Bfing and combined birth control pills

[Galatea]

Ds2 is 14 months and still nursing a lot. A gynecologist prescribed me 2 months of combined birth control pills (Alesse) b/c I have been having bleeding all month long and she thinks it is due to irregular uterine lining and that the pill will fix it and then I can stop taking them. I asked, "Won't this interfere with my milk supply?" and she says it won't. Everything I read on the web says it will. What do you all think?

[papschmitty]

In general, the estrogen in combined birth control pills can definitely make milk supply dry up. I'm sure it varies from woman to woman and also depends on the dose of estrogen but if it were me, I wouldn't take them. I asked a nurse practitioner I worked with (I'm a nurse) and she said that it's a pretty controversial issue. Alesse has a fairly low dose of estrogen so it's less likely to interfere than some of the other pills. She said some doctors are comfortable prescribing and others absolutely will not presribe combo pills to a BF mom. I'm going to try to ask our other provider (I think she's a little more knowledgable in this area) when she's in the office and I'll let you know what I find out.

[Galatea]

Wow, thank you so much! I don't want to take the pill at all but I also want to be able to have more kids and I guess that would be hard with an abnormal uterine lining. Having said that, maybe I'll wait until my u/s on Wed. to see if I really have an abnormal lining.

Thanks again!

[papschmitty]

OK, I spoke with our other nurse practitioner. She's been a family planning ARNP for about 20 years and is WONDERFUL. She knows just about everything there is to know about contraception. She said something similar, that some providers are more liberal than others. She said she considers herself pretty conservative about this and would still say that as long as you've had an established milk supply for at least 6 months, the dose is so low that you should be fine. I asked her if there was some other reasonable treatment regimen that you could try instead of pills and she thought (not knowing any more details than what you posted) that the combo pills would be your best bet. Hope this helps!

Andrea