The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine just put up a post about new guidelines from the CDC for hormone birth control and breastfeeding mothers. These guidelines suggest that it is ok for breastfeeding mothers to begin some hormonal birth control methods soon after birth. The new guidelines may undermine breastfeeding success:

Clinically, breastfeeding support providers report a negative impact on breastfeeding when these methods are introduced too early, and one preliminary study found dramatically lower breastfeeding rates at 6 months among mothers who underwent early insertion of progesterone-containing IUDs, compared with insertion at 6-8 weeks postpartum.

If you’re wondering what birth control options are compatible with breastfeeding, The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine has a protocol on contraception and breastfeeding. If you’d like a discussion of your options that is a little less clinical sounding (maybe a little easier to read as an overview) here is a link to a summary from La Leche League International. Two birth control methods that are totally compatible with breastfeeding (one of them depends on breastfeeding!) that many people overlook are NFP and LAM.