Surely you will not know many cases of pregnancy after a few months after giving birth, but there are: women with babies of 3 or 4 months who take a test and realize that they are pregnant again, because they were looking for it or because neither they nor their partners took measures to avoid it.
What happens will depend largely on whether or not the baby is breastfeeding, because normally, if you are breastfeeding, menstruation may take months and even years to return, but this is not mathematical and there are women who often breastfeed that after 2 or 3 months they already have the period.
That is why, for the sake of going safe, many women choose to take the contraceptive pill because perhaps it was the method they used before pregnancy. Now, does it serve the same one they took? Because normally not: it is better to take one that does not have estrogens.
The contraceptive pill, from the sixth week
During the first six weeks after delivery, it is advisable to use non-hormonal methods: male condom or female condom, usually. This is because the woman is in what is known as "quarantine", which is the puerperium phase, in which the body gradually returns to the situation before pregnancy. As it is a stage in which hormonal levels vary with respect to pregnancy, and in some ways affect women, not interested in doing experiments with more hormones in daily pills.
After six weeks you can start taking contraceptives. The most common are those that contain estrogens and progestogens, because they are those that avoid any probability that the ovum matures.
What oral contraceptive is recommended if you breastfeed
However, if you are breastfeeding, this combination is not recommended. If we look in e-breastfeeding what they tell us about it we will see the following:
It is not a dangerous medication for the baby, in reality, because they are female hormones such as a breastfeeding mom can have and has the rule, but It is dangerous for breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding depends on a hormonal balance in which prolactin increases, as it is the hormone that is responsible for making milk, while estrogen and progesterone descend. If estrogens increase, prolactin tends to decrease, and then decreases breast milk production.
That is why the contraceptives taken by a woman who is breastfeeding should be only from progestogens or with a very low amount of estrogen. Again, looking at e-lactation we see that they are the ones that contain the following active principles:
Some are pill-shaped and others to implant subcutaneously, but all are safe. Just look at the composition of some birth control pills to confirm that the component they carry is just one of these and we will be sure that will not affect breastfeeding in any way of our baby:
And the MELA method?
Some women opt for this method to avoid pregnancy, although as we have said, it can be dangerous, because it is not so reliable (although much more natural). He MELA method is the method of breastfeeding and amenorrhea.
It consists of relying on breastfeeding as a contraceptive method for the hormonal balance that we have mentioned before. If the baby often breastfeeds, prolactin levels remain elevated and consequently the levels of the hormones that cause ovulation remain low enough that it does not occur. There is no ovulation, no menstruation, no chance of pregnancy.
For it to work, two rules must be followed, which breastfeeding is exclusive and that there are no periods of more than 4-6 hours without taking a shot, both day and night. If they are met, the reliability between 3 and 6 months of life of the baby is considered to be 98-99%. After 6 months, as the baby begins to eat and the shots can be further spaced, the reliability drops and the first ovulation may occur.
The first rule comes 14 days after that first ovulation, but a woman does not know she has ovulated until 14 days later, when the bleeding 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.
