Dr. Christopher Tietze of The Population Council sought to clarify the confusion as to whether or not a woman could conceive while nursing her baby and attempted to review all the available demographic medical work. In New York, September 1961, his work was presented before the International Population Conference; the paper was titled “The Effect of Breastfeeding on the Rate of Conception.” In this paper he concluded the following points:
1. The prolonged absence of menstruation seems to be the major factor involved in the delay of conception among nursing mothers;
2. During breastfeeding and with the absence of menstruation, “ovulation is suppressed and conception therefore impossible;”
3. While ovulation is normally followed by a menstrual flow, “the first menstrual flow is preceded by ovulation in only a minority of women;”
4. A woman has about a 5% chance of conceiving before the return of her first menstrual period;
5. When menstruation returns, the first two periods are usually sterile;
6. The risk of conceiving “increases rapidly after menstruation has returned;”
7. And since “breastfeeding tends to prolong the interval between pregnancies, it seems worthwhile to evaluate it as a method of child spacing.”
To learn more about natural child spacing, please read The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding.
Sheila Kippley