How effective is breastfeeding as a method of contraception?

Breastfeeding can be 98 percent effective if each of the following three conditions apply: Firstly, you are not having periods. Secondly, you are fully breastfeeding your baby. Remember fully breastfeeding means you are not giving the baby any other foods, or bottles of milk or formula. Thirdly, it is no more than six months since your baby was born.

If 100 women used breastfeeding as their method of contraception for six months, and all those conditions applied to them, probably only two of them would have an unplanned pregnancy during that time.

By the time the baby is 12 months old, the effectiveness of breastfeeding in preventing pregnancy will have reduced to 93 percent This means that if 100 women used breastfeeding as their method of contraception during that year, by the end of 12 months seven of them would have had an unplanned pregnancy. This would happen even if they had not had a period since their baby was born and they were still fully breastfeeding.

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