Breastfeeding Delays Menstrual Cycle
It has been 7 months since I gave birth. I had a month of lochia (bleeding after giving birth) during which I spent all my time nursing and caring for my newborn.
I am still not menstruating. I read that breastfeeding will delay a mother's monthly periods. I am very committed to nursing my child, and more than likely will not be menstruating till my baby weans.
It made me realize that a woman who bears children one after another, and devotes herself to nursing them, may have very rare periods. Very soon after an ovulation/menstrual cycle begins again, she becomes capable of being pregnant.
Could this be why society, without being consciously aware of it, considers menstruation an embarassment? This attitude could be the last shreds of a fertility worshiping culture that shames a woman for not creating and nursing offspring all through her childbearing years. Whether she is barren by choice or by fate, a woman's blood may be seen as a failure to procreate.
Nowadays, having too many children is frowned upon. Overpopulation and the "career woman" led to family planning and various methods of contraception. A woman's choice to have or not to have a child is generally respected or at least constantly protected from those who would like to eradicate this right.
However, the prevailing attitude of embarassment for a woman's natural cyclical bleeding is strong despite our society's shift from a paradigm of populating the earth to that of "controling" population. In fact, a lot of research goes into not only effective means of contraception, but also synthetic ways to tamper with the frequency of a woman's periods.
Looking inward into the contemporary woman's psyche, this complex combination of reproductive rights to choose, pride in one's ability to create and nurture life, and the monthly effect of one's choice not to procreate and nurture an offspring may be as difficult to balance as all the hormones that make up a woman's chemistry. Maybe in time we women will find the delicate balance in our bodies and in our minds. The clues are in the blood.
- May
Ling Su posted it @ 1:06 AM
Tuesday, 18 June 2005