Does BF affect your fertility once your periods have returned?

[levan]

Hi, we are thinking about TTC number 2 in the next few months. I am still bfing dd who is 22 months - just two feeds a day. I'm just wondering - could this amount of BF affect my fertility? I assumed once your periods start again (which mine did when dd was 5mths) there is no effect, but remember someone mentioning on another thread that she had trouble getting pg while still bfing. Does anyone know?

TIA

[doggiesayswoof]

AFAIK if your cycle is back to normal (whatever normal means!) then your fertility also returns to "normal". I think it's if your cycle is not regular or if your periods have not returned properly that there may be an issue.

Could be totally wrong though, hold on for some who knows more about it...

[Upsidedowncake]

I think it depends on the woman. I was told that if I had periods, I was probably ovulating in between them.

Are your periods back to once a month or are they less frequent than that?

[levan]

Thanks for quick responses! My periods are fairly regular once a month, so am hoping I should be OK. I think I just worry because of my age (38) in case getting pg won't be so easy this time round.

[Tangle]

It's possible, though unusual, to ovulate without having a period.

It's possible to have a period without ovulating.

It's possible to have a period and ovulate but for ovulation to be later in the cycle, in which case you can get a fertilised egg but it won't have time to implant and get established.

I'm not an expert, but I think the longer your periods are back for the more likely you are to be completely back to normal.

Have you used any kind of fertility monitoring? There are various methods you can use from free (looking at your cervical mucous and/or prodding your cervix) through cheap (taking your basal body temperature every morning or looking at ferning patterns in saliva) and moderate (ovulation predictor sticks) to expensive (digital fertility monitors). All of these are aimed at giving you a more or less accurate idea of when in your cycle you ovulate so that you know when you're likely to be fertile. Once you know that you'll have a much better idea of whether your luteal phase is long enough for a pregnancy to get going (which I think is the problem you're most likely to have, if you have one).

Good luck

[vesela]

I'm currently trying to work out the same thing - whether I have to wean in order to TTC successfully. (DD is only 12 months and I really really don't want to wean, but I'm 40, so not a whole lot of time...)

As Tangle said, it depends when in your cycle you're ovulating, and BFing can make you ovulate later in your cycle. I think the rule of thumb is that if there are 10 days or fewer from ovulation to next period, then you have a short luteal phase and you're likely to have problems TTC while still BFing. (Is that right?).

[pleaseletmesleep]

Don't know the answer to your question but you can get cheap ovulation test sticks from

accessdiagnostics.co.uk

if you wanted to keep an eye on when you are ovulating.