Menstruation after childbirth

After the birth of a child in a young mother, the menstrual cycle is established only over time. Therefore, many women are concerned about issues related to menstruation after childbirth. Let's try to find answers to these questions.

How long does your period go after childbirth?

Many women consider the discharge that comes after childbirth to be real menstruation. But this is not at all true. This postpartum discharge is called lochia and consists of pieces of mucous membrane, blood and bacteria. The first days after childbirth they go quite abundantly, then after a week their intensity decreases. They turn brown. After another week, the discharge becomes light or transparent. They completely stop by about the fortieth day after the birth of the baby. Throughout this period, hygiene must be carefully observed.

For problematic childbirth or the birth of two or more babies, the discharge takes more days. Do not be afraid of this. But if the lochia became pale, and then turned red again, you should consult a doctor.

When does your period start after childbirth?

It is impossible to specify a specific period for the restoration of menstrual function. It all depends on the individual characteristics of the body of a young mother. Most often, menstruation does not come all the time while a woman is breastfeeding her baby. This is how a hormone called prolactin works, which is produced in the pituitary gland during lactation.

With the introduction of complementary foods and a decrease in the amount of feeding, the hormone prolactin ceases to be produced. During this period, menstrual function is restored. If a young mother, for some reason, does not breastfeed her child, then menstruation begins three or four months after childbirth.

In addition to breastfeeding, other reasons affect the recovery of menstruation:

• Full day regimen.
• Features of the diet.
• Existing diseases in a chronic form or stage of exacerbation.
• The psychological environment surrounding the young mother.

Menstruation after childbirth with breastfeeding

As we have already noted, the process recovery menstruation depends on the duration of lactation. The earliest time for the onset of the first postpartum menstruation occurs after three months. This can happen in case of cessation of lactation or with good function of the pituitary gland, which is an individual feature of the body.

For most women, menstruation begins in about six months or more. This is due to the introduction of complementary foods and a reduction in lactation. By the time most women are one year old, their menstrual cycle is completely back to normal.

Delay of menstruation after childbirth

Sometimes it happens that, despite all the deadlines, menstruation does not come after childbirth. There can be many reasons for this. First of all, it is worth paying attention to the general health of a woman. The reason for the delay may be low hormone production, the presence of cysts in the ovaries, infection, poor emotional and psychological state, neoplasms of the uterus or ovaries of a different nature, new pregnancy.

First you need to check have you got pregnant again. After all, many women are sure that pregnancy cannot occur before the arrival of the first postpartum menstruation, and therefore do not think about contraception. But menstruation begins two weeks after ovulation, so a new pregnancy could well have occurred at this time.

If this does not happen, you should contact your gynecologist to identify pathologies. If the examination did not give any result, then you need to go for a consultation with an endocrinologist. In this case, the prolonged absence of menstruation can be explained by pathological changes in the pituitary gland. This is how the body acts in the presence of Sheehan's syndrome. It can appear with various complications during childbirth, for example, with severe bleeding.

In fact, prolonged absence of menstruation may not pose any threat to a woman's health. But still, you should not take risks and let everything go by itself, postponing a visit to the doctor under the pretext of lack of time and the need to take care of the baby. The sooner you understand the reasons for the delay in menstruation, the more likely you are to cure any disease.