Just to add a little note on this issue.  I got a question (not through
Lactnet) on this very question of depo provera.  So I gave my usual answer.
Which is, if the mother must use a hormonal method of birth control, try the
progestin only pill for a month, and if it does not cause problems, use the
depo provera.  But that breastfeeding does offer considerable protection,
and other methods are available for extra security.  The response was
enlightening.

I was told that the parents (the question was sent through a third party),
were perfectly happy to use condoms, or some other method, but it was the
physician who was pushing the depo provera.

Why, I wonder?  And I would say because it is *easy* and probably the drug
rep had been there not too long before.  Just give it, or prescribe the
pill, no discussion of what should be a very serious issue, a very intimate
one, to try to find out what is best for *this* couple.  And the IUD? Too
much trouble to insert.

Anyone wondering why 40% of Americans (according to some recent study) go to
practitioners of alternative medicine need ask no more questions.  It's not
that alternative medicine is necessarily better.  In fact, much of it is
hocus pocus. And, before anyone jumps down my throat, much of it is good and
should be adopted by mainstream medicine. But practitioners of alternative
medicine often do what many (not all, I know, don't jump down my throat)
mainstream physicians don't. They talk with their patients.

Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC