Family Planning, the Natural Way

A new hospital-based center brings state-of-the-art medicine to women who choose a Catholic approach

It’s a special challenge to provide the best in family planning and fertility care while staying true to Catholic values. At Saint Peter’s University Hospital, that challenge is met by The National Gianna Center for Women’s Health and Fertility, one of a handful of centers in the country that offer women full obstetrical and gynecological care from a board-certified Ob/Gyn using natural fertility and family planning techniques without relying on hormonal suppression or artificial reproductive technologies.

The Gianna Center is named for Gianna Beretta Molla, an Italian pediatrician and devout Catholic who died on Good Friday in 1962 after refusing to terminate her pregnancy because of a complicated growth on her uterus. Her baby survived, and she was canonized as Saint Gianna in 2004—and has come to be regarded as a patron saint for mothers, physicians and unborn children.

The original Gianna Center opened in Manhattan in 2009 with funding from St. Vincent’s Hospital. The hospital closed its doors the next year, but Saint Peter’s kept the New York center open and hired one of its two physicians, obstetrician/ gynecologist Kyle Beiter, M.D., to direct a new Gianna Center in New Brunswick. That center has been in operation since November 2010 and plans a formal grand opening ceremony this spring.

A COMMON CONVICTION

Dr. Beiter met the New York center’s director, family physician Anne Mielnik Nolte, M.D., when both were taking a course in NaPro Technology, a new system of women’s health care that works in conjunction with their menstrual and fertility cycles. The most salient applications of this new system are in the areas of family planning and fertility. “We are of like mind,” he says. “I went into the Ob/Gyn field with a strong conviction that women deserve good pro-life health care. There are very few providers in the field with true pro-life ethics. Dr. Nolte started the center with that mission, and I joined her.”

Dr. Beiter says there is a great need for these services. “There are many women who are seeking alternatives to hormonal contraception. Unfortunately, they’re often unaware that there are other options that are modern and effective,” he explains. “For that reason, we have found, many of them haven’t gone to a gynecologist in years.”

The doctor and his staff offer natural family planning techniques as a certified FertilityCare Center. There are hundreds of such centers in the U.S. and around the world, but only a few also offer full-service Ob/Gyn care, he reports.

“Families should be able to limit the number of children they have, from both an ethical and a medical standpoint,” says Dr. Beiter. “We offer a contrast to suppressive therapies.” Using a system called FertilityCare, he takes close observations of biological markers such as menstrual bleeding patterns, cervical mucus and other indicators of the stages of a woman’s cycle to provide scientifically sophisticated counsel aimed at helping couples time intercourse to avoid pregnancy.

The Gianna Center’s staff can diagnose and treat ectopic pregnancy, ovarian cysts, abnormal bleeding from fibroids or other causes, and many other gynecological problems.

WHEN COUPLES CAN’T CONCEIVE

For women struggling with infertility, the center’s professionals identify any underlying conditions that may be preventing conception. “The patient’s charting reveals aspects of her underlying reproductive physiology, which we can then use as we tailor our diagnostic and treatment strategy for that patient,” says Dr. Beiter.

Again using detailed observations of the menstrual cycle, the center “works in cooperation with the cycle,” he says, to promote conception arising out of an act of love between husband and wife. Dr. Beiter eschews in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques, he says, because of his conviction that they impose a “manufacturing” mentality on procreation.

The center’s natural techniques are quite effective in both avoiding and facilitating pregnancy, says Dr. Beiter. “In terms of avoiding pregnancy, a meta-analysis of five studies on FertilityCare found that it was 99.5 percent effective when used perfectly, and the overall effectiveness rate was 96.8 percent.”

For infertility, studies show that about 50 percent of women who turn to an IVF clinic successfully give birth. Though findings differ and peer-reviewed data are limited, Dr. Beiter believes that NaPro Technology has the potential for similar success. He points to cases in which women have given birth with the assistance of NaPro Technology after failing with IVF.

“I had a patient who had four miscarriages, and no one had been able to help her figure out why,” Dr. Beiter says. “She was very frustrated. We took a close look at her underlying hormonal cycles and found some imbalances, which we corrected. We also found and removed some endometriosis [a condition in which cells similar to the uterine lining appear on other organs, often the ovaries, sometimes causing pain and infertility]. She now has a healthy baby.”

These success stories will only multiply, Dr. Beiter hopes. Though the center started slowly, it now sees about 150 patients a month. The doctor is networking with other community organizations, including the Diocese of Metuchen, which is the sponsor of Saint Peter’s University Hospital, to spread the word about his services. “Our goal is to assist the community in any way we can,” he says. “We’re developing an outreach program to help pregnant women in crisis.”

He also hopes to add counseling services, infertility support groups and other natural family planning options. And while Dr. Beiter now supervises all routine care, he would like to add a primary care physician to the staff.

Dr. Beiter has found the community’s response to be very positive. “Many women tell me they are thankful to finally have this option,” he says.

MEET THE DIRECTOR

Obstetrician/gynecologist Kyle Beiter, M.D., director of The National Gianna Center for Women’s Health and Fertility at Saint Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick, grew up in Lancaster, Ohio, the fifth of nine children. “My dad was an engineer, my mom a teacher,” he says. “My older brothers were engineers, and I thought I’d be one too, but in high school I liked biology better than math. I also liked working with people. Medicine seemed like a good fit.”

He attended Franciscan University as an undergrad, and then went to the Ohio State University Medical School. Next came residency training at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York and Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix and fellowship work at Creighton University in Omaha. Along the way, he learned he had a perspective different from many of his peers. “I am Catholic, and my parents instilled a respect for life in me. Although I believe all physicians should respect life from conception onward, quite a few do not. But many women share my views. I felt called to do what I’m doing today.”

Dr. Beiter and his wife, Lisamarie, both 35, live in New Jersey with their four children, ages 1½ to 7.