Menses when feeding
The lactation period and the menstrual cycle are two processes that raise hundreds of questions for new mothers. Everyone knows that menstruation during breastfeeding usually begins later, but no doctor can establish the exact time during which the menstrual cycle should recover, since this process, like many others, is purely individual.
It is considered normal when the first period in a nursing mother does not come earlier than six weeks after the birth of the baby.
Discharge that is produced immediately after childbirth is not considered menstruation, since the cause of its occurrence is the detachment of the placenta from the endometrium of the uterus due to the birth of a child, while menstruation occurs due to a failed conception.
So, such postpartum discharge, or, as doctors call them, lochia, on average lasts no more than forty days, they are especially abundant in the first 5 days after the birth of a child.
It is important to know that during the period of excretion of lochia, ovulation can occur, so a woman should not forget about contraception, and in general, doctors are not recommended to have an active sex life in the early postpartum period, as this can be dangerous for a woman's health. Only after a visit to a gynecologist two or three months after childbirth, who states that the woman's health does not cause concern, and selects the most appropriate method of contraception, sex life can be restored.
When breastfeeding, a woman in the anterior pituitary gland begins to produce prolactin, a peptide hormone necessary for lactation. The prolactin produced inhibits the maturation of the egg and ovulation, which is why menstruation does not occur for a long period of time during feeding. As soon as the mother stops feeding the baby 8-12 times a day and gradually begins to transfer him to complementary foods or even transfers to artificial feeding, the content of this hormone in the blood serum decreases, and the likelihood of resuming the menstrual cycle and ovulation increases several times.
Features of the cycle of menstruation during breastfeeding
Menstruation during breastfeeding may not start for a long time. With frequent feeding of the baby in a woman's body during lactation, a large amount of the hormone prolactin is produced, which promotes the secretion of breast milk, on the other hand, this same hormone prevents the restoration of the menstrual cycle and reduces libido. However, there are times when, even with frequent breastfeeding, the menstrual cycle is restored two or three months after the birth of the child, due to the individual characteristics of the woman's body.
At the onset of menstruation, the baby should be fed as usual. In cases where a woman has completely stopped feeding the baby or from the first days of his birth she did not produce milk, the restoration of the menstrual cycle should occur in 1-2 months.
Menstruation during feeding, especially if the mother feeds the baby according to the regimen and supplements him with breast milk substitutes, may well begin in a month, after the end of the lochia. The resumption of the menstrual cycle does not in any way affect the taste and amount of milk secreted, however, the baby may behave restlessly at the breast, due to a different combination of hormones in the mother's blood during this period.
Intensive breastfeeding of a baby over one year of age, both during the day and at night, can lead to periods when breastfeeding may be missing for more than a year, but this does not mean that the mother's health is at risk and breastfeeding must be stopped.
The state of the body after childbirth and during menstruation in a nursing mother
As soon as the birth of the child has occurred, the woman's uterus begins the process of cleaning from the waste tissues and membranes of the fetus, which ensured the development of the baby. It so happens that during childbirth, the placenta is not completely separated, but its parts remain in the uterus, which ultimately can affect the release of milk - it can be produced with delays or in small quantities. On average, 4-6 weeks after the end of postpartum discharge, in no case should they be confused with menstruation, a nursing mother begins a period of lactational amenorrhea, when the egg in the ovaries does not mature, and repeated pregnancy, even with unprotected intercourse, does not occur can.
It has been observed that the period of recovery of the menstrual cycle depends on the age, health status and genetics of the woman. So young light-eyed mothers with thin wrists, menstruation while feeding, have to wait much longer than brown-eyed brunettes of average physique, in whom the menstrual cycle can recover, even with continuous feeding of the baby, already in the third month after childbirth.
The ideal period for breastfeeding a baby is considered to be two years, during which the period of most women during feeding is restored about 6 months after childbirth, at the same time the mother begins to gradually introduce complementary foods into the baby's diet, and thus the intervals between feedings will increase.
In cases where the mother's milk from the very birth of the baby was not enough, and she had to feed the baby with special mixtures, the period during feeding can recover a little earlier, but you should not stop feeding the baby even with sparse milk.
In cases where the mother intensively feeds a baby more than one year old, menstruation may be absent for a long period of time while feeding. However, you should not panic, as mentioned above, as soon as breastfeeding stops, the menstrual cycle will return within 10 weeks.
Menstruation while breastfeeding may not go steadily at first, but after 2-3 months the cycle will return to normal, although its duration may differ from what it was before pregnancy, moreover, now menstruation is likely to be more painless, since the position of the uterus after childbirth will become more physiological and without bending.
During menstruation, breastfeeding a baby is no different from feeding on normal days, however, some mothers note that the nipples become more sensitive, and the baby is restless at the breast. In such cases, massage of the neck-collar zone and warming the nipples immediately after feeding the baby helps.
Sometimes the recovery of menstruation during breastfeeding affects the amount of milk secreted, and the first 2-3 days it is released a little less than usual, but quite soon lactation increases to the usual level.
Literally 50-70 years ago, women completely did not have periods when feeding, and this was the norm, however, constant stressful situations, poor ecology and the use of hormonal contraceptives present in the life of a modern woman led to the fact that the restoration of the menstrual cycle became the norm. long before the end of the lactation period.
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