Fertility Indicators and BF'ing???

[bebe luna]

Does anyone here use an ovulation /fertility indicator as a means of BC, and is bf'ing??? I want to know if bf'ing affects accuracy.

[lunasmum]

breastfeeding can throw your cycle off, so it itself is not a good form of birth control. even if you know your body very well, you can be easily fooled. you can still ovulate even if you haven't gotten your period. my own experience, i have gotten pregnant twice while breastfeeding, the second time while using birth contol in addition. so if you're trying to avoid pregnancy, i would just use bc every time, and if you're trying to get pregnant, i would throw caution to the wind, forget about indicators, and have fun.

[mrs_hacky]

Hello!

Good sources of info I have found on this is a book titled, "Breasetfeeding and Natural Child Spacing" by Sheila Kippley. As well as "The Art of Natural Family Planning" Both are available through www.ccli.org

NFP as explained in the above book consists of temperature and mucous observations, which after awhile tell you when you are ovulating so you may choose whether to aviod pregnancy or try to achieve pregnancy.

Nursing can affect your cycle depending on many factors - reference above books for more info on this. And you can ovulate, even without a full menstrual cycle. I have found the NFP method mentioned above to work very well for this because of the cross-referencing of my bodily signs.

Good Luck!

[m&m]

I use NFP too - it is very helpful if you are practiced at it - but beware that it is hard to predict the "next day" - sperm could remain alive for up to 5 days under ideal conditions (although highly unlikely to be more than 36 hours) - so you could get pg if you have sex even a few days before your ovulation day (happened to me).