Is there a myth or old wives tale that breast feeding is a form of contraceptive?
It isn’t a myth. But it also isn’t 100% effective. Biologically, when you are breastfeeding your body won’t drop eggs. Therefore making it difficult to become pregnant. When you breastfeed your telling your body many things. Right after you have your baby breastfeeding will actually cause your uterus to contract to help expel the rest of the pregnancy. While you are breast feeding you have the greatest chance of loosing your pregnancy weight. But to answer your question…breastfeeding is Gods way of giving you birth control. Your body understands that it is currently taking care of one baby, so it will not drop eggs to conceive another. But it isn’t always 100% effective. I hope this helped.
Breast feeding stops ovulation, in certain extent. So, it is possible that that this is a form of contraception. The mechanism has something to do on the regulation of hormones that halt ovulation. Maybe follicle stimulating hormone that initiate the maturation of the eggs and ovulation is retarded during lactation, in a certain extent. This explains why lactating mothers have late menstruation as compared to non lactating mothers.
