Hi Kristin,
In my experience, physicians tend to distrust lactational amenorrhea
because they have seen women get pregnant while token breastfeeding, and
do not understand the requirements for LAM.  Among women who breastfeed
intensively (on cue with minimal mother baby seperation) in a mother
support group I co-lead, many successfully use LAM for child spacing.  I
even taught LAM and Multi-symptom Natural Family Planning in homeless
shelters, and the women there were able to understand and use the
methods.  In fact, that was my best attended class series of any of the
women's health topics I taught.  The women were very excited to know
their own fertility and how to control it themselves, without spending
money that they didn't have.
While very few women have gotten pregnant in the first 6-9 mos of
lactation amenorrhea, the rate does increase as the time postpartum
increases.  After about a year, a significant number of women begin to
ovulate and conceive without having had a menstrual period to warn of
approaching fertility.  If women are taught fertility signs as well as
LAM requirements, they can often tell when their fertility is returning,
even if they have not had a period yet.
Good luck in your studies.
--
Catherine Watson Genna, IBCLC  New York City  mailto:[log in to unmask]

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html