Something interesting: a question that I sent to Mothering Magazine’s Ask the Expert section has been answered! The link is here and the full text is below:
My husband and I have been using Fertility Awareness to avoid/achieve pregnancy. Our baby is due soon and I will be breastfeeding exclusively. I know that breastfeeding can alter the signals that normally would alert me to the fact that my fertile time is approaching, so I’m wondering if it is pretty much impossible to use FA while breastfeeding…or do I just need to be on the lookout for different signals?
Your question is important because, as you imply, fertility awareness (FA) can be more challenging while nursing.
This is because, while breastfeeding, your body is producing hormones to inhibit your fertile cycle from returning, but this effect will fade with time. The time when you resume your fertility is not generally predictable, and while nursing, you may be on the edge of fertility for some time before you actually ovulate. It is also tricky because you can ovulate (and even conceive) before you first menstruate, although this is very unlikely in the early months.
Breastfeeding may also alter your cycles, making them longer than previously, although generally they will come back to your normal pattern over months to years, depending on how long you breastfeed. Some women find that, with long-term breastfeeding, their cycles do not return for one to two years after birth.
The first six months
You can be 98% certain for the first six months that, if your baby is not receiving supplementary foods or fluids and your cycle has not returned, you will not be fertile. This has been called “lactational amenorrhea method” (LAM) and is Mother Nature’s means of ensuring that pregnancies are well spaced for the health of mother and baby. The failure of LAM is around 2%
The three criteria for LAM are:
Your menses have not returned.
Any bleeding after 56 days postpartum should be interpreted as menstruation and therefore a sign of resumed fertility. Bleeding before 56 days is interpreted as the normal postpartum lochia.
You are fully or nearly fully breastfeeding. Basically, the more suckling your baby does, the more signals your body gets to keep your fertility on hold. For LAM, you need to breastfeed at least every four hours in the day and every six hours at night. Some research has suggested that supplementing up to 15% of all feeding may not interfere with LAM: if you are supplementing and want to prolong your infertile period, make sure that you breastfeed your baby before offering any sort of supplement, including water.
Your baby is less than six months old
After six months
After six months (or before six months, if your cycle has resumed) you can use FA methods to check your fertile status, but note that you may have prolonged periods of fertile mucus, as your body gets to the verge of fertility, but then recedes without ovulation. This makes it difficult to know whether this mucus pattern actually signals impending ovulation or a ‘false start.’
Extra information that may help is the state of your cervix, which is also a useful adjunct to any FA method. You can feel your cervix with your clean index finger high in your yoni (vagina): if it’s hard to find, try squatting, putting one foot on a chair, and/or bearing down a little.
For most of your cycle, your cervix will be low in your yoni and firm, like the tip of your nose with small dimple in the center. As ovulation nears, your cervix softens and rises in your yoni, opening a little and also getting a slippery feeling from the fertile mucus. This makes it feel more like your lips than your nose, and is sometimes called SHOW: soft, high, open and wet.
After ovulation, your cervix changes rapidly over 24 hours or so to become firm, low, closed and not wet or slippery. (As per FA, you need to wait three days after this change before you can presume that you are in the infertile part of your cycle). I recommend that you use the extra information from your cervix to complement your other FA observations (temperature, mucus)
You may find that it takes a bit of practice to recognize these changes. It may be helpful to take the opportunity to check your cervix at least daily in the shower or bath, and on the toilet. While you are breastfeeding, you will likely notice no change until after your first ovulation, although your cervix may alter in position depending on how full your bowel is.
Note that fertile mucus can nourish sperm for up to five days, so that any sign of fertile mucus should be regarded as a potential forerunner of ovulation, even without changes in your cervix.
Personally, I have also found that more information about my fertile state can come from dreams, my feelings about my body, how attractive I find my partner (and how attractive I find people generally!)and even comments from friends and strangers. See Conscious Conception, below for more about this. Note that this answer is intended as a supplement to FA information. For a full explanation of FA, please see Taking Charge of your Fertility or A Cooperative Method of Natural Birth Control or, better still, get personal instruction in FA from local practitioner.
More reading
Taking Charge of your Fertility: the Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement and Reproductive Health, Toni Weschler (HarperCollins 2002) A Cooperative Method of Natural Birth Control, Margaret Nofziger (The Book Publishing Company 1992) Conscious Conception: Elemental Journey through the Labyrinth of Sexuality Jeannine Parvati Baker and Frederic Baker (Freestone Publishing/North Atlantic Press 1986) http://www.freestone.org/publishing/
See also:
http://www.fwhc.org/birth-control/fam.htm
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