What causes irregular periods after child birth? – Dr. Teena S Thomas

Post child birth, post-partum period, if the woman decides not to breast feed the baby at all, then we expect 80% of them to have periods within 10 weeks. So if the woman decides to breast feed and the breast feed continues, then the periods can delay upto 20 weeks or beyond 1 year. So basically in either cases, a post-partum or Post child birth bleed can be because of irregular bleed that is happening because of hormonal imbalance. Periods has not started yet. Periods may be regular, irregular, may not come at all. So the periods can be irregular or less bleeding may continue for a long time but if there is any abnormality in the amount of bleed that is very heavy or it is continuing beyond a week or 10 days, the definitely the gynecologist has to be seen. But one year post-partum child birth, we expect the periods to be irregular because the patient is breast feeding. But if the patient is already on contraceptive pills. Now when a woman is breast feeding, we do not put her on regular contraceptive pills. We put her only on POP, that is Progesterone only pills and one of the effects of Progesterone only pills is that they do not give a regular cycle and there will be abnormal bleed in between. So sometimes they bleed in 15 days, 20 days, 30 days, 45 days. So there may be an interval in irregular bleeds, when the patient is POP, that is Progesterone only pills, that is post childbirth.