Dr. Nazira Sadique

"Postpartum contraception is like a family planning in the sense, that is after the child is born, say the first child is born, then you see everything for the child till the child goes to school. Then at that time you do not want to be burdened with another pregnancy very quickly. So you are going to plan your family. So after the child is born, then you have to taken the decision to do something and adopt a temporary contraception of your choice so that you will plan the pregnancy after the child starts going to school, say after the child is 3 years old or after the first child is 5 years old and it also gives you enough time to recuperate from your first pregnancy. After the delivery every woman has to recuperate herself, has to get back into shape, improve her health, improve her anaemia if she was anaemic earlier and whatever the medical problems that she has had during the pregnancy she has to come out of it. So she has to give her enough time so that she recovers herself for the next pregnancy. So it is kind of a family planning method"

"Lactational Amenorrhea is a protection in the sense, that is if the lady is totally breast-feeding during the day and atleast 2 to 3 feeds at night, with no top up feeds and 6 months no menses, then it is protective. But it is little tricky in the sense that it offers good protection. So but it is upto maybe 90% or more. But you can still follow contraception. Maybe you can start after 3 months, if you are very confident and the other thing is that you will not get periods. When you are totally lactating or totally breast feeding the baby, then you may be in amenorrhea, that is not getting periods. So that means maybe you are protected for 6 months. Once again I am telling you, once the baby starts weaning or once the baby starts taking solid foods or starts taking the top up feeds, then the protection goes. So as you are going from the amenorrhea phase to the phase of menstruation, that small gap of period that you are not protected, then you can conceive. So Lactational Amenorrhea protects as long as you are totally breast feeding and no menses. Once the baby starts on other feeds, the protection is gone"

Is barrier method a method of Postpartum Contraception?. Find out more by watching this video by Dr. Nazira Sadique, T Nagar, Chennai, Cloudnine Hospitals. For more information visit cloudninecare.com