Breastfeeding: My birth control plan

During my first pregnancy, I was determined to bottle feed my baby because I considered it fashionable. However, my husband, being a breastfeeding activist working with International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), discouraged me from bottle feeding. He gave me literature about breastfeeding and kept highlighting its benefits. 

 

When I gave birth, he helped me initiate breastfeeding in the first hour of the baby’s life. In the same year, 2007, we participated in a competition themed Breastfeed In The First Hour, Save Life. We sent pictures that were taken in hospital, while my husband helped me to initiate breastfeeding and we won an award of $100 and literature. I grew to love breastfeeding.  

 

When my maternity leave ended, I started expressing the milk for my baby to take while I was at work. I would express in the morning and before I left for work and I would breastfeed to make sure the baby suckled whatever was left in the breasts. While at work, I used to express to boost the milk supply. 

 

When my baby turned five months, the breast milk I left at home was no longer enough, so I had to run back at lunch time to breastfeed. This was hectic, so I requested my boss to allow me go to work with my baby until she turned six months. Fortunately, my boss gave me the go-ahead.  

 

At six months, I used to leave my baby at home and breastfed a lot at night. When my baby turned a year, I got a job with IBFAN. I was assigned to work in Karamoja for one-and-a-half months. Before I left, I expressed and refrigerated breast milk for the baby. While in Karamoja, I continued to express, but poured the milk because we did not have refrigerators and I did it to keep up my milk supply. The evening I returned home, I put the baby on the breast and she breastfed without any problem. I continued breastfeeding her up to two years. 

 

While I was breastfeeding exclusively, I did not get my menstrual periods. At eight months, I decided to use Norplant, but I suffered side effects like weight loss and developed pimples. My gynaecologist advised me to stop using any hormonal method. Since I had not had my periods, the doctor encouraged me to continue breastfeeding. When my daughter turned two years and was ready to have my second child, I stopped breastfeeding and conceived immediately. 

 

After maternity leave of my second baby, my boss at IBFAN encouraged me to go with her to work. This allowed me to breastfeed exclusively. 

 

After six months I started leaving her home and also introduced complementary feeds in addition to breastfeeding her in the morning, lunch time, evening and in the night. I also breastfed my second daughter for two years without conceiving. And when I stopped, I conceived my third-born

 

Aside from breastfeeding working as a birth control method for me, it helps boost the children’s immunity. In the first year of their life, coughs, colds and diarrhoea are not an issue.