Is lactation natures contraceptive?
Pacific Basin Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, Manoa, Honolulu. Data from a Samoan menstruation study suggest that lactation, even intensive on-demand lactation, does not inhibit menstruation or conception. This paper explores the applied and theoretical implications of continuing to accept lactation as a universally effective fertility control mechanism. Such thinking can have disastrous implications for family planning programs, and it keeps us from challenging long-held assumptions about lactation’s role in population growth in early populations. PIP: An anthropologist analyzed 1986-87 data on lactating women from a rural village in western American Samoa to examine the link between lactation and ovulation suppression among non-Western, healthy, and robust populations. Most mothers practiced on demand exclusive breast feeding 24 hours/day for 4-5 months. Yet 75-80% resumed menses before the infant reached 3 months.
