Pregnancy after Giving Birth: 5 Reasons NOT to Get Pregnant Too Soon

Pregnancy planning and pregnancy after giving birth

When it comes to pregnancy planning, one of the things that parents usually like to discuss is age difference between children.

Although, the age difference in both cases, either small or big, has its advantages and disadvantages, getting pregnant too soon after giving birth can have some side affects.

If you are one of those women who don’t care about the age difference and still haven’t made up your mind to get pregnant at a specific time, here are the reasons why you should NOT get pregnant until your child is one year old.

#1 there is a certain time needed to recover after giving birth

Specialists agree that the optimum smallest time difference between the first and the second pregnancy is one year. So, 12 months are quite nice period to start thinking about pregnancy after giving birth to your first child. During that time, the body will recover completely if you had a natural birth. If you had a c-section, a two years pause is recommended. During this one year period of time, a woman can recover her health status, get her period in normal state after breastfeeding and regain a physical strength for the second pregnancy. Nothing bad will happen if you get pregnant earlier, but the studies show that mothers, who conceived soon after giving birth, deliver smaller children than average.

#2 you need to be in a good health to carry a pregnancy to term

Getting pregnant while you are breastfeeding has its side affects. Due to a high prolactine during breastfeeding, pregnancy after giving birth is possible, if you happen to get your ovulation of course. But that ovulation is not quality enough, your uterus might not be ready to embrace a new life yet and the outcome might be a miscarriage or a very risky pregnancy. This might be the most important thing when it comes to pregnancy planning. You don’t need to spend your time in hospital taking care of your unborn child, while your first child is still very small and needs a mother more than ever.

#3 both of your children needs you to grow up healthy

Women who get pregnant quite early after first pregnancy can feel guilty or just are unable to give as much love and devotion as she would want or could. This mostly concerns mothers practicing attachment parenting. Being pregnant and breastfeeding is possible, but not optimal. If you are breastfeeding and found out you are pregnant, your doctor will probably advise you to stop in order to prevent possible miscarriage. That way you will take away something so valuable to your first child.

If you want to take care of your unborn child, you will probably avoid carrying your first child in your arms and again take something valuable from him/her – yourself and your physical closeness and touch. If you continue breastfeeding and carrying your first child, because you don’t want to let it feel any difference, you are risking your unborn child’s life and your pregnancy. Either way, it is very difficult to meet the needs of your children and yourself.

#4 co-sleeping and sleeping in general can become stressful.

If you decided to go with co-sleeping with your first child, it could become risky if you get pregnant soon after giving birth. A child might kick you in the stomach and possibly cause some minor problems you don’t want to experience. Or, you won’t be able to find the position you feel comfortable in while sleeping, because you have to think about the child that sleeps with you or you have to be turned toward your child. If your child is still very small, and rocking is the only way to put him/her a sleep, it can be very hard to handle all that, because as a pregnant woman, it is not easy to carry a child every night and day. It is not recommended either. As baby needs a mother when it comes to sleeping, you may find yourself over exhausted at the end of the day. And that’s the last thing you need when you’re pregnant. With some pregnancy planning, pregnancy after giving birth doesn’t have to be stressful at all.

#5 financial problems can be another stress to deal with.

Depending on the state where you live in, you will have different incomes when you start using your maternity leave. In some countries, you need to work for a certain period of time to be entitled to get the money during your maternity leave. If you get pregnant while you’re still on your maternity leave with your first child, you might get very small incomes for your second child, due to the fact you haven’t worked for some time. That can additional stress your budged and messed up with your planes and needs. And, low incomes can make you unsatisfied, you may not be able to afford something you want to you or your children and new pregnancy can start in not so positive emotions. Finances are one of the things that drives people to start with pregnancy planning, because it can be difficult to meet the needs of the whole family.

These entire things don’t necessarily mean that getting pregnant during the first few months after giving birth is not normal, bad for the mother and a child or impossible to handle. Thousands of mothers experience pregnancy after giving birth to their babies and they get pregnant mostly by accident, when they don’t expect to ovulate and have period so soon after giving birth. And yet, they still manage to carry a pregnancy to term and deliver a healthy baby.

But, if you got the period quite early, and are aware that you might get pregnant, but at the same time you are using protection, these are the things that you might consider if you start deciding upon your second pregnancy.