Pope Paul VI Institute celebrates 25th anniversary and the lives they've touched

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The Pope Paul VI Institute, home of the Creighton Model of fertility Care and NaProTechnology will celebrate its 25th anniversary Sept. 2-5.

SALT LAKE CITY — The Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction will celebrate its 25th anniversary Sept. 2-5 in Omaha, Neb., and invited are all those people whose lives have been touched by the work of the doctors, nurses and staff including all NaProTechnology babies 0 to 25 years of age. It will be an international conference and a celebration for the entire family.

"The Pope Paul VI Institute is the only Catholic institution of its type in the United States and perhaps the world that has dedicated its services to the development of morally and professionally acceptable reproductive health services," said Dr. Thomas W. Hilgers, founder of the institute. "The Institute is internationally recognized for the Creighton Model FertilityCare System (CrMS) and Natural Procreative Technology. The CrMS of fertility care is natural family planning where women chart their menstrual cycles and the signs of fertility, or fertile days.

The institute was built as a direct response to the appeal by Pope Paul VI in his 1968 encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae," said Hilgers. "In that encyclical letter he called on a number of groups, one of which was men of science and physicians and health care professionals. When I read the encyclical letter, I felt called and that I should respond. I began research in December of 1968 as a medical student. After residency, I established research centers at St. Louis University and Creighton University Schools of Medicine."

To carry on this research, Hilgers and his wife, Sue, founded the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction on Aug. 6, 1978, the day of Pope Paul VI’s death. The institute opened on Sept. 1, 1985. "We’ve been doing research ever since and the CrMs and NaProTechnology are now global," Hilgers said.

At the Pope Paul VI anniversary celebration, Dr. Joseph B. Stanford, CNFPMC, associate professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City, will be a guest speaker. Stanford is active in research in human fertility with Hilgers; his clinical practice emphasizes fertility care and maternal-child health. He is a certified Natural Family Planning medical consultant through the American Academy of Fertility Care Professionals and is a past president of the organization.

"Using CrMS, women chart their menstrual cycles, then we use that information in NaProTechnology," Stanford said. "The medical intervention we do depends on each individual situation. NaProTechnology is a system that enhances natural fertility and can be used for any kind of women’s health problems such as infertility, painful menstrual cramps, abnormal bleeding, frequent miscarriages, hormonal abnormalities, premenstrual syndrome, polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, postpartum depression and many others."

Most of Stanford’s practice is for infertility issues, he said. Success rates depends on the woman’s age, how long she has been infertile and what her problem is, but the success rate of NaProTechnology is at least 50 percent, and sometimes more depending on the situation.