Prolactin and Breastfeeding Styles

Written by Jodi Cleghorn Thursday, April 16 2009 02:19

Mom Topics - Breastfeeding

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Consider for a moment your body’s hormone, prolactin, as the conductor and your post birth body the orchestra. If the conductor fails to show up for the concert, your body has no guidance on how to tune itself as a whole to the natural infertility meant to be rolled out after birth, let alone play the beautiful chords. However, if the conductor takes the podium, your body is given the seamless instruction on how to create and then maintain the amazing hormonal music that keeps your body free from periods.
The levels of prolactin in a woman’s body after birth influence her natural infertility, just as a conductor shapes and guides the music of an orchestra. Breastfeeding styles are not all the same in their ability to maximise the amounts of prolactin available and therefore cannot be consider equal in their protection against unwanted back to back pregnancies. I believe is where the rise of the myths explored in Breastfeeding and Fertility Myths come into play – the myths only focus on the process of breastfeeding and fail to look behind at the hormonal influences of breastfeeding. Not all styles of breastfeeding work to maintain a period of infertility.

This article, part two in the three part Fertility and Breastfeeding series, looks at the role of prolactin in fertility and breastfeeding, the different types of breastfeeding and how they impact on the production of prolactin.

The Role of Prolactin

Prolactin is the milky Mama hormone that is the catalyst for creating breast milk. The nipple stimulation of suckling triggers the production of prolactin and ensures that prolactin levels are kept high. It is a simple but intricate feedback loop that ensures demand and supply are always in balance.

Studies in the 70’s showed, after birth, prolactin levels in non breastfeeding women started to drop three days after birth and continued to fall until levelling out at normal range for menstruation by the third week. Not surprisingly, the level of prolactin in breastfeeding women remained high at the six week mark.

Prolactin interferes with the normal process of ovulation, through suppressing the production of oestrogen along with other egg releasing hormones. Therefore it is the time and frequency of visits to the breast which determine the impact breastfeeding has on the return of ovulation and menstrual cycles. As an aside high levels of prolactin are also known to dull the libido.

Keeping prolactin levels high is the key to maintaining a mother’s infertility in the first six months after birth and breastfeeding, with its constant nipple stimulation is the perfect delivery system. This is why not all styles of breastfeeding should be considered equal.

Different Types of Breastfeeding

John and Sheila Kippley, authors of Natural Family Planning: the Complete Approach break breastfeeding styles into three categories: Cultural/Westernised Breastfeeding, Exclusive Breastfeeding and Ecological Breastfeeding.

Cultural/Westernised breastfeeding characterized by:

• nursing restricted in frequency and the duration of suckling episodes.
• adherence to a strict schedule of feeding
• regular and widespread use of bottles
• regular and widespread use of dummy/pacifiers.
• focus on getting baby to sleep through the night at an early age
• leaving the baby in the care of others.

Exclusive breastfeeding characterized by:

• baby’s only food and drink breast milk suckled directly from the breasts with no additional foods or liquids, including water
• use of dummy/pacifers
• no specifics about the type of nurturing mother and baby should have.

Ecological breastfeeding characterized by:

• frequent and unrestricted nursing day and night
• no bottles or pacifiers
• practice of the seven standards

What Makes Natural Infertility Work From Personal Experience

The Kippleys who pioneered Ecological Breastfeeding (EB) some 40 years ago, state the two keys for natural fertility are mother-baby togetherness and frequent suckling. This in effect provides a strong foundation for ensuring prolactin levels remain high, and ovulation is suppressed.

I had no idea when I was breastfeeding my son I had unknowingly adopted the tenants of ecological breastfeeding. I chose to give him unrestricted access, day and night to nourishment and comfort at my breast beyond the first six months. I kept him close to me in a sling, co-slept and did not leave him in the care of others as a baby. To me it was the way I felt appropriate to breastfed and care for my son. I didn’t know that in doing so, I had created a breastfeeding relationship and child caring scenario which boosted my capacity to produce prolactin, which in return suppressed the likelihood of an early return to normal ovulation. My monthly bleeds returned a few weeks after my son’s first birthday.

In Conclusion

Prolactin is good for both mother and baby. High levels of prolactin ensure a plentiful supply of breast milk; awareness is directed, almost obsessively, at the baby to ensure the optimal care, nourishment and nurturance is provided; ovulation is suppressed to protect against back to back babies, with the add on benefit of a reduced interest in sex (though many Dads would not see it that way!) Like always, it seems that nature knows how to orchestrate biology to maximize the survival of the species, even if we would prefer to think of ourselves as once removed from the animal kingdom.

The third part of the Breastfeeding and Fertility series looks at the Seven Standards for Ecological Breastfeeding and the reliability of breastfeeding induced natural infertility.

Resources

Kippley, J & S Chapter 6: Ecological Breastfeeding from Natural Family Planning: the Complete Approach

Photo: Breastfeeding as a Family (c) Karen van Harskamp, 2005 from private collection

Related Articles At Type A Mom

The Effectiveness of LAM and Eco-Breastfeeding as Contraceptives
Ecological Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding and Fertility Myths

Jodi Cleghorn is a Brisbane mother. writer, lactivist and natural birth advocate. She is the co-author of the book Reclaim Sex After Birth: the survival guide, creator of the Date Night Challenge and recently appointed third partner in the Australia distributorship of Orgasmic Birth. The school holidays this week have tested her stamina in doing two theme parks in two days, surviving five days of Easter housebound in the pouring rain and remaining happy, sane and coherent enough to write.

 

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