Breastfeeding and Fertility Myths

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Spend any amount of time on parenting forums or sites such as Yahoo Answers and you quickly get a feel for the amount of disinformation going around regarding breastfeeding and fertility. It is no wonder that women are often confused about the effectiveness of breastfeeding, let alone know how to use it effectively to suppress their fertility.

If you look at the statistics, the average return to an active sex life is around six weeks, which not surprisingly is the time women are starting oral contraception again. It also coincides with a huge drop off in the number of women breastfeeding exclusively. With so few women breastfeeding exclusively in the first six months of their baby’s lives and beyond, it is no wonder there is little shared knowledge or readily available information on the topic of breastfeeding and its impact on fertility.

The fear of falling pregnant is very real for many women, it certainly was for me, and can be a reason why breastfeeding women, especially, are afraid or reluctant to begin having sex again (hormones, body image and exhaustion aside!). Combined with the narrow choice of contraceptives suitable during breastfeeding it can leave women either saying ‘no’ or running the gauntlet because she has been badly informed. As a consequence, two very pervasive myths have grown up around breastfeeding and its role in suppressing fertility.

The first myth is that breastfeeding cannot be relied upon as a reliable form of birth control and the second is the opposite, that any amount of breastfeeding will prevent pregnancy. Both are wrong. There is even a side arc of the second myth, that breastfeeding will stop you from falling pregnant even if you are menstruating!(1)

I often read on Yahoo Answers women telling others they are most fertile after birth – which is wrong. Common sense should alert anyone on the end of this myth – immediately after birth is the last point in a woman’s life where her body would be gunning to reproduce. However …

A small window of infertility is offered by the process of labour, birth and the initial production of colostrum and breast milk. Without breastfeeding a woman can only consider herself infertile for between 2-3 weeks after birth and will probably being to menstruate 6-12 weeks after birth.(2) I believe bottle feeding, sex without contraception and no follow up care in the first six weeks after birth is where the myth of the “most fertile period after birth” comes from. Two babies in a year was my worst nightmare, though I understand as women have babies older there is the pressure to have babies in a shorter space of time, than when I was born in the 70’s.

There is a guard against back-to-back babies — breastfeeding — but you need to know how to maximise the contraceptive effect.

The period of infertility created by breastfeeding is called lactation amenorrhea, which literally means no periods due to breastfeeding and the use of breastfeeding to interrupt fertility is called the lactation amenorrhea method.

Ovulation is delayed in breastfeeding women due to the high levels of prolactin present in their bodies. Women who have ever experienced stress-related cessation of their menstrual cycles have experienced, in part, the same high levels of prolactin and their effect.

To me, lactation amenorrhea is another example of Mother Nature’s wonderful program, which intended for breastfeeding to nurture and nourish babies, keep mothers happily blessed out on oxytocin highs and alert and attentive to their babies through high levels of prolactin, in addition to providing an effective method of spacing babies. A look at traditional societies showing that breastfeeding was an effective means of spacing children with the average time between births around two years.(3) That is, women fell pregnant around 15 months which correlates well with studies that have found that women who choose ecological breastfeeding methods return to fertility around 14 months.(4)

Australian natural fertility experts Francesca Naish and Janette Roberts in their book “The Natural Way to Better Breastfeeding” write:

If you fully breastfeed during the first six months and then partially breastfeed, but use the breast as a pacifier (especially at night) you are unlikely to ovulate before 9-12 months, even though you may bleed.(5)

All myths mentioned here are wrong. Knowing what influences your fertility after birth is the first step in knowing how to approach and manage your fertility as a new mother. Breastfeeding does have the capacity to slow the return of menstruation and ovulation, and in doing so protect against future pregnancies. The second part of this article, 10 Ways to Use Breastfeeding to Avoid Pregnancy, will detail how to maximise the contraceptive effect of breastfeeding.

References

1. Breastfeeding and Fertility, by Kelly Bonyata of KellyMom: breastfeeing and Parenting
2. “Sexuality and Contraception During Breastfeeding” in The Natural Way to Better Breastfeeding, Francesca Naish & Janette Roberts (Doubleday:2002)
3. ibid.
4. Natural Child Spacing, Jen O’Quinn published at La Leche League International
5. “Sexuality and Contracpetion During Breastfeeding”

Image “Frantisek” (c) Radek Korda

Related Articles At Type A Mom

The Effectiveness of LAM and Eco-Breastfeeding as Contraceptives
Ecological Breastfeeding
Prolactin and Breastfeeding Styles

Jodi Cleghorn is a Brisbane mother. writer, lactivist and natural birth advocate. She is the co-author of the book Reclaim Sex After Birth: the survival guide and creator of the Date Night Challenge. For the past week the Universe has been testing her resolve to “practice what she preaches”throwing her another round of illness on the heels of writing three weeks worth of “how to care for yourself” articles.

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