Gynaecologists and Paediatricians have identified exclusive breast feeding as a natural and effective method of birth control.
The experts told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in separate interviews that breast feeding in the first six months after birth was an effective and convenient birth control.
One of them, Dr Oliver Ezech, a consultant gynaecologist, said that exclusive breast feeding “reduces a new mother’s chances of getting pregnant in the first sixth months’’.
Ezechi of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Lagos, said that the ”act of breast feeding naturally also changes a woman’s hormones”.
He said exclusive breast feeding could be relied on as effective means of birth control for only six months after delivery.
“It is safe, free, requires no prescription and it does not affect a woman’s natural hormone balance.
“While a woman is continuously breast feeding, her body does not make a hormone that is necessary for ovulation and pregnancy cannot happen if an egg is not released.
“However, by the time the baby is six months old, a nursing mother should start using another birth control method.”
Also, Dr Funke Ademola, a resident paediatrician, said that it was not only the baby that benefited from breast feeding, mothers also benefited from it.
She said that exclusive breast feeding reduced bleeding and helped weight loss after delivery.
“Exclusive breast feeding should be the first choice of birth control for a nursing mother in the first six month after delivery.
“This is because it is free, safe and immediately effective and she is more than 98 per cent protected against pregnancy.
