The people of old knew that breast feeding delayed the next conception. Modern researches have shown that the key is the length of time the baby spends suckling. Unfortunately, this varies considerably from one mother and child pair to another and there seems to be no rules. Some babies feed quickly and efficiently, completing their suckling in seven minutes and feeding only about seven times a day. Other babies need 30 minutes a time and demand feeding more often. The only sensible action to be taken is not to offer food other than breast milk. Supplementary foods can plainly make the baby less demanding at the breast and will therefore be likely to permit menstruation and another pregnancy. Some women were fertile again in 10 weeks while others lasted out 70 weeks. If mothers have a baby keen on suckling, they can expect not to menstruate for six months after their previous birth.
Menstruation is, of course, the sign that fertility has returned but when suckling ceases or falls off enough, fertility can return remarkably quickly. Women who wean their babies suddenly can become fertile in days, it seems.
Trouble breast feeding is usually nothing physiological but is brought about by the stress of modern hospital births that can inhibit the release of the hormone, oxytocin, which permits the release of milk from the breast. This hormone and prolactin, which stimulates milk production, are not immediately produced at birth because steroid hormone levels, high during pregnancy, have to fall first. Thus newly born babies suckle at unproductive breasts and are often given supplements while the breast milk flow improves. This is wrong. The suckling stimulates the milk flow. Lack of suckling through excessive concern to feed the infant supplements before milk is being properly produced actually will inhibit proper milk flow.
Furthermore, the supplements will affect the baby’s ability to regulate its own glucose levels, with later consequences. The brief period when the child cannot feed properly gives its own body a chance to regulate the conversion of storage hydrocarbon, glycogen, into glucose.
Suckling prevents fertility in the mother by disrupting the hourly release of a regulatory hormone GNRH (gonadotrophin releasing hormone) from the brain’s hypothalamus. The regular pulses are not fully stopped but their irregularity prevents the release of another hormone from the pituitary gland which stimulates the maturing of an egg. The monthly egg therefore does not grow. When suckling falls off below a certain level, the regular pulsing of GNRH suddenly reappears.
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