When Do You Get Your Period Back After Birth?
“I had my baby six weeks ago and just got my period…so not fair!”
While this is technically possible, it’s uncommon if you’re exclusively breastfeeding. If you do not breastfeed and take steps to dry up your milk quickly after giving birth, you can expect your period to come back within 6 to 8 weeks postpartum.
If you are exclusively breastfeeding, however, it is possible that you may not have a period the entire duration of your breastfeeding relationship, whether that is 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, etc.
More often, when I hear of someone suddenly bleeding at 6 weeks after a week or two of no bleeding, the culprit is often overactivity.
It took nine months to stretch the uterus and grow that placenta and undergo all the changes of pregnancy. It will not all be undone in 6 weeks.
Your body may “trick” you around 3-6 weeks postpartum - you may feel more like yourself, stronger, reduced bleeding or none at all, you feel antsy to resume your normal activities or workout regimen. All the while, you still have a tender, healing area inside your uterus. You may have seen the paper plate photo on social media, showing the size of the placenta attached to your uterus, to illustrate the need to rest and take it easy after giving birth.
So if you are 5-8 weeks postpartum and your bleeding has stopped, please continue to take it easy. You very well could start to see some bright red bleeding pick up again after excessive activity. You can take a light walk or do a little yoga, but let’s wait on any serious activity once your body has had plenty of time to heal.
Also, keep in mind that breastfeeding is not a fail-safe method of birth control. You may or may not be aware when you ovulate for the first time after birth so just be aware of that in regards to resuming sexual intercourse at some point. If you are used to a certain method of pregnancy prevention or fertility tracking you will still need to do that if you want to wait a certain amount of time before conceiving again.
