possible to get pregnant while breastfeeding?! 😳

[fabulousmama]

hi guys
one of my friends have just had a baby and is 5 and half months. she was exclusively breastfeeding up until 1 week ago where she’s only introduced one bottle a day. she said she felt pregnant the way she did the first time but thought it was very unlikely/impossible for her to be pregnant as she’s only been breastfeeding! she’s also been doing ovulation tests and they’ve all been negative. if she hasn’t ovulated how could she be pregnant? 🤔
i told her i’d put a post out there to see if same thing has happened to any other ladies! but anyway turns out it was positive! could it be a false positive?

Fron the World Health Organisation website:

'If you strictly meet the guidelines, LAM can be 98% effective in preventing pregnancy within the first 6 months after you give birth.

LAM is on the list of the World Health Organization’s list of accepted, proven birth control methods. When followed exactly, it works as well as the pill and other contraceptives.'

Can everyone sneering at the OPs friend quickly inform Planned Parenthood, NHS and the World Health Organisation that they need to take their information down?

Hi I am currently almost 6 weeks pregnant I started off last week Monday with brown discharge and now this morning I have woken up and I wiped myself the blood is a lot heavier and slightly more red. Has anyone had this before? And what has the outcome been for you?

Does she not have Google?

As per pp, it's up to 98% effective, but a failure rate of 1 in 50 isn't all that low, if you visualise what 50 women look like, and if her baby's sleeping through for longer periods then it will be less effective.

False positives are very rare, much rarer than 1 in 50, so yes, she's probably pregnant.

Breastfeeding can be used as a method of contraception. Not sure why you think it can't. However op's friend was giving a bottle of formula too so that negates it. Personally too risky for me, but lots of people do rely on it.
My midwife told me you could as well, but only if you didn't miss any feeds or give formula- so basically the message was 'dont!'

Breastfeeding is a form of contraception. Not a great one - less good than the various hormonal methods - but it is better than condoms (with typical use - most people put them on badly), withdrawal, cervical cap and most forms of charting.

You need to stick with the rules - absolutely no formula, feed every 4 hours during the day and 6 hours at night and baby less than 6 months.

But it does work for 98% of women over the first 6 months of the baby’s life. Unfortunately your friend is in the 2%.

I was told this by my midwife when they did the home visit after birth!

I remember reading a few years ago that becoming fertile again coincides with babies dropping night feeds.

There are very strict rules for doing it, I know. No dummies, very frequent feelings including at night. What annoys me is the patronising attitudes towards breastfeeding being used as a contraception when it's very easy to find study after study to back up the fact that it's a valid method for the first 6 months. 98% effectiveness is roughly the same as the pill, which is also 1 out of every 50 women. Condoms are even less.

I just googled 'is breastfeeding a method of contraception?' And every single result said 'yes, if done properly'. I'm not making any of this up, am literally citing reputable organisations. It's not a mythical means of contraception such as having sex while standing up.

Yes I agree that MN has a slightly weird approach to contraception. If you're using pills or condoms or some other fallible method (rather than a gold standard method like Mirena or vasectomy), then you've done everything you can and no one could blame you if you get pregnant, whereas if you use other equally effective but less obvious methods then you haven't used contraception at all and you're an idiot who has only yourself to blame.

I agree. I hate it. The comments such as 'is this for real?', 'has she not got Google?', 'do people really still believe this'? When it's literally right there in black and white that it is considered 98% effective when done correctly by every reputable source going.

🙄 just to clarify you can get pregnant if you have sex standing up, you cannot get pregnant from toilet seats. Where were you both at primary school?!

You're usually advised of this after the birth?! At my 6 week check I was surprised they didn't try to insert a coil they went on and on about it so much!

Thing is tho, the danger lies in taking it as gospel that you cannot get pregnant while breastfeeding. It’s a method of sorts if you take it seriously and do your research and do it properly, but not many people do that, in my experience anyway. It’s like taking the pill, but missing one every few days and expecting it to still work perfectly.
mind you, 1 in 50 getting pregnant in the first six months even when done exactly as recommended aren’t the best odds.

The GP told me, at my postnatal check a few months ago, that I couldn't get pregnant if I was exclusively breastfeeding and not having periods.

I sort of tuned out after that because I figured she couldn't really know what she was on about. Luckily, my midwife had reiterated, at our final post-baby meeting, that I really COULD get pregnant, even while breastfeeding, and to make sure to use contraception!

I'm not sure how anyone could still be misinformed about this. I lost count of the amount of times I was asked about contraception whilst still in the hospital after having DC

Well if exclusively BF directly from the breast, it is nearly as good as condoms for six months pp, but not quite. So it's fair to say it's a form of contraception surely? Just not a foolproof one!
Has your friend been expressing OP? If not, she's just one of the 'unlucky' handful of people I guess.
And opks are not reliable when BF apparently.

It’s good contraception (98%) if the following things have been met- paraphrasing here, but the rules of LAM are widely available.

• You are not separated from your baby
• your baby is exclusively breastfed
• no dummies or bottles
• your baby feeds every 4 hours
• your period has not returned

The only people I have heard of/read about who got pregnant within 6 months of last baby whilst using BF as contraception were out on ‘date nights’ regularly (nothing wrong with that, but the hormone drop in desperation can make you ovulate) or were adamant they were ‘exclusively breastfeeding apart from formula at night time’….not EBF then!

separation not desperation

Very possible! My 18 year old daughter is proof. I rang my GP to ask if it was OK to carry on breastfeeding after a positive pregnancy test and he said "yes carry on by all means its extremely unlikely that you are pregnant"...

I am very surprised that the MW/HV said that bf is like a contraceptive. My MW n HV, when I had DC1 and 2, said that post pregnancy is an extremely fertile period and it's a myth that BF is a contraceptive so if you don't want to conceive use protection.

@Kakinkankakoo When used correctly and consistently, less than 2 in 100 women who use LAM will get pregnant in the first 6 months.

If you follow LAM properly that means feeding day and night with intervals between feeds of no more than 4-6 hours.

In my experience as a CASH nurse and having met plenty of women who became pregnant whilst exclusively breastfeeding, nearly all of them failed to meet this criteria. Most babies of 4 months plus will be sleeping overnight for more than 4-6 hours.

Perhaps it was a form of contraception back on the days where people were malnourished overall. However in prime health it is possible to catch soon after birth, even if exclusively breast feeding.

What country are you in OP? Because I was told this bollox in rural ireland by a gp earlier this year and Ivurst out laughing which offended him! It’s widely known to be a myth in the uk but surely it’s the sort of thing you double check before DTD because otherwise you’ve quite a problem especially in Ireland/NI where abortion is still largely taboo.