Mariola O’Brien, my recent correspondent from Sweden, learned the Seven Standards via the book, The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor, prior to the birth of her first baby. Practicing ecological breastfeeding, she experienced an amenorrhea of 18 months, 3 weeks. When she sent in the NFPI breastfeeding survey, she added this comment:
“My son Isaac was 18 months when my husband and I really wanted to have another baby, but I was still in breastfeeding amenorrhea. I went to visit a friend and stayed away for 5-6 hours, knowing Isaac would be emotionally well with Dad. This meant a sudden change in nursing frequency, which quickly brought back my period. I was fertile right away after that and conceived!
Previous to this separation between me and my son, I had never gone so many hours without nursing. My breasts were full and he nursed happily on my return. It was the sudden change in nursing frequency that brought back my fertility. I made sure it wasn’t gradual, because we wanted to conceive; I deliberately ‘broke out of’ amenorrhea.
After this one experience though, I continued nursing like before, day and night. After getting pregnant I kept nursing, but during the pregnancy the nursings got more and more infrequent. Isaac said it tasted funny/yucky, it was painful and uncomfortable for me to nurse and my milk supply dropped. The longest he went without nursing during the pregnancy was 5 days, the 5 days prior to delivery.
After our daughter Olivia was born, Isaac wanted to nurse frequently again. For the first 2 months up to 3-4 times a day. The milk was so rich! At 3 months post-partum he nursed once a day, in the mornings (first thing!).
At 7.5 months post-partum, he would skip his daily nurse once in a while until he stopped nursing altogether at 9.5 months post-partum. He was 3 years, 1 months and 2 weeks old when he nursed for the last time. He still sleeps in our room but in his own bed.”
For an easy read on the Seven Standards and an inexpensive book, please read The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding. Many say it does not work, but the research proves otherwise.
Sheila Kippley
Mariola O’Brien runs the website Responsive Parenting (www.responsiveparenting.net) together with a friend, and blogs at Continuum Mama (www.mariolaobrien.blogspot.se)