Yes, it's possible to get pregnant any time from about three weeks after giving birth. This is true even if you're breastfeeding and haven't had a period yet. Many women are less fertile while they're breastfeeding, especially in the early weeks and months.
If you practice ecological breastfeeding: Chance of pregnancy is practically zero during the first three months, less than 2% between 3 and 6 months, and about 6% after 6 months (assuming mom's menstrual periods have not yet returned). The average time for the return of menstrual periods is 14.6 months.
The simple answer is yes. Although breastfeeding offers some protection from ovulation, the monthly occurrence where you release a mature egg from one of your ovaries, it is possible to ovulate and become pregnant prior to getting your first period.
If you are breastfeeding your baby, your periods may not return for several months after childbirth. This is because the hormone that causes you to make milk, prolactin, also stops you from ovulating and having your period. If you are breastfeeding day and night, it can be up to a year before your period returns.
Pay attention to your discharge. If suddenly the cervical mucus goes from sticky and thick to being rather light and clear to the point of making you feel wet, you are ovulating, and pregnancy after ovulation is more than possible.
Breastfeeding has a demonstrable influence in inhibiting ovulation; it is not surprising that it has an inhibiting effect on fertility. According to Perez, during the first 3 months when a woman is nursing, there is higher security provided agaist conception than most contraceptives.
Up to 6 months postpartum, exclusive breast feeding reduced the risk of ovulation by 98-99% during amenorrhea and by 94-97% after anovular menstruation. Only amenorrheic women practicing exclusive breast feeding during the first 6 postpartum months can achieve a pregnancy rate below 2%.
It is important to know that LAM isn't 100% effective as a sole form of contraception, because you can get pregnant before your period begins again.
Most women did not begin ovulating until at least 6 weeks after childbirth, but a few ovulated sooner. Usually, women who are not breastfeeding ovulate sooner after giving birth than women who do breastfeed. However, a woman's first ovulation cycle might occur before she gets her first postpartum period.
Many mothers wonder whether breastfeeding will affect the reliability of pregnancy tests. It does not — pregnancy tests measure the amount of the hormone hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) in blood or urine, and hCG levels are not affected by breastfeeding.
Irregular periods are also an aftereffect of pregnancy and breastfeeding. Your period is most likely to resume if your baby no longer requires night-time feeding because they are sleeping for six or more hours. If your baby is feeding less or has started eating solid foods, your period will return soon.
Irrespective of maternal nutritional status or the time the infant was first introduced to supplemental foods, lactational amenorrhea protects 98% of breast-feeding women against pregnancy during the first 6 months postpartum.
Your period will typically return about six to eight weeks after you give birth, if you aren't breastfeeding. If you do breastfeed, the timing for a period to return can vary. Those who practice exclusive breastfeeding might not have a period the entire time they breastfeed.
Luckily, there is usually nothing to worry about if your period doesn't restart within a few months after giving birth. In fact, if you're exclusively breastfeeding, you may not start menstruating for half a year or more after your baby is born.
Even if you don't have periods, you could still get pregnant. You may not know what caused your periods to stop. Possible causes include pregnancy, hormonal changes, and losing or gaining a lot of weight quickly.
If you are breastfeeding, you may ovulate as early as 10 weeks after giving birth. Your period would then start two weeks later, around 12 weeks after giving birth. Or it may be over a year before you start ovulating again, and your periods return.
If you are still transitioning to full fertility (as discussed above), breastfeeding may affect the success of implantation. Once implantation is successful, breastfeeding should not affect a healthy pregnancy (see A New Look at the Safety of Breastfeeding During Pregnancy for more information).
Lactational amenorrhea, also called postpartum infertility, is the temporary postnatal infertility that occurs when a woman is amenorrheic (not menstruating) and fully breastfeeding.
These guidelines include the following three criteria, all of which must be met to ensure adequate protection from an unplanned pregnancy: 1) amenorrhea; 2) fully or nearly fully breastfeeding (no interval of >4–6 hours between breastfeeds); and 3) <6 months postpartum.
Prolactin (the milk-making hormone) levels are usually higher at night. Prolactin can suppress (stop) ovulation.
When you exclusively breastfeed — meaning you nurse at least every 4 hours during the day and every 6 hours at night, and feed your baby only breast milk — your body naturally stops ovulating. You can't get pregnant if you don't ovulate. No ovulation means you won't have your period, either.
While ovulation and periods naturally go together, it is possible to ovulate without having a period. This often occurs for women with irregular periods. Conversely, it is possible to experience monthly bleeding with no ovulation. However, that bleeding is not a normal period and results from an anovulatory cycle.
Breastfeeding can delay the return of your menstrual cycle (including ovulation) and therefore your ability to get pregnant again for a while.
While exclusive breastfeeding can temporarily delay your fertility postpartum, making it more difficult to conceive while nursing, it's not impossible. With that in mind, the short answer is yes, you can get pregnant while breastfeeding.