I always thought it was the other way around - that women weren't intended to have as many periods as women today have because we used to have children younger and have more children than many women have today.  A lot of women would have a baby, breastfeed for a year or so, have a period or two, get pregnant, breastfeed, period or two, get pregnant and over the course of her childbearing years only have about a dozen periods or so.  I thought that one of the reasons why breastfeeding helps prevent cancers of the reproductive organs was because breastfeeding can keep periods away for a period of many months and sometimes a couple of years or more.  I remember reading about it but since my computer is having major corruption problems and I can't access any of my bookmarked websites, I can't find anything to link to back up my thoughts.

I can tell you from my own personal experience, that I have had maybe three or four periods since the fall of 1999 when I became pregnant with my oldest.  I had two periods (possibly three - I had a few early miscarraiges so it's hard to recall which bleeding was miscarriage vs. ormal cycle bleeding) between my first two children, the first period occuring at 23 months post partum and I had one period between my second & third child (occurring two days after her 2nd birthday).  I'm 14 months post partum now, have no sign of periods returning and don't expect them to until July 2008 when she'll turn two.  I'd actually be shocked if I had a period before July/08.  I have never had concern about my lack of periods - I think this is a healthy, natural way for my body to space my children for me (3 years, 2 mos b/w the first two and 2 years, 9 mos b/w the girls -- and no miscarriages this time).

I would be more worried about the fact that she is taking artificial hormones rather than her absence of periods.  If she's not cycling, why is she using birth control?  Could she not monitor her body signals and begin using birth control when her body indicates there's a need for it?  If the periods stopped because of taking the hormonal birth control then all the more reason for her to stop taking it and either use a barrier method or chart her cycles when they start up again. 

Just my two cents worth.  When I have a new computer (early November - it's on order but won't be here for a few weeks since we're ordering a custom assembled CPU), I can see if I can find the article where it talked about the benefits of not cycling.  Right now, bookmarked websites etc. may be lost forever in which case goodness only knows how long it'll be before I can track down the specific article that I remember reading.  IT might be on the LLL website somewhere, I'm not positive about that though.
--
Margo 

-------------- Original message from Fogelmans <[log in to unmask]>: -------------- 


> Dear Friends, 
> One of woman is 
> nursing a two year old and taking a progesterone only mini pill. She has not 
> gotten a period since before her becoming pregnant and is concerned that perhaps 
> it is unhealthy for a woman to go so long with out menstruating. Another woman 
> suggested that menstruation is protective against certain cancers. I remember 
> once something on lactnet that seemed to suggest the same thing but can't 
> remember what the topic was. Does anyone know anything about this subject? 
> Thank you so much, 
> Chayn Fogelman, winding down the holiday season in Israel 
> 
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