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Home › Articles › Issues for Mom › Ready to Try Again

Ready to Try Again

Becoming Pregnant While Breastfeeding

By Gwen Morrison

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If you are currently breastfeeding your baby and are considering trying to get pregnant again, there are a few things you need to know.

Ann Calandro, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and registered nurse from the Piedmont Medical Center in South Carolina, says the best chance of conceiving while breastfeeding is if the baby is older than 6 months, is not nursing exclusively and the mother has already resumed her menstrual cycle.

If you haven't resumed your period, you're probably wondering when you can expect it to start. Every woman's experience is unique. "I have known women who are nursing around the clock whose periods return three months postpartum, while other women who are nursing once a day don't menstruate until their babies are over a year old," Calandro says.

Ivana D'Best of Los Angeles, Calif., didn't start menstruating until her first child was 23 months old. "It was discouraging," she says. "All my friends were trying to conceive when their kids were 14 months old. [My husband and I] tried, but we knew nothing would happen until I started having my periods again."

Probability of Conceiving
During breastfeeding, your body produces higher levels of the hormone prolactin, which suppresses ovulation. This alone reduces your chances of getting pregnant while breastfeeding to an estimated 1 to 2 percent. The percentage increases throughout the first year, raising the chance of conception to 6 percent after six months.

There are some ways to improve your chances of becoming pregnant again while still breastfeeding. Keep in mind, though, that these tips are intended for older babies and toddlers who do not derive the bulk of their nutrition from breast milk.

  • Introduce more solid foods as an additional supplement to breast milk if the child is at the right age.
  • Through the night, try not to feed before six hours have lapsed.
  • Stretch out the intervals between the day feedings to more than four hours.
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