It is widely believed among many young mothers that it is impossible to become pregnant while breastfeeding. However, practice shows otherwise: without the use of additional methods of contraception, even women who had no menstruation throughout the entire lactation period are pregnant. Perhaps they misused this method of contraception - lactational amenorrhea.
Instructions
Step 1
About such a method of natural contraception as a method of lactational amenorrhea (LAM) has been known for a long time. Scientists have noticed that breastfeeding suppresses ovulation and, as a result, delays the onset of menstruation in women. This physiological phenomenon is provided by nature itself: after childbirth, the body is very weak, many of its functions (including reproductive) are not restored immediately, and therefore the occurrence of a new pregnancy is still undesirable. Doctors all over the world consider the method of lactational amenorrhea to be very reliable (98% effective), but only under certain conditions.
Step 2
The lactational amenorrhea method (LAM) is effective when a woman feeds her baby not according to the regimen, but “on demand”. The more often and more actively the baby sucks, the more prolactin hormone is produced in the female body, which increases the amount of breast milk and suppresses ovulation. For the method to "work", a woman must breastfeed her baby at least every 3-4 hours during the day and every 5-6 hours at night. If for some reason you do not put your baby to the breast, but express milk to feed the baby from a bottle, the reliability of the method decreases. The most effective MLA is for mothers of those children who are very restless and often require breasts. Although just such women in the first months after childbirth are just not up to intimacy.
Step 3
MLA can only be relied on in the first 6 months of a child's life, when a woman practices only breastfeeding without the introduction of complementary foods. When you try to wean or start feeding your baby, the reliability of the method is significantly reduced.
Step 4
It is permissible to use MLA only until the resumption of menstruation (or at least the appearance of spotting). The restoration of the menstrual cycle after childbirth means that ovulation occurs in the female body, which means that a new conception is possible. True, you can never know in advance about the restoration of fertility and that one of the ovaries has already ovulated - the appearance of menstruation means the beginning of a new cycle. Therefore, you can easily get pregnant already in the cycle that preceded the first menstruation.
Step 5
As a method of contraception, MLA, in addition to its effectiveness, has many other advantages: ease of use, lack of financial costs, great benefits for the recovery of the mother's body and nutrition of the child, no effect on sexual intercourse and side effects.
