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Can the pill reduce breast milk supply?
I was forced into sex by my husband four weeks after I delivered. I took emergency pills but now I have no breast milk. Could it have been the pills or can I get pregnant four weeks after delivery?
Hajara
Dear Hajara,
It is unfortunate that many mothers deliver away from hospital missing out on advice about contraception and when to start using it after delivery, resulting in unwanted pregnancies. The only option left is to give the mother such information during postnatal care (six weeks after delivery).
A number of women may resort to self-prescription of family planning pills to avoid pregnancy if they are intimate while not using conventional family planning methods. Family self-prescription has its own problems, including risking side effects, apart from using a wrong family planning method, which may lead to pregnancy.
However, although there is great variation in the return to fertility and sexual activity following childbirth, the earliest time of ovulation after delivery is about 27 days. This means that no contraception may be needed until around 21 days after delivery. It is, therefore, true that a mother can get pregnant before her postnatal visit making it imperative that contraception advice is given as the mother leaves hospital after delivery. Then the issue of emergency contraception like in your case may not arise.
Emergency contraception (plan B) in Uganda usually involves use of a progesterone pill (hormone levonorgestrel) which will neither harm the breastfeeding baby nor dry breast milk as feared.
The cause of your milk drying is most likely anger of having been forced into sex apart from stress or fear of a likely resulting pregnancy. A breastfeeding woman requires to have a balanced diet, enough fluids, apart from being stress-free.
Use of combined pills as emergency contraception (YUZPE) is obsolete and apart from causing the mother a number of side effects, it can dry up breast milk. Even if it may not yet be six weeks after delivery when you are required to go for post-natal care, please go and see your doctor, who will prescribe a more regular method of family planning.
