WIBU regarding contraception (or rather, lack of!)

[Moominsummermadness]

When I gave birth to my baby 7 weeks ago, I was handed a leaflet regarding contraceptive choices on the post-natal ward. There was a section regarding using breastfeeding as a form of contraception. It said that as long as periods had not returned, baby was exclusively and frequently breast fed and under six months old, this would be an effective form of contraception. I therefore decided that I would rely on this until I saw the nurse at the 6-8 week check, then get the mini pill.

Today I had the check, when asked if I'd had unprotected sex, I admitted that I had, and I got a prompt telling off. Why on earth do they hand out leaflets stating that lactational amenhorrea is ok as contraception, if it's that unreliable? I was made to feel like a silly little girl!

Like Carabos I also breastfed very frequently for a long, long time, and this doesn't cause huge sleep loss if you are co-sleeping because you can simply roll over and plug in a breast - you don't even have to wake up! I think it's easier to breastfeed than not to breastfeed, and I see it as a wonderfully cuddly and lazy option I am not even sure how often DS fed during the night, because when he got older he would simply help himself without bothering me at all. And I didn't get my periods back for ages, it was great...

As far as I understand it, it is only failsafe if you fulfil the following conditions:

Baby under 6 months
Exclusively breastfed (which means no formula, no water, no expressed milk fed from a cup, bottle or other container, and no solids, even if you have stopped giving any of these or it was a one off)
On demand (which means no dummies, no stretching out feeds, and arguably, letting baby have unrestricted access to the breast as in total kangaroo care - at the very least it must rule out using any sleep aids - including a cot! - which encourage the baby to sleep longer than they might have otherwise)
Sleeping no longer than 5 hour stretches at night (DS definitely was by 7 weeks and he co-slept)

And it's advisable to check your BBT (basal body temperature) and cervical mucous to be sure you haven't ovulated, too - which you really need to be familiar with before having been pregnant.

I can't believe they are stating this is fine and handing it out on official leaflets when apparently it's unsafe to recommend safe co-sleeping because people are supposedly, in general, too stupid to understand the conditions attached to it, even though they're far simpler than this!

Considering safe co-sleeping guidelines are pretty much as simple as:

Don't do it if you/partner smoke, or have been drinking or are on medication
Don't use loose/fluffy/adult bedding near the baby
Only do it on a firm surface, not a sofa, waterbed etc
Make sure the baby can't fall out of the bed or get trapped between the bed and the wall
Don't let children sleep with the baby, only adults

I'm amazed such incorrect advice is put on a leaflet.

Having no periods means nothing, because of the way the menstrual cycle works. Your period comes 2 weeks after you ovulate, so you can't gauge by your abscence of periods when you've ovulated, until it's happened, at which point you could be pregnant.

BertieBotts that's a really good point about the co-sleeping advice being inconsistent with the breastfeeding advice. There is so much scaremongering about co-sleeping, and the advice given about co-sleeping rarely mentions that breastfeeding makes co-sleeping much safer anyway as mum is more in tune with the baby.

Out of interest are you absolutely certain you gave birth in a hospital instead of at mass?

I'm rather surprised the leaflet has been given out at a hospital. Even if I do think its fairly reliable if done correctly and combined with body knowledge but then again I would say that because I've never used any other type of contraception and do have large gaps between some of my children I also had two pregnancys very very close togather but that was by design ish

Exactly Imagine. I remember this being drummed into us a lot at school - you can get pregnant before you start your periods! (Although when I was at school it was still normal to start them somewhere between 12 and 16, it seems to be a lot earlier now :()

Why is is earlier now btw Bertie?
Imagine, you put it much more succinctly than I

I have no idea - but apparently it's normal from about 9 now? We were told it can happen that early but it's very rare. This would only have been about 10-15 years ago! They didn't have sanitary bins in the toilets at my primary school.

There is 22 months between mine - and we used nothing except BF but I never had a full period between them.

I am much more shocked at a nurse "telling off" an adult woman for not using contraception and making her feel like a little girl... What exactly was that a business of her? I would have told her in no uncertain terms to pi$$ off.

at pixie. The RC church is very close to the hospital.

Have remembered that the hv also left the same leaflet during post natal baby check. It is produced by the Family Planning Association and states:-

'Q Will breastfeeding act as a contraceptive?

A Breastfeeding is also known as lactation. When used as a contraceptive method it is known as lactational amenorr hoea (LAM). LAM can be up to 98 per cent effective in preventing pregnancy if all of the following conditions apply:

You are fully breastfeeding- this means that you are not giving your baby any other liquid or solid food or

you are nearly fully breastfeeding - this means mainly breastfeeding your baby and infrequently giving your baby other liquids and

Your baby is less than six months old and

You have no periods .

The risk of pregnancy increases if:

You start breastfeeding less often, or

there are long intervals between feeds - both day and night, or

you stop night feeds and use supplement feeding

Once your baby is over six months old the risk of getting pregnant increases, so even if you don't have periods and are fully or nearly fully breastfeeding, you should use another contraceptive method.'

I didn't argue with the nurse, as I was still reeling from her scales weighing me half a stone more than my own .

Hi, as a midwife myself I'm surprised that anyone would tell you that BF will protect you against pregnancy as no method is 100% effective. Exclusive BF reduces the RISK of getting pregnant (as long as you are still night feeding as well) but we would always recommend another form of contraception alongside it.
If your midwife has made you feel bad you should really contact the head of midwifery as we are there to support new mums not ridicule them and it sounds to me like she didnt give you very thorough discharge advice.

OP, congrats on your baby :)

I had DC2 11 weeks ago and also got a stack of leaflets when leaving hospital.

Mine didn't say the same as yours... mine said to not rely on bf as contraception, as ovulation can occur 3 weeks after giving birth irrespective of how one is feeding the baby.

Was yours an NHS leaflet, or one produced by the hospital? Through the hazy mist of my memory, I think the leaflet I read was written by the hospital (one in Northern Ireland).

Just to clarify, it wasn't the midwife I saw yesterday, was the practice nurse at my surgery. The leaflet was given out by both a midwife and health visitor, and was produced by the family planning association.

It doesn't really matter now as far as I'm concerned in regards to my own contraception, but I'm a bit that this leaflet is being dished out if breastfeeding isn't all that reliable. It seems from reading through the posts that the opinions of health care professionals vary considerably!

No wonder that there seem to be babies everywhere you turn in my town at the moment, it'll be all the breastfeeding mums reading that leaflet .

Thanks for the congrats, needles, you too.

shallijustshutup and bogeyface yes it was hourly round the clock and yes I was a basket case from lack of sleep, time to myself etc. It was hell. In fact for pretty much all of the first year he didn't sleep longer than 45 min and cried if you put him down. I still don't know how I survived, just sort of endured I think.

I used to be a bf peer supporter and I would always warn women that they should only rely on this form of contraception if they are wanting another baby and it wouldn't be a massive problem if it happened sooner than they were expecting!
With both my babies my period came back at 6 weeks post birth on the dot, one was bottle fed, the other was bf. I did have more irregular cycles with the bf one, but that just made it harder to estimate when was a fertile time to avoid. Many women don't get their periods back that soon, some women do, but until it happens there's no way of knowing, so if you don't want to get pregnant, use another method of contraception!

I got that leaflet too. I used condoms and breastfeeding, until my periods came back at erm, some point after 2 years. And they weren't getting milk very regularly well before that.

Unfortunately, I think this has a lot to do with your genetics. Apparently, long-term period suppression while breastfeeding also occurred for my female blood relatives on one side. However, you can't know what kind of endocrinology you've inherited from both parents in advance, and you ovulate before your first period, so... Yeah, not something you can dare rely on on its own!

Carabos I think I probably did hourly feeds for the first month, then it slowly gradually stretched out to 3-4hours and the occasional 5 hours if I was lucky at night time.

Hourly feeding until they are over 2yrs old is , well done you!! I think I'd have locked the bedroom door, curled up in the corner and slept

I was gonna say aren't you more fertile straight after a baby?

shallIjustshutup thank you for the well done, but tbh, a lot of my time was spent plotting revenge!

Seriously, he is a redhead with sensitive skin and had pretty bad excema almost from birth. He was obviously in discomfort and a lot of the incessant sucking was more for comfort than food I think. The knock -on effect of that was that he was never properly hungry, so never settled down for a big feed followed by a sleep iyswim - he just kept topping himself up.

His older brother otoh used to feed until he was bursting and milk was trickling out the side of his mouth and his head was lolling with sleep - he slept 11-5 from 6 weeks (he's still a bit like that now ).

You never know what you will get and I'm still massively in favour of extended bf despite the majorly negative impact it undoubtedly had on our family at the time. Its not forever.

As to its efficacy as a contraceptive, my experience is that it works, but its not a risk that everyone should take. As I understand it, it is more to do with the number of sucks per hour than anything else and mine was doing lots of quick bursts of sucking, which have been what stopped ovulation. I was 30 at the time, so I don't think it was age-related infertility btw.

Yes, I think its known as a fertility spike YerMaw

I didn't think you were supposed to have sex until after your check up because of the risk of infection? If so, YWBU, but not because of the contraception issue.

I was told in hospital to not have sex for 2 weeks after the birth, nothing about the check up was mentioned by them.

I was just told to wait until after the lochia had stopped, which it had.