Postpartum NFP

[E_7]

Hi all,

Before getting pregnant, we used to do the BBT method with the LadyComp and did the charting using the OvuView android app. We made love when LadyComp showed red (meaning I was fertile) for two or three reds due to the fact that we were apart for a few days. Because we decided not to abstain, I’m now almost 8 months pregnant, first time. All is going well thanks to God.

Now, Husband and I are really worried on becoming pregnant again during my breastfeeding and postpartum. We cannot rely on ladycomp like before because I won’t be having a cycle, right? My husband is saying that we will have to abstain until I start my cycles, imagine that! Could be 6 months later!

I have read many stories where the wife got pregnant the same year she gave birth, that it is more difficult to do nfp after giving birth, and we don’t want that to be our case. My husband doesn’t have a permanent job yet, and he is not a US Resident yet (Im US citizen) . We don’t have a place to call home yet.

We were reading somewhere that the best method for breastfeeding and postpartum is the cervix method. But, to be sure, we plan to do a multiple method where you check your cervix for three characteristics I don’t remember , check the mucus for color, consistency, and I don’t remember what other characteristics , and the bbt temperature , chart it and analyze.

Still, we want to hear of successful stories on postponing or avoiding pregnancy with nfp while breastfeeding during postpartum with no cycles. How did you do it?

Thanks!

 

[gracepoole]

Maybe the conversation in this thread might help? I just found it myself since I have the same question/concern that you’ve shared.

 

[pensmama87]

It can be tricky, but it’s not guaranteed to be. There are several posters here who have gotten pregnant again quickly, and they can tell you what did (and didn’t) work for them. But I don’t think you necessarily need to be excessively worried about it. It sounds like you really like data driven methods, and that’s fine. I think Marquette, which uses fertility monitor strips, can be used postpartum, and that might be an option for you (I’m not familiar with LadyComp so I don’t know if it can be used postpartum or not).

I cringed a bit when I read that your husband wants to abstain. Yes, some women begin cycling again quickly no matter what they do or don’t do, and that can be very difficult to navigate in the early postpartum period. But for most women, if they breastfeed exclusively and on demand, without using substitutes like pacifiers, they are going to get at least a few months (up to six is actually an NFP method called LAM.) I know for just suggesting this at least one poster is going to come on here and say that it’s bogus and doesn’t work, and if that’s been their personal experience, that’s fine - one key to it is that any postpartum bleeding after 56 days has to be considered a return to fertility. I mention this because you may be a woman who goes without cycles returning for a long time - six, twelve, eighteen, or more months. I went 15 months with my first and almost 18 with my second. That is a LONG time to abstain completely, and I didn’t ovulate in that time, so I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. If you have to abstain, of course, you do it, but I don’t know if your husband is aware that he could be signing up for over a year with no sex.

Taking Charge of Your Fertility is a great resource for low-tech NFP, and they do have a section on postpartum charting and charting while breastfeeding. Before cycles return, what you monitor is change in cervical fluid. I had fluid all the time, but never the super fertile kind. But it changed to that a couple weeks before my cycles resumed both times. I could have continued to temp and chart all those months, but elected not to.

Basically what I’m saying is don’t borrow trouble. Have a couple ideas ready in case you are one of the women who experiences a rapid return to fertility, but realize also this may not be an issue for you at all. (You may have the opposite problem when you are ready for another child - how do I get these cycles to come back (and for them to be ovulatory - all of mine have been anouvulatory so far) so we can have another baby??? )

God bless you.

 

[Xantippe]

It can be tricky, but it’s not guaranteed to be. There are several posters here who have gotten pregnant again quickly, and they can tell you what did (and didn’t) work for them. But I don’t think you necessarily need to be excessively worried about it. It sounds like you really like data driven methods, and that’s fine. I think Marquette, which uses fertility monitor strips, can be used postpartum, and that might be an option for you (I’m not familiar with LadyComp so I don’t know if it can be used postpartum or not).

I cringed a bit when I read that your husband wants to abstain. Yes, some women begin cycling again quickly no matter what they do or don’t do, and that can be very difficult to navigate in the early postpartum period. But for most women, if they breastfeed exclusively and on demand, without using substitutes like pacifiers, they are going to get at least a few months (up to six is actually an NFP method called LAM.) I know for just suggesting this at least one poster is going to come on here and say that it’s bogus and doesn’t work, and if that’s been their personal experience, that’s fine - one key to it is that any postpartum bleeding after 56 days has to be considered a return to fertility. I mention this because you may be a woman who goes without cycles returning for a long time - six, twelve, eighteen, or more months. I went 15 months with my first and almost 18 with my second. That is a LONG time to abstain completely, and I didn’t ovulate in that time, so I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. If you have to abstain, of course, you do it, but I don’t know if your husband is aware that he could be signing up for over a year with no sex.

Taking Charge of Your Fertility is a great resource for low-tech NFP, and they do have a section on postpartum charting and charting while breastfeeding. Before cycles return, what you monitor is change in cervical fluid. I had fluid all the time, but never the super fertile kind. But it changed to that a couple weeks before my cycles resumed both times. I could have continued to temp and chart all those months, but elected not to.

Basically what I’m saying is don’t borrow trouble. Have a couple ideas ready in case you are one of the women who experiences a rapid return to fertility, but realize also this may not be an issue for you at all. (You may have the opposite problem when you are ready for another child - how do I get these cycles to come back (and for them to be ovulatory - all of mine have been anouvulatory so far) so we can have another baby??? )

God bless you.

Yes.

There are a number of threads on this very subject.

To recap, there’s immense variation between different women. There are women who become immediately fertile (as in 4-6 weeks postpartum). And then on the other end of the spectrum, you have women who experience a pretty much total hormonal shutdown during breastfeeding. I’ve been through this three times (nursing about a year each time, twice with exclusive pumping) and although we wound up abstaining 5 months the last time (from about 9 months to 14), I now believe that it would be difficult (maybe even impossible) for me to conceive during those first years. Experimental evidence suggests that even the most token amount of pumping or nursing suppresses my cycles. I had to completely (and I mean completely) wean before I got a real cycle.

I do sometimes get a small amount of bleeding a couple months into the postpartum period, but I have no idea if that was fertile or not. In the advice on lactational amenorrhea, you’ll normally be told that that kicks you “off the program,” so to speak, but for me personally, my lactational amenorrhea seems to be so powerful that after that first early bleed, things shut down for almost another year.

Around 9 months this last time (namely when the baby was starting to eat real amounts of baby food), I started getting more and more fertile signs, but annoyingly, it took until I weaned completely plus a month or so to get a cycle, so we just took that time off.

I often counsel women who are having trouble with breastfeeding NFP to consider the possibility of weaning (maybe at six months?). Breastfeeding one year is not the law.

Again, this is all very individual. You might get your fertility back right away (in which case you could do conservative NFP) or it might be literally years. So, I would suggest playing it by ear.

 

[Lorelei12]

I have heard good things about Marquette’s breastfeeding protocol. I used Marquette before pregnancy, and it was great. Planned to use it while breastfeeding too, but frankly, even the smallest chance of getting pregnant again right now (about 3 months postpartum) is too risky for us. We’re really overwhelmed and I was laid off while on maternity leave. So we are abstaining.

We are so busy and tired it hasn’t really been an issue so far. But this is one reason I don’t think I’ll be breastfeeding longer than 6 months. Perhaps in a little while we’ll re-evaluate, and I might try Marquette. I like the assurance of the fertility monitor, in addition to cervical mucus observations, which I have found to be totally erratic after giving birth.

I’d say look into what methods are available, learn a bit about each one, and when the time comes decide what is best for you based on your situation, whether it is using NFP or not, or completely abstaining.

 

[E_7]

So no one in CAF did a super multiple method, and preferred to abstain? I understand that each woman is different, but none in CAF have tried a multiple method?

Abstaining for more than those 6 weeks after giving birth is out of the question for me. My husband may want to abstain (better that than get pregnant the same year), but for more than a months is like being vulnerable to any spiritual attack or temptation and that’s my major fear.

For now, we are planning to follow 4 methods at the same time, a super multiple method.

Any encouraging stories?

 

[Xantippe]

So no one in CAF did a super multiple method, and preferred to abstain? I understand that each woman is different, but none in CAF have tried a multiple method?

Abstaining for more than those 6 weeks after giving birth is out of the question for me. My husband may want to abstain (better that than get pregnant the same year), but for more than a months is like being vulnerable to any spiritual attack or temptation and that’s my major fear.

For now, we are planning to follow 4 methods at the same time, a super multiple method.

Any encouraging stories?

I suspect that in practice, that’s going to be indistinguishable from total abstinence.

Better to just use one method (or maybe two) and just be cautious.

 

[Lorelei12]

I suspect that in practice, that’s going to be indistinguishable from total abstinence.

Better to just use one method (or maybe two) and just be cautious.

Yes, I don’t think trying to combine four different methods is going to lead to any intimacy at all.

One thing I have learned from my pregnancy and brief postpartum period thus far is not to really plan on anything. You don’t know what your own medical issues might be, how you might be feeling, how well your baby is going to sleep, whether your cycles will return earlier, whether you’ll be able to breastfeed, nothing. You can learn about and hope for certain things, but saying “I’m going to do xyz after the baby is born” is only a tentative plan. If abstaining for more time than your doctor recommends is not okay with you, you and your husband will have to communicate well and weigh risks and benefits together to decide what level of risk you are willing to take on based on where you are at that time.

 

[pensmama87]

Yes, I don’t think trying to combine four different methods is going to lead to any intimacy at all.

One thing I have learned from my pregnancy and brief postpartum period thus far is not to really plan on anything. You don’t know what your own medical issues might be, how you might be feeling, how well your baby is going to sleep, whether your cycles will return earlier, whether you’ll be able to breastfeed, nothing. You can learn about and hope for certain things, but saying “I’m going to do xyz after the baby is born” is only a tentative plan. If abstaining for more time than your doctor recommends is not okay with you, you and your husband will have to communicate well and weigh risks and benefits together to decide what level of risk you are willing to take on based on where you are at that time.

Yes.

Sympto-thermal methods use multiple symptoms as checks (up to 3 if you include cervical position.) If you’re really, really, really wanting to avoid getting pregnant right away, yes, you abstain. But trying to do a bunch of methods as checks sounds harder than just planning to be abstinent. That’s a lot of anxiety and pressure to put on yourself!