Birth Control or No?

[michelleybelle.livejournal.com]

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?

Comments

Re: More info:

[gezellig-girl.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: More info:

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: More info:

[firinel.livejournal.com]

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.