With MOST of the women I have helped as a La Leche League Leader since 1975 and an IBCLC since 1985, I have experienced exactly what Jan Barger wrote: "the pregnant uterus doesn't have many oxytocin receptors and so can't "hear" much oxytocin until the hours just before labor starts, when oxytocin receptor numbers skyrocket"

EXCEPT

SOME mothers DO have more sensitive oxytocin receptors earlier in pregnancy (at least that's the explanation that the MD's give them) and it appears that when these moms breastfeed, they experience uterine contractions with sex and breastfeeding.  

THOSE women may need to wean according to their doctors - and as a Nurse and an IBCLC I would not give recommendations contrary to those given by their physician.  (I usually DO ask them if the MD has also forbidden sex.)

Right now one of the moms in our group is pregnant - she delivered her first baby very early and experienced a great deal of stress dealing with an NICU baby.  She is sadly weaning her older child of 11 months - and I am helping her do it.

Jeanette Panchula, BSW, RN, PHN, IBCLC
Vacaville, CA  

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