vaginapagina | Birth Control or No?

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Birth Control or No?

Alright, I was talking with my roommate (who is a bio major) today, and we got on the topic of breast feeding. She mentioned that it was a form of birth control. I thought she just meant that in the case where a woman is breast feeding, she wouldn't have sex and voila - birth control. But no, she says that a woman physically can not get pregnant if she is breast feeding. Now this sounds suspect to me. Does anybody know anything about this?

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When a woman breastfeeds consistently, she stops ovulating. It's like evolutionary birth control, insuring that the child currently nursing gets enough food before another one comes along.

The technical term is lactational amennorhea (which I think I just mispelled) and here's more about it: http://www.waba.org.br/lam.htm

But it doesn't happen consistently enough to be foolproof. My mom breastfed all of us, and two of my sibs are 11 months apart. My mom mostly stopped breastfeeding the elder of those two when she got very pregnant with the second, though she still breastfed the elder a little even after the baby was born. In fact, her first four babies arrived within a range of 3 1/2 years, and there were no twins. My guess is that babies 3 and 4 were also conceived, if not born, while she was nursing the previous baby.

Yes, it doesn't always work, but it's not the biological mechanism that's faultly - it's the way Western women breastfeed, which is to say, feeding on a schedule, supplementing with formula or other foods, etc. In order for LA to work as birth control, it needs to be done CONSTANTLY, around the clock, day and night, 24/7 - which most women don't want to do, but in areas where babies only get breastmilk until they wean themselves, there's a natural gap of about 4 years between children.

I'm pretty sure my mom fed on demand, and I know "family bed" feed-on-demand folks (including a woman who once woke up with a hickey on her breast because her kid started nursing in the middle of the night and latched onto skin instead of nipple) who've gotten pregnant while nursing.

Yes, same with my friend. She did the babywearing thing constantly, and she's relatively small and a stay at home mom, basically walked around her house all day with her only a shirt on top, and that jacked up above her breasts. She certainly fed on demand. They did the family bed thing until the children were quite old.
In fact her middle child recently stopped even the occasional nursing, and she's just turned 6. The two oldest were self-weaned, but the youngest, now 3, also had to be weaned recently because my friend had to go on medication. I'm not so sure how much someone could accuse her of breastfeeding in a particularly american style.

I've no idea when she started getting her period though.
That's what made me not buy into it. Pretty much immediately after giving birth, I immediately starting having my period like clockwork. (my whole life, my period has only ever shifted from the third week to the fourth or back, and it picked up right were it had been left off after giving birth without skipping a beat.) And I'd been told you will not get a period while you nurse. at least if you nurse "properly".
pft. I very much fed on demand, fed around the clock and all that, and I still had it. I think you just have to take indivigual people's bodies into consideration.

I had been told by a lac. consultant that it seemed as though heavier/stockier (I mean in body build, not in sheer weight) tended, in her exp. to get their periods sooner then lighter/frailer built women. No idea how that holds up, though.

It is still possible for a woman who is breastfeeding to get pregnant...it's just not very likely. So like, if you were breastfeeding, and you really didn't want to get pregnant again yet, using another form of birth control would probably be a good idea, just in case.

Big time rumour... I have a friend who has a one year old gal, and is now 8 months pregnent with her second baby. She was nursing, and didn't think she could get pregnent...
My grandma (well fake grandma) had 6 girls... Two of which where breast feeding accidents...
again, they didn't think women breastfeeding could get knocked up..

DId you know, even if you don't get your period you can get pregnent? I hadn't had mine for six months when i got pregnent with evan.... surprise, you are pregnent... and they couldn't pinpoint the time i concieved, because i hadn't had a period in six months...
anyway, ask a doctor, and they should tell you that you can STILL get pregnent when breastfeeding.. anyway, rambling, will stop now

Yep, I've read and been told it was a rumor too. We actually just went over this subjet in class about 2 weeks ago, and the rumor dates back to the days when the Roman Empire and Constantinople still had the big guns, when the wives used to use wet nurses so they could NOT breast feed, and conceive again.

Well, its false in that you can't say you "physically can not get pregnant" because people have plenty of times.
Its less likely to get pregnant. How much less likely? It really depends on the person in question. It also has to do with how much your nursing. Is the person nursing exclusively, or is the baby having solid foods or supplimenting?

After her first child, every single one of my best friend's children were concieved while she was breastfeeding one, or even two of the other children.
I'm sure if you went to a La Leche meeting, you could easily find more then a few people who also had their second child while nursing the first.

it has to do with hormones
oh hell i dont remember, this was grade 12 bio...
progesterone is the one that sustains a pregnancy and is needed for lactation
i do believe that the theory is that as long as your body is continuously producing progesterone (for lactation) your thyroid wont produce GnRH (gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which stimulates the production of follical stimulating hormone which starts the whole cycle again)
i think the problem with this is that everything happens in levels..
so if youre hormones get out of wack, or maybe youre just low on projesterone, the whole cycle can start again.
i think in a perfect world, with perfectly working bodies it works, but no one has a perfect working body
its probably not smart to rely on hormones as a form of birth control
http://infertility.about.com/library/ifctr/blfhorm.htm
that link has some info on the reproductive hormones
i wish i had my bio notes i could explain things better.

I didn't go back to work until my son was 18 months old, so was able to breast feed him his entire first year. In fact, that was all he lived on for his firts 12 months was breast milk... he went from the breast to the sippy cup and whole milk. I never bought formula and nursed him pretty much every two hours for a year.

However, I didn't trust the natural birth control element of breast feeding, so we always used condoms to prevent another pregnancy, and I eventually just had my tubes tied.

I guess I wouldn't put my faith in it working, even though biologically it "should" work.

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Birth Control or No?

Sorry, your roommate is right.

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