Pregnancy just after giving birth

Menstruation after childbirth appears individually for each woman. Most of the time, the menstrual cycle is stopped during breastfeeding. However, there are some chances that you can become pregnant a little bit after giving birth. Keeping that in mind, we will find out more about pregnancy after childbirth and when to take a pregnancy test again.

Returning to sexual life

In general, it is usually possible to return to sexual life two months after childbirth. It is important that the woman has already stopped bleeding, there is no longer any risk of infection, and the uterus returns to its normal position. A woman must feel good both physiologically, anatomically, and psychologically.

Although you can start having sex a couple of months after giving birth, relationships can be painful for a while. However, during the first two months, sexual intercourse is painful for all women, as the pelvic organs and vagina return to their normal position. A woman who gives birth naturally recovers faster than a woman who has a baby after a Cesarean section. Often, the surgical scar is painful and takes longer to heal, so painful intercourse can last from 4 to 6 months. It should be noted that for women who had a cut in the area between the vagina and anus (perineum) during childbirth, intimate relations may be painful for up to half a year.

A woman can become pregnant again after childbirth

It is mistakenly believed that the first sexual intercourse after childbirth is completely safe because the woman is usually breastfeeding, there has not been a period yet, which means that ovulation has not yet occurred. Unfortunately, that is not true. The first ovulation occurs before menstruation. You need to be careful from the first sexual act after giving birth, especially if the woman is not breastfeeding.

People who believe that long-term lactation and breastfeeding are one hundred percent protection against pregnancy are wrong too.

Lactational amenorrhea (absence of menstruation) is a condition in which menstruation usually does not occur during breastfeeding. This is one of the methods of contraception, but it can be relied on only when:

the baby is breastfed only with breast milk, no additional food is given to him or her;
there are breaks of no longer than 2-3 hours between feedings;
the woman does not pump breast milk;
the woman does not bleed at all (there are any periods or irregular bleeding from the uterus).

In first months after giving bith, the contraceptive effectiveness of this method is 98 %. Later, this method becomes ineffective, because, for a baby older than half a year, the mother’s milk alone is not enough. Even a small mistake can destroy this method of protection – if the breaks between breastfeeding are long or the child is not hungry at night and sleeps until morning, etc. In addition, this method of contraception becomes less reliable when the baby tastes additional food.

What contraception is not suitable for nursing mothers?

Contraceptives containing the synthetic female hormone estrogen (hormonal tablets, contraceptive patches, vaginal rings) should not be used during breastfeeding. Estrogens can reduce milk production (the start of lactation may be delayed and the duration of feeding may be shortened). Estrogen passes into breast milk and may cause adverse symptoms in the newborn, for instance, breast enlargement.

After childbirth, natural family planning methods (calculation of fertile days) are not suitable at all. They are suitable when the menstrual cycle becomes extremely regular.

However, if you have started getting up several times at night to go to the toilet, urination has become difficult – the same things are happening again now and you feel early pregnancy symptoms, urgently take a pregnancy test.

The bottom line

There are some chances to get pregnant again after giving birth. Breastfeeding is not a guarantee that ovulation will not occur. It is very individual – for some mothers, even those who are constantly breastfeeding, menstruation returns already a month after giving birth, and for others – after half a year. Therefore, breastfeeding does not guarantee that you will not get pregnant. What’s more, some experts say that women are most fertile after giving birth (of course, when the cycles have already started).