A hand is raised to the bottom of the class and a woman asks the lactation consultant: “Sorry, I am breastfeeding my son. He is 17 months old and a few days ago I asked my doctor if it is normal that the rule has not yet come to me. He told me that it was not normal, that this was impossible and that he should go to the gynecologist as soon as possible ”.
The advisor smiles shyly and throws the same question to the rest of the women who accompany the first one: “And what do you think? It is normal?". Immediately, voices of women who breastfeed their children begin to sound, giving figures, such as who auctioned for a valuable article: "I have been two years", "I have been 32 months", "I have been without a rule for more than three years", "well I… ".
This happened a few years ago, when I took the title of lactation consultant and my wife had been breastfeeding my first child for more than a year and a half, equivalent to a year and a half (without adding the pregnancy) that I had been without menstruating. The doctor said that it was something abnormal, however in that room full of women most gave dizzying figures, which came to say that When breastfeeding makes you spend years without menstruation, there is nothing to worry about.
Why many doctors do not know that this happens
Many doctors, pediatricians and gynecologists, and many people on foot ignore this phenomenon for the same reason they do not know many things about breastfeeding: a few decades ago most women stopped breastfeeding before six months and most babies started eating things at three months.
This caused the menstruation to come before and that few women got to suffer an amenorrhea (lack of menstruation) of years of duration.
The cause of lack of menstruation is prolactin
However, although many people do not know that this can happen and that it is normal, the explanation is very simple and the culprit is prolactin.
Prolactin is one of the hormones involved in the creation cycle of breast milk. At the moment when the placenta is expelled during childbirth, prolactin levels begin to rise to "make" milk. As the days pass and as the baby sucks the prolactin levels go up and remain elevated while there is suction. The more suction, the more prolactin is secreted and consequently more milk is produced by a mother.
As nature is not silly (it has many failures, but also many successes) prolactin has a double mission: in addition to providing the baby with its long-awaited white liquid that emanates from mom it deals with inhibiting the secretion of hormones related to fertility at the cerebral and ovarian level.
This means that as long as prolactin is high, the chances of ovulation are very low and that many women do not have the period until long after breastfeeding.
I say that nature is not silly because while you are breastfeeding the body interprets that you are taking care of a baby or a small child and that, therefore, you are not yet in a position to care for another newborn. For this reason it will delay ovulation while you are breastfeeding.
"But, breastfeeding the rule came"
Sometimes this equation is not met. There are women who must have a pump-based menstrual cycle and there is no prolactin that knocks it down, which, after three or four months, they already tell you that, even breastfeeding, they have had their period. Sometimes they are bleeding without ovulation that are not considered menstruation, but sometimes it is the period and arrives to stay.
When the chances of the rule coming up increase
It is possible that the first months or years, when more a child sucks the rule does not arrive, but that it does appear in the second or third year if it is that it sucks less.
To put them in writing and define them a bit I tell you what are the two circumstances that make it more likely that the rule arrives:
- For the baby to have more than six months: at the moment when babies start taking new foods they also start to breastfeed a little less.
- That there are periods of more than six hours without breastfeeding: if they are eating more and more and in some shots they forget to ask for breast, if at night they start to sleep waking up less often, if they suddenly fall asleep without the help of mom's chest and / or if mom has started working and spend several hours away from home periods of 4 to 6 hours may appear without the baby breastfeeding and this causes the body to start thinking that the child is more autonomous (it is true) and that it might be a good idea to get back on in a position to have more babies.
Can we use breastfeeding as a contraceptive?
Well, if the conditions mentioned above are met but vice versa (exclusive breastfeeding being the baby under six months and that there are no periods of more than 4-6 hours without taking a shot) the chances of pregnancy in the first trimester are almost nil. Between 3 and 6 months of baby's life the reliability of this method, which is called Honey (method of breastfeeding and amenorrhea), is 98-99% and after 6 months I would no longer risk it.
The first rule comes 14 days after the first ovulation, but a woman does not know she has ovulated until 14 days later, when the blood appears. It may happen that the first egg after childbirth is fertilized and the woman still does not have the rule for a few more months because she is pregnant. If you are looking for a baby or it does not matter if you arrive it is a curious anecdote to explain (“I have been without a rule since I became pregnant with my first child, and that I have been breastfeeding for the second month”), but if it is not the intention, It can be an unexpected surprise.
