Exclusive Breastfeeding as a Contraceptive

Exclusive breastfeeding benefits is not only for the baby‘s growth, but also beneficial for mothers. In addition to losing weight fast the mother, exclusive breastfeeding can also be a natural contraceptive. In medical terms is called LAM (Lactational Amenorrhea Method). LAM is similar to the workings of hormonal contraceptive method, which is delaying or suppressing ovulation or egg release. At the time of nursing infants, mothers of small brain will produce more of the hormone prolactin that the mother’s body cannot produce mature eggs. So despite the successful entry of sperm cells, egg cells are not ready to be fertilized. As a result of pregnancy does not occur.

Effectiveness of LAM method can reach 98% in infants aged 0-6 months, if the mother meets several requirements, namely: direct feeding to the baby, not many breast pumps, baby should be fed at least every four hours or more frequently in the morning-afternoon-evening, infants should be fed at least every six hours or more frequently at night, your baby is less than six months, and menstruation has not returned after 56 days of age the baby. If one of the requirements is not met, then the use of contraceptives by LAM will fail.

There are other LAM method has been developed by a researcher named Sheila Kippley and The Couple to Couple League International, called Ecological breastfeeding (Ecological Breastfeeding). Ecological milk has more stringent requirements in its application, by adding several requirements, namely: the baby was not given a pacifier or bottle (because the breast is a natural pacifier baby), baby breastfed whenever he wants and at least as often as the frequency of MAL method (breastfeeding should not be scheduled) , the mother had to sleep in the same room with the baby (even in the same bed with infants), mothers should not be separated from the baby more than three hours every day, and the mother was sleeping when the baby slept.

Average breastfeeding mothers who followed the methods of Ecological return of menstruation when a 14-month-old baby. There are menstruating again when the baby was two months, but there are also 42 months. So the MAL method is ideal for couples who want to distance the next 18-30 months for children