodies and not use any artificial hormones. They see this as a natural approach.
“I listen carefully and try to meet their needs of why they want to implement NFP in their lives. You see the beauty of the couples when they come to an understanding of their own bodies and the knowledge and confidence they gain from classes. The most rewarding for me is when they achieve a pregnancy in a natural way without having in vitro fertilization, which can be costly and extremely stressful emotionally. Some couples see me after they have tried IVF. I support them in their struggles, because our culture today often gives them the message that there are instant and easier alternatives, rather than the message that they can use NFP effectively.”
Veronica continues in the tradition of longtime NFP teacher Winnie Neill, who began offering services at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael in the late 1970s at the request of Sister of Mercy Mary Redempta Scannell, who was in nursing ministry as director of education and training. “Sister Mary Redempta felt strongly that a Catholic hospital should be teaching NFP,” says Winnie, a member of St. James Mission Church in Georgetown, who taught at Mercy Women’s Center until she retired in 1999.
Mercy Women’s Center was established in the early 1980s, Winnie says, combining the program at Mercy San Juan with the program at Mercy General Hospital, where Nancy Mattioli had been teaching NFP.
Winnie’s passion began when she and her husband, Bob, moved to Sacramento from the Bay Area in 1976 and they learned and started using NFP. She learned the Creighton Model in 1979 and began teaching. “We struggled as a couple after we had three children between 1965 and 1968 and we wanted to follow church teaching,” she says. “My inspiration for teaching NFP was we felt isolated in those years and undecided about our family planning decisions. I never wanted any other couple, Catholic or otherwise, to have to struggle with the same decisions – to uses contraceptives or not – because they didn’t know the natural alternatives.”
Winnie adds: “I’ve always felt that one of God’s greatest gifts to us is our fertility and I wanted couples to understand their fertility and be challenged to realize how precious it is. NFP affects their relationship in a positive way. They make prayerful and reasoned decisions about having children or not and they work together on their fertility and every other aspect of their lives. It enhances their communication, commitment and love as a couple.”
Dignity Health’s Women’s Services are offered to uphold church teaching in Catholic health care and to fulfill in part the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Institutions (ERDs),” according to Michael Cox, vice president for mission integration and ethicist for Dignity Health’s greater Sacramento service area.
Part four of the ERDs, titled “Issues in Care for the Beginning of Life,” notes that the church’s commitment to human dignity inspires an abiding concern for the sanctity of human life from its very beginning, and with the dignity of marriage and of the marriage act by which human life is transmitted. The church cannot approve medical practices that undermine the biological, psychological, and moral bonds on which the strength of marriage and the family depends. Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of life “from the moment of conception until death.”
Directive No. 52 notes that “Catholic health institutions may not promote or condone contraceptive practices but should provide, for married couples and the medical staff who counsel them, instruction both about the church’s teaching on responsible parenthood and in methods of Natural Family Planning.”
At Dignity Health “we have an opportunity with our response to fertility and infertility issues to see human beings as whole persons,” says Michael, who is responsible, among his duties, for organizational culture, spirituality and spiritual care, clinical and organizational ethics, and community health and outreach at Dignity Health in Sacramento. “It’s part of our commitment to the social tradition of the church. In the introduction to part four of ERDs we are reminded that ‘marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained for the begetting and educating of children.’ The marital act of co-creating life with God is profoundly relational and involves seeing all persons involved as whole persons.”
“When we look at NFP, infertility or fertility, it’s not simply the subject of a single act -- it’s the way we participate in God’s creation, the way in which we participate in continuing to deepen our faith through parenthood,” he says. “That could also be through adoption and other ways of experiencing parenthood that are morally appropriate.”
The reason to offer and promote Dignity Health’s Women’s Services “is because every person should get an opportunity to explore and to receive services that enhance their ability to conceive and participate in the wonderful joy of having kids,” he adds.
NFP “has a broad appeal and we serve a wide range of people are interested in it and want to learn it,” Michael says. “We’ve never been about simply serving one denomination or faith – we welcome everyone. We recognize NFP is not simply a phenomenon associated with the Catholic faith, but it’s something everyone should have access to in our system.”
LEARN MORE
Dignity Health FertilityCare services at 1700 Tribute Road, Suite 100, in Sacramento, offers introductory sessions in English and Spanish for $30 per couple. Individual follow-up appointments are $40. Alternative financial arrangements, including partial scholarships based on need, are available. Call 916.733.6256 or email to veronica.pintor@dignityhealth.org or womensservices@dignityhealth.org. Or online visit https://www.dignityhealth.org/sacramento/services/family-birth-centers/fertility-services.
To read the full text of the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Institutions” visit http://www.usccb.org/about/doctrine/ethical-and-religious-directives/.
In photo above, Veronica Pintor is program director and coordinator of Dignity Health's FertilityCare Center in Sacramento.