As soon as I bring up this subject, I can be sure that I will get wry looks or even have to endure a silly remark. "Breastfeeding is not contraception, you can’t seriously say such bullshit.". Unfortunately, this is always a sender and receiver problem, because no one says that breastfeeding is contraception. Very many women simply do not get pregnant while breastfeeding. I couldn’t believe it for a long time either, since it’s drilled into your head from the time you’re a little girl that many women would mistakenly rely on breastfeeding as a contraceptive method.
But let’s get to my story, facts and tips about breastfeeding and getting pregnant.
As long as you breastfeed, you will not get pregnant
With my first child, everything went like a storybook. We expressed our desire to have a baby, planned our baby with a free cycle app, and poof: it worked right away on the first try. The good thing: I stopped taking the pill quite early, because I didn’t want to take artificial hormones anymore. This can sometimes be connected, because a long hormonal contraception has many risks.
Despite long breastfeeding, I started extremely early with complementary feeding. A big mistake but with the first child you trust the advice of doctors and family members. Due to this fact I got my cycle back very early, even though I was still breastfeeding a lot.
Pretty early I wanted to get pregnant again. I felt a small age gap was desirable. Knowing what I know today, I’m more than happy that it didn’t work right away – But that’s when you hit your limits.
The visit to the doctor
Of course I could not understand why it did not work immediately with my second desired child. I brought up the subject during my routine checkup with my gynecologist, and for the first time I got an answer I hadn’t expected.
"As long as they breastfeed, they don’t get pregnant. I have hardly had any women who could hold a positive pregnancy test in their hands while breastfeeding."
Okay, how to do it? For years I was briefed that breastfeeding had absolutely nothing to do with being ready to conceive. Even when I was discharged from the hospital after my first birth, I was explicitly told that breastfeeding does not prevent pregnancy.
A short ultrasound of the ovaries then brought certainty: my eggs were slumbering deeply and firmly.
Why you do not get pregnant while breastfeeding?
The culprit is the lactation hormone prolactin (LTH). Prolactin is already produced during pregnancy in the pituitary gland and is controlled by various influences (especially the neurotransmitter dopamine) from the hypothalamus. inhibited.
From about the age of 4. to 5. In the second month of pregnancy, prolactin stimulates the growth of the mammary glands, so that even in the case of premature birth, a baby could be breastfed and thus its nutrition ensured. As soon as the baby is born, the breastfeeding period starts directly. Stimulation of the nipples, especially sucking the baby, causes the release of prolactin to produce milk. The simultaneous release of the hormone oxytocin causes the muscle cells of the milk vesicles to contract and allow the milk to flow through the milk ducts.
Now we come to the interesting part: prolactin is not only responsible for the Milk production responsible. Due to the hormone that is produced, the Ovulation is suppressed and in most cases menstruation is absent.
Whether you get pregnant or not depends on the strength and frequency of the suckling and how sensitively the mother reacts to the hormones released by it. Breastfeeding women therefore do not have a menstrual period again until about four to eight months after the birth of the child. However, it is not possible to clearly predict when ovulation will occur again and thus when fertilization will be possible. Even when menstruation starts, it can be very irregular and there are also cases when menstruation occurs without ovulation.
Breastfeeding is 98% reliable as a method of contraception. However, there are a few points to keep in mind. Of course, 98% sounds like a very high number, but no one can say in advance whether you are really one of the 98 women out of 100 possible women for whom breastfeeding as contraception works out. That is why I can only say explicitly If you do not want a baby, use contraception. Breastfeeding is not a safe method of contraception.
- The baby is younger than six months old
- No menstrual bleeding has occurred after the completion of postpartum flow (six weeks after birth)
- You breastfeed almost completely. This means that at most one in ten meals is fed from the bottle or with a spoon
- Breastfeeding meals take place less than four hours apart during the day and six hours apart at night
Not pregnant, although the child is already over a year old
The above points apply to 98% of women who meet all of these characteristics. The longer you breastfeed and the fewer meals your baby has, the more likely you are to get pregnant again. However, my children were always over 18 months old, ate normally at the table, and nursed only as needed. We are talking about morning, noon, night and evening. Still, my prolactin level was so high that I couldn’t get an ice jump.
The body assumes that you are breastfeeding a small baby and takes protective measures by suppressing the egg burst to protect the avoidant infant. Considering that the biological age of weaning ranges from 2.3 years to a maximum of 6 or 7 years, it makes a lot of sense that many women can’t get pregnant.
Even a slightly elevated prolactin level can be a common cause of cycle irregularities and unfulfilled desire to have children.
What to do to finally get pregnant?
Unfortunately, there is only one way: you have to reduce breastfeeding and wean if necessary. This action allows the normal maturation of the egg.
Now the question is: how big is my child and can I take breastfeeding away from him now? I was faced with the same decision twice. Even though I knew that too little spacing is not so good, I really wanted to get pregnant again. But can you really wean a 12 month old child? I could not bring myself to do it.
If it had worked the first time, my son would have become a big brother at 1 year and 5 months old. Exactly one year later my second baby was in my arms. For many months I had a very irregular cycle, which I was able to keep on track with monk’s pepper and cassanovum. That is, I got pregnant when my boy was about 20 months old. Around that time he started sleeping through the night and at 23 months he weaned on his own.
On my third pregnancy I got pregnant in the third cycle. This cycle came much later than the second pregnancy and was regular from the beginning. I was spared from periods for a very long time, but I tried to stimulate my cycle with monk’s pepper. My middle one was 23 months old When I got pregnant with my third baby. Weaned on his own at 25 months. I strongly assume that the milk also changed in taste and also became less. The weaning and the pregnancy meshed perfectly, as both had already greatly reduced.
In both cases I can confirm quite clearly: If my two sons had not independently reduced breastfeeding, I would not have become pregnant.
How is or was it with you? Did you get pregnant while breastfeeding or did you have to cut back drastically?? Did you possibly also completely wean to get pregnant?