Speaker 1: Hello everybody. This is Katie's crib and here we are
Speaker 1: for part two of our breastfeeding episode. In part one,
Speaker 1: we got the download from two awesome women about their
Speaker 1: breastfeeding journeys, Kristen Bell and Jamie Greenberg. If you haven't
Speaker 1: listened to it yet, please make sure you do. Here
Speaker 1: we have lactation consultant Linda Hannah. She's going to break
Speaker 1: everything down for us. Linda is the founder and owner
Speaker 1: of My Nursing Coach and you guys, she was so
Speaker 1: sozzo so helpful to me when I started my breastfeeding journey. Um,
Speaker 1: you guys, I've never been more excited in my life.
Speaker 1: This is the amazing Linda Hannah of My Nursing Coach.
Speaker 1: And just to give you guys a visual, Linda Hannah
Speaker 1: shows up at people's houses in a van that says
Speaker 1: my Nursing Coach along the side. She has an amazing
Speaker 1: T shirt on right now that says my Nursing Coach
Speaker 1: on it that has been did very well. You were
Speaker 1: branded very well, and you really came to visit me
Speaker 1: for the first time. When I was a shell of
Speaker 1: a human, I just had a baby. I desperately wanted
Speaker 1: to breastfeed. It was the only like I was so
Speaker 1: scared of labor. But what I knew more than anything,
Speaker 1: I just really wanted to breastfeed. I really wanted to
Speaker 1: and I didn't know how hard it was going to
Speaker 1: be for me. And it was awful. Like it was.
Speaker 1: I called in Linda. I had an amazing night nurse
Speaker 1: at the beginning, and my nipple got what I came
Speaker 1: to learn through you was a fisher on the right
Speaker 1: side where I've had inverted nipples my whole life, which
Speaker 1: means guys, when you like wear a T shirt and
Speaker 1: it gets cold and you can see your hot, sexy
Speaker 1: nipples that never happened to me growing up, like, it's
Speaker 1: amazing and you and you still a breastfeed still with
Speaker 1: inverted nipples. Yes, so he had to pull them out,
Speaker 1: I guess is that what happens they actually even from
Speaker 1: the pressure from the baby strong jaw. So my nipples
Speaker 1: ever did And some women can have one inverted nipple
Speaker 1: and one nipple that's not inverted. I had both inverted,
Speaker 1: and he pulled one out and a wrinkle that was
Speaker 1: on the nipple actually ended up completely splitting in half
Speaker 1: and opening up, causing a Fisher, like the Grand Canyon gaping, gaping,
Speaker 1: and normally we would have asked you to stitch up.
Speaker 1: Normally it would be stitched up. Linda showed up at
Speaker 1: my house and I have this visual that I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: You came in and I was so scared. And there's
Speaker 1: nothing more vulnerable than breastfeeding because people are looking very
Speaker 1: up close and personally your boobs, and you are a
Speaker 1: new time mom and you're super emotional and hormonal and
Speaker 1: you just want to give food to your kid. And
Speaker 1: I felt like a failure. And you came right at
Speaker 1: me with your little adorable hands and pulled open that
Speaker 1: cut and I was like, oh my gosh, what's happening.
Speaker 1: But you are someone who's so like you cut to
Speaker 1: the chase, you get in and you just start like
Speaker 1: becoming the Olivia Pope mix fix It of boobs. That
Speaker 1: that's a character on my show who's like she fixes scandals.
Speaker 1: And I feel like you fix women who are really
Speaker 1: in need. Um, and you definitely fixed me. Um. Can
Speaker 1: you explain, um how you got into what you do? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And people asked that a lot. Um. What I do
Speaker 1: is I helped mothers and I've been doing this for many,
Speaker 1: many years, even before I even was my own mother myself,
Speaker 1: I am a nurse. I worked in abstetrics and labor
Speaker 1: and delivery first, and then Mother Baby became a lactation
Speaker 1: consultant on the way, and it just helped women in
Speaker 1: the hospital after they had their babies. I felt like, well,
Speaker 1: you want to breastrate, right, so we've better help you.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of how it took off on its own.
Speaker 1: People started saying to me, I guess you can probably
Speaker 1: develop a program around this, and I did, and I
Speaker 1: started developing lactation programs and hospitals around the city, and
Speaker 1: then spreading out further and further so that other women
Speaker 1: could get help. Not just the patients that I got
Speaker 1: to see, but all of the people got help, and
Speaker 1: it just sort of grew and grew, and lactation consultants
Speaker 1: have been around for about thirty five years now. As
Speaker 1: an actual field, women helping women have been around forever.
Speaker 1: Uh and um, it just became something that was very
Speaker 1: near and dear to me. And I didn't have any
Speaker 1: breastfeeding issues of my very own, but so many women did.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I should really help as many women
Speaker 1: and teach other women like myself to do what I do.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things I love to do,
Speaker 1: is is nurture and take along other women who want
Speaker 1: to do this field and bring them along with me
Speaker 1: and want to do this field. A lot of women
Speaker 1: do or not like should after scandal ends, like I might,
Speaker 1: can I train under you to be a lactation Interesting
Speaker 1: that you said that, because the field itself now has
Speaker 1: become extremely, extremely exclusive and there are very special rules
Speaker 1: for people who want to do lactation consulting. And it's
Speaker 1: good because it's become a little bit more monitored. However,
Speaker 1: that being said, there should always be a woman who
Speaker 1: knows more than someone else that can help her. And
Speaker 1: I think if you can have another mother say to
Speaker 1: another mother listen, I know that I do, that I've
Speaker 1: been there, that's the best help. Then people like myself
Speaker 1: can step out and let women to women help each other. Yes,
Speaker 1: for example, and I'll share that with you with the
Speaker 1: breast milk story. But then people like me get to
Speaker 1: step in when there's a problem like in your case,
Speaker 1: another mother might not have been able to say no
Speaker 1: one knew what the hell was wrong my nipple. I
Speaker 1: was texting photos of my all of Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: everyone was like, hold up, this looks really insane. You
Speaker 1: have to call. There's only one person in this town,
Speaker 1: and that's Linda Haney. I was like, holy crap. I
Speaker 1: didn't write. I know there are people, but you came
Speaker 1: so highly recommended for so many groups of Frank and
Speaker 1: you are right. I think what we have found a
Speaker 1: lot um is that in this in this podcast, we
Speaker 1: have found that there was a time when women lived
Speaker 1: in villages and there were lots of mommies around helping them,
Speaker 1: guiding them. And now we live in a time where
Speaker 1: your aunts and mothers and cousins aren't living with you
Speaker 1: or next door, and so um, it's just we really
Speaker 1: need a community. We really need specialists like you, and
Speaker 1: when we need it. Um. And I was texting all
Speaker 1: my girlfriends at the time, like I had said, and
Speaker 1: it got to a place where it was so bad
Speaker 1: that I needed an expert. We spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time and attention as a nurse myself labor and delivery.
Speaker 1: I taught Lama's classes for twenty years childbirth education. We
Speaker 1: talk a lot about what to expect in the actual
Speaker 1: labor through and then it's like the lucky and then
Speaker 1: we actually send people home from the hospital not knowing
Speaker 1: what they're doing. So we're working very hard to improve
Speaker 1: the postpartum aspect of care long term so that women
Speaker 1: get attention after they leave the hospital every day, a
Speaker 1: contact person, someone they can connect with, talk to, even
Speaker 1: another mother. Many of my patients say, can you just
Speaker 1: tell me about another mother that I could call? Like, sure,
Speaker 1: I can. Actually, your neighbor just had a baby, or
Speaker 1: somebody down the street from you, or the girl and
Speaker 1: your mommy group that went through what you went through.
Speaker 1: That's a secret because you do not reveal your deepest
Speaker 1: pain to somebody else that they might think you weren't
Speaker 1: strong enough to do with that. That's just nipple pain.
Speaker 1: My god, So nipple pain on the have something. We
Speaker 1: have a hashtag on my mommy group called hashtag nipple journey,
Speaker 1: which every single moment, I have a wonderful mommy group,
Speaker 1: Thank God. I think it's so much about community, as
Speaker 1: I was saying, but everyone has gone through their own
Speaker 1: nipple journey. Of this, some nipple journeys came to an end.
Speaker 1: Some nipple journeys were cracked and bleeding. Some nipple journeys
Speaker 1: were leaking and overproducing and filled with mastitis, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's like everyone has had their nipple
Speaker 1: story and I didn't know about any of this, which
Speaker 1: is what most women feel. I should have trained. I
Speaker 1: trained for my labor, I did not train for breast fading.
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, it's going to happen instinctually, like
Speaker 1: this is gonna be easy, and it is for some women,
Speaker 1: and God bless them yet, but there are also some
Speaker 1: women where that is not the case, and they have
Speaker 1: no one to talk to, and they have no one
Speaker 1: to talk to. So um, when would you say that
Speaker 1: you typically get called in when there's an issue or
Speaker 1: do women book you in advance? And like that's I
Speaker 1: do actually do get calls like that to We all do.
Speaker 1: But what I'd like to tell you a little bit
Speaker 1: about the role of the lactation. Think how important it is.
Speaker 1: So what we've tried to do because of what we
Speaker 1: just discussed about lack of attention and support on this issue,
Speaker 1: is bring the immediate attention right after the baby is born.
Speaker 1: Train the labor and delivery nurses so that this is
Speaker 1: very natural for them to know how a baby begins
Speaker 1: the latching process from the vaginal delivery or a cessarian.
Speaker 1: So training the staff was critical in a hospital setting,
Speaker 1: in a birth center, in a birth center, a birth setting,
Speaker 1: in a midwife's office, to have a collaboration of people
Speaker 1: and not necessarily all lactation consultants because you don't always
Speaker 1: need to have the board certified lactation and early on,
Speaker 1: as you said, many women, the baby is born that
Speaker 1: maybe creeps up on the tammi latches right on piece
Speaker 1: of cake. No problem. Maybe problems present in a week
Speaker 1: or two weeks after what happens, but it's the next step.
Speaker 1: So then having attention to a mother in the early
Speaker 1: days is something that a hospital has a responsibility to
Speaker 1: now provide as part of their support care. So many
Speaker 1: of the hospitals you're finding in this community and around
Speaker 1: this country UH provide lactation support, not always lectation consultants,
Speaker 1: but educators and hands on people who are not great
Speaker 1: because these are not It didn't exist for a long time.
Speaker 1: We've had now a lot of lactations and it's getting
Speaker 1: stronger and stronger as people are becoming more keyed into
Speaker 1: this and understanding you just can't send a mother home
Speaker 1: expecting her to feed her baby when she doesn't even
Speaker 1: know all about feeding. That's number one. And then people
Speaker 1: like me step in in a variety of settings. So
Speaker 1: a lactation consultant could be called pre nataly. How I'm
Speaker 1: going to be having a baby in two months. I
Speaker 1: want to be prepared, and an important visit could be
Speaker 1: talking about what to expect after the birth, what type
Speaker 1: of birth you have, how is the baby. There's a
Speaker 1: baby in this story, they have their own they haven't
Speaker 1: come to class either, if they have their own set
Speaker 1: of issues that they have to deal with, Like, that
Speaker 1: was really tough on me. My head hurts, I got
Speaker 1: vacuumed out. I came out the way I wasn't expecting.
Speaker 1: Babies go through a lot too. We have to respect
Speaker 1: the baby and their ability to just certainly the nurse
Speaker 1: early or to be delayed. Some babies won't nurse for
Speaker 1: six hours, sometimes ten hours. Sometimes they come out and
Speaker 1: they need a little help. Are they going to a
Speaker 1: neonatal intensive care unit where they're getting specialized attention and
Speaker 1: not on the breast. How does that hurt or help
Speaker 1: delaying breastfeeding for the mother. So there are many many keys.
Speaker 1: Think of it like an octopus with a lot of tentacles,
Speaker 1: and the different parts all have to be addressed at
Speaker 1: different times. For example, in the nicke baby, the intensive
Speaker 1: care baby who had to go to the nursery, there
Speaker 1: were no exceptions. The mother should be instructed to start
Speaker 1: pumping early. A mother whose baby is given to her
Speaker 1: right after delivery and latches right on a different story
Speaker 1: twenty four hours later, has now been admitted to the
Speaker 1: NIKE for a different problem. She needs a different set
Speaker 1: of rules and different orders to place on that mother.
Speaker 1: So expectations have to be set so that everybody knows
Speaker 1: going into the story, you are not going to all
Speaker 1: fall in the same category, and this baby, unlike your
Speaker 1: other baby or the next baby coming, will have a
Speaker 1: very very different story. So we want mothers to end,
Speaker 1: father's parents and wives to be prepared for expect unexpected,
Speaker 1: and then be ready and armed so that you know
Speaker 1: how to put information. Man, why you need You don't
Speaker 1: know any of this stuff. It's crazy and about the baby.
Speaker 1: The baby is a participant in the story who may
Speaker 1: or may not be its game. Babies are often born
Speaker 1: with a slight challenge called a fremulum, whether anterior mid
Speaker 1: posterior or posterior freenmulum, and there's a little tongue tie
Speaker 1: that often can prevent the baby from doing a perfect
Speaker 1: latch right away. They can all be helped. These babies
Speaker 1: can get the support and help and even not necessarily
Speaker 1: an intervention, but training to learn how to latch properly.
Speaker 1: So if you don't know, that could be a potential
Speaker 1: something for a baby. A parent would be very concerned,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with my baby. My breastfeeding is not working.
Speaker 1: It's not it's hurting. The baby's not latching properly. So
Speaker 1: we'd like parents to have knowledge and information. We also
Speaker 1: want women to know about milk supply. It is not
Speaker 1: a guarantee that because you had a birth, you are
Speaker 1: going to produce enough milk for your baby, or your
Speaker 1: twins or maybe multiple triple my god, could you imagine.
Speaker 1: And if you have a baby and you don't make
Speaker 1: enough milk, what are your options? There are many, many options,
Speaker 1: So we want women and their partners to be prepared
Speaker 1: for every aspect of the breastfeeding happens. Women can have
Speaker 1: babies and just no milk comes in ever, like genetically,
Speaker 1: or maybe they've had like breast augmentations, or maybe they
Speaker 1: is there some surgeries less likely to be a problem
Speaker 1: in breast milk production. There's still anatomy left in there.
Speaker 1: When the surgeon does their job, whatever they're doing, whether
Speaker 1: they're doing a lift or a um augmentation or a reduction.
Speaker 1: In some cases, they're not taking out all of the
Speaker 1: memory tissue. There's still milk producing cells there, but they
Speaker 1: may have been compromised or maybe they've been enhanced. In
Speaker 1: some cases, there are times when there is a physical
Speaker 1: anatomical disruption in the breast anatomy that happened very very
Speaker 1: early in that young woman's life that might change her
Speaker 1: ability to a full milk supply. May not be possible
Speaker 1: hypoplastic breast anatomy or tissue that hasn't fully developed, or
Speaker 1: women who have gone through a traumatic injury, injury of
Speaker 1: the chest to burn. I had a client once it
Speaker 1: had gotten in a burn accident when she was very young,
Speaker 1: and her anatomy was destroyed and you don't get to
Speaker 1: make up new pressed tissues. So there are women who
Speaker 1: do have milk supply issues. As a rule, we don't
Speaker 1: go to the automatic you're going to have a problem
Speaker 1: because you had breast surgery does not necessarily preclude you
Speaker 1: from being a good producer of breast milk. Some women
Speaker 1: have amazing breast anatomy, but their hormonal shifts are off
Speaker 1: and so they're not producing tremendous volume. I had a
Speaker 1: really good friend who has pretty some very hard autoimmune
Speaker 1: stuff like lupus and of stuff, and so she made milk,
Speaker 1: but very it was such an effort, in such a
Speaker 1: struggle for her to make enough, you know, and she
Speaker 1: she did, you know, six weeks or something, and then
Speaker 1: she was like, it was just depressing her how little
Speaker 1: she was making, and so she started to introduce for me,
Speaker 1: and that was a choice for her. But it was
Speaker 1: an autoimmune thing, that's right. And on the same token,
Speaker 1: there were women who are taking medications for other medical
Speaker 1: condition is that can't breastfeed are told not to breastfeed.
Speaker 1: This may not be safe for you to be off
Speaker 1: of a medication that you really need, even though yes,
Speaker 1: your baby should have breast milk maybe a week or
Speaker 1: two of nursing before you put your back on your medication.
Speaker 1: There are so many possibilities that women could face. We
Speaker 1: don't want everybody to feel like if you didn't get
Speaker 1: a chance to breastfeed. Although I know how important and
Speaker 1: special and wonderful it is that that you're a failure
Speaker 1: because you didn't provide breast for your own baby. Women
Speaker 1: are are very kind. Some women share their breast milk
Speaker 1: or offer their breast milk to a milk bank or
Speaker 1: a donor center where milk can be made available for
Speaker 1: another baby. So we want women to know you go
Speaker 1: into the story planning to latch your baby, planning to nurse,
Speaker 1: and then we'll deal with whatever issues that present, whether
Speaker 1: it's too much milk, hardly ever really anything to be
Speaker 1: too upset about, but it can be a problem, or
Speaker 1: not enough milk, or just enough to get by but
Speaker 1: not extra. There's no storage in this house versus we
Speaker 1: have a freezer full and endowed women who's happy to
Speaker 1: share her milk or donate her milk. So we run
Speaker 1: into generally the typical problems for mothers that call a
Speaker 1: lactation consultant to come out and see them, or the
Speaker 1: people we see in a pediatrician's office are difficult latch,
Speaker 1: painful latch. Difficult latch meaning I can't get coordinated to
Speaker 1: do it by myself. I need help to learn, or
Speaker 1: my baby doesn't seem to know what to do well.
Speaker 1: The baby can't do it. Sometimes they're compromised because their
Speaker 1: jaundice and or the bili rien levels are high, or
Speaker 1: they've had, like I said, a difficult birth and they're
Speaker 1: not able to do the mechanics of nursing, and the
Speaker 1: baby needs a little training. And sometimes it's the mother's
Speaker 1: milk supply, which is a big issue. We get called
Speaker 1: a lot for I don't have enough milk, my baby
Speaker 1: is hungry, or I need to supplement and things like
Speaker 1: that and help the mother increase her milk production. Many calls, however,
Speaker 1: are about I'm a working parent and I need to
Speaker 1: go back to work, and you help me navigate a
Speaker 1: journey with breastfeeding in it, pumping in it, or possibly
Speaker 1: supplementation in it, which is not a curse word. It's
Speaker 1: a good thing. The fact that we can feed a
Speaker 1: baby something other than their own there's milk or don't,
Speaker 1: they can survive is like a mirriad and you can
Speaker 1: and you can can continue for a very long time
Speaker 1: that way, whereas it might have been I'm done because
Speaker 1: I don't have enough breast milk. I'm gonna have to switch.
Speaker 1: Nobody has to switch completely. We can take you a
Speaker 1: long way with some nursing once or twice a day
Speaker 1: or three times a day, or some pumping and some
Speaker 1: supplementation if needed. So lactation consultants are called in for
Speaker 1: a variety of things. We're even called in to help
Speaker 1: mothers stop breastfeeding. Sometimes mothers are at the point in
Speaker 1: their story where you know what, I've got to make
Speaker 1: a transition. I've had many many women call me saying,
Speaker 1: I'm pregnant with my new baby and my physician asked
Speaker 1: me to stop nursing for my health and the new
Speaker 1: baby's health. That's a big issue for a lot of women.
Speaker 1: You'd be surprised how many people actually find out there
Speaker 1: twenty weeks pregnant and they're nursing a seventeen month old.
Speaker 1: They were pregnant and loved every second of that second baby.
Speaker 1: There's so many stories out there. Um so, just knowing
Speaker 1: that there's someone you can call, someone you can talk to,
Speaker 1: who then, if needed, can connect you. The lactation consultant
Speaker 1: is a a conduit to a massage therapist. Some women
Speaker 1: have damaged their neck and shoulders from leaning into their
Speaker 1: baby when they could have been more comfortable just not
Speaker 1: knowing how to position a massage therapist, chiropractor, a um
Speaker 1: e anti doctor, for example, or a dentist who does
Speaker 1: for nectomes or pontoms. Is there if there's a bad
Speaker 1: when there's a tongue tie or a lipti in some
Speaker 1: cases they may want to clip that. UM will connect
Speaker 1: people to a cranial sacral therapist if that's the case,
Speaker 1: sometimes to a therapist. Some women need a little help,
Speaker 1: some dads need a little help. Sometimes sees little hearts
Speaker 1: in this. Yes, there are people in the story. Besides,
Speaker 1: there's a sibling in the story. Maybe there are two.
Speaker 1: I've been at homes where there are five other siblings
Speaker 1: and everybody wants the mommy time or the daddy time,
Speaker 1: or you know, grandma time. And the people in the
Speaker 1: story are are busy with a newborn. So there are
Speaker 1: a lot of pieces why a lactation result can be
Speaker 1: a vehicle and a conduit to other support people in
Speaker 1: finding the right nanny, helping find the right baby. But
Speaker 1: you're never leaving my house, is what you're doing? Because
Speaker 1: you are all these things and I meet you. So
Speaker 1: how are some ways that partners can really help a
Speaker 1: breastfeeding mom. It's very important to have everybody around in
Speaker 1: the beginning with the pregnancy to talk about what their
Speaker 1: roles are going to be and who's going to be
Speaker 1: helping and doing what, so we don't over tax anybody
Speaker 1: with getting up in the middle of the night when
Speaker 1: they are working parents in the family, or um expecting
Speaker 1: people to do everything around the house instead of just
Speaker 1: pick up a few things around the house that the
Speaker 1: mother may have done before, or the other mother may
Speaker 1: have done before, the dad may have done before. Especially
Speaker 1: in the case of a single mom. If there's a
Speaker 1: mom having a baby by herself, we need to make
Speaker 1: sure she's got people around her who are going to
Speaker 1: help her and support her, whether it's bringing in a
Speaker 1: two day a week person to help straighten up the house.
Speaker 1: So setting up people's expectations is very important, making sure
Speaker 1: everybody understands their role and how important they role is,
Speaker 1: and then trying not to step on each other's toes.
Speaker 1: I think one of the big things is when a
Speaker 1: when a woman is running a home, for example, UM
Speaker 1: and there are partnerships in the home, letting go of
Speaker 1: the things that they normally would do to take care
Speaker 1: of the baby can be very hard and when someone
Speaker 1: else steps in and says, well, I'll put the dishes
Speaker 1: away for you, but I like to put away a
Speaker 1: certain way, son Ames. You have to be willing to
Speaker 1: let go. A very famous story is the daddy's uh
Speaker 1: piece for a second here, mother may have asked there
Speaker 1: her husband or friend or somebody to change the baby's diaper,
Speaker 1: only to have the baby come back and be ridiculed
Speaker 1: about the diaper wasn't done correctly. You got to learn
Speaker 1: to turn your yeah, your little tuneer down one help.
Speaker 1: It's just there's that are just really not worth fighting,
Speaker 1: and let it go and you'll look huge. I know
Speaker 1: I had, because I'm very type A and like very
Speaker 1: to just let go, and honestly I didn't really the
Speaker 1: first two weeks of his life. I really I was
Speaker 1: able to let go because I I really was just
Speaker 1: so lost, Like I was so lost and so emotional
Speaker 1: and just really didn't even know who I was and
Speaker 1: breastfeeding was it was really I remember getting off the
Speaker 1: phone with you at one point and I literally sobbed,
Speaker 1: like I've never hello something just felt that was probably
Speaker 1: something in the baby's room, but I sobbed Um, I
Speaker 1: just breastfeeding to me was such an emotional I really like,
Speaker 1: I I've never felt like more that I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be able to do it and that I was injured.
Speaker 1: I just and it was so painful. I never felt
Speaker 1: like such a failure in my entire lit too. Because
Speaker 1: of the hormones that are raging, it's so triggering. It's
Speaker 1: really such a triggering thing. And for um, women who
Speaker 1: choose not to breastfeed or something. Have you have you
Speaker 1: taken moms through that and what do you say to them?
Speaker 1: I know we've talked about how formula is like it's
Speaker 1: not a bad supplementing, not a bad word. You say
Speaker 1: these wonderful things that I that I remember and make
Speaker 1: me feel better because I'm sure there might get to
Speaker 1: a place where I might need that. I don't know when,
Speaker 1: but I have to train my mind to say that's
Speaker 1: not a bad thing, it's okay. It's a wonderful thing
Speaker 1: that you have something else to feed your baby in
Speaker 1: that case. And we get concerned when mothers are afraid
Speaker 1: to use a supplementation of either another mother's pump milk
Speaker 1: don't or milk or formula because their babies need to
Speaker 1: be fed. There are certain criteria that have to be met, growing, gaining,
Speaker 1: and thriving in a baby and all the developmental milestones.
Speaker 1: And if the mother is not able to produce enough
Speaker 1: chooses not to breastfeed or chooses to breastfeed part time,
Speaker 1: that's okay so long as the other criteria, which you
Speaker 1: and I've talked about a lot, is the baby wedding
Speaker 1: and pooping appropriately. Is the baby acting appropriate at wake times,
Speaker 1: alert and happy and content, playful and engaging, sleeping well,
Speaker 1: not having meltdown, smelting, freaking now, screaming, crying that something's wrong,
Speaker 1: So exactly could be that? Yea, The most important thing
Speaker 1: is you have to feed your baby. Yes, that isn't
Speaker 1: And the baby that's fed well is a baby who
Speaker 1: will feed very well. The better we feed them, the
Speaker 1: better they want to be fed, and the more they cooperate.
Speaker 1: So we have to take a big, you know, open
Speaker 1: lens of what's really going on. Going back to the
Speaker 1: story about helpers, we never want to overtax the helper either.
Speaker 1: So when a mother is feeling so vulnerable and so
Speaker 1: um lost and and sad or depressed, of course we
Speaker 1: always worry about mother's falling into a postpart and more
Speaker 1: than baby blues, but a depression of some sort. A
Speaker 1: physician needs to be stepping in a psychologist and a
Speaker 1: well trained professional counselor to help women. We want to
Speaker 1: make sure that the other people are also not getting lost.
Speaker 1: We don't want to lose the mother or the father,
Speaker 1: the other mother, if there's a lesbian couple or the
Speaker 1: dad or her people that they are so overtaxed by
Speaker 1: a mother in trouble that they are not able to
Speaker 1: perform their jobs either. So everybody has to stay healthy.
Speaker 1: What's remember the first staver came. I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: having a lactation specialists come in. Something's really wrong. Um.
Speaker 1: And my husband was like, well, can I be there
Speaker 1: for that? And I was like yes, please, like please
Speaker 1: be here because you're going to hear things that I
Speaker 1: might miss that are helpful. UM. I do think the
Speaker 1: most important thing with lactation and actually post baby just
Speaker 1: get help early. Yes, that is the most important thing
Speaker 1: with lactation. If you're feeling blues depression, somebody that it's like,
Speaker 1: don't sit in that for too long. Like, I'm just
Speaker 1: so relieved that at two weeks you know three weeks
Speaker 1: I saw something was wrong and I didn't just try
Speaker 1: to figure it out on my own going down Google
Speaker 1: spirals for like weeks because I wouldn't have made I
Speaker 1: wouldn't I would have quit. I would have quit breastfeeding.
Speaker 1: I would have I think I would have felt even
Speaker 1: worse than I did. But I it really I remember
Speaker 1: taking one baby class where someone was like, you just
Speaker 1: ask for help as soon as you think that something
Speaker 1: is wrong and meaning and for lactation, especially if you
Speaker 1: feel like you're not doing a great hold and your
Speaker 1: back is really hurting you, or the latch is really
Speaker 1: not going perfectly, or for some reason it's super painful
Speaker 1: for the entire length of the feed. These are all
Speaker 1: major flags and that you should make a phone call,
Speaker 1: or you should call your hospital or OBI or someone
Speaker 1: that can just ask for help, for someone who might
Speaker 1: know more than you to lead you down another path
Speaker 1: of someone who can help you. That is like, I
Speaker 1: think that's very critical to say, and I will speak
Speaker 1: on behalf of the physicians and the midwives. They are
Speaker 1: very sad when they find two or three or four
Speaker 1: or five weeks later my patient didn't call me. They
Speaker 1: are part of the story that is so vital Without them.
Speaker 1: I mean I certainly could not do my work. I
Speaker 1: take orders from physicians and midwives. Pediatricians as well, get
Speaker 1: very very discouraged and sad with their client relationship when
Speaker 1: the mother or the father have not called to say
Speaker 1: the baby has been up every night, or I don't
Speaker 1: understand why the baby's acting like this, and they go
Speaker 1: everywhere else but to the perfect person. The relationship you'll
Speaker 1: have the longest of any physician relationship is your patrician,
Speaker 1: eighteen years with the same person. They know you well,
Speaker 1: they know you inside out, and and they know your family.
Speaker 1: And if there are other siblings that come along, and
Speaker 1: there are other parents that are coming to the appointments
Speaker 1: or grandma steps info. I've actually been in the patrician's
Speaker 1: office within nanny comes with the children. The parents are working.
Speaker 1: These relationships. These bonds are huge, and people who are
Speaker 1: having a baby, or who have had a baby or
Speaker 1: expectant need to know that that person, midwife, doula, doctor, pediatrician, lactation,
Speaker 1: that's therapist will come together united. We are a force,
Speaker 1: a strong force together. We don't work well fragmented. This
Speaker 1: is what keeps having and and we have still need it.
Speaker 1: It just looks differently than it did hundreds of years ago.
Speaker 1: People didn't know that they could get help, or didn't
Speaker 1: a way to go to get Hell, are they're embarrassed
Speaker 1: or they're ashamed or don't think they need or you know,
Speaker 1: I think women are. So it's about being strong and
Speaker 1: doing it on your own or you know I I
Speaker 1: it's my own problem off exit And I think such
Speaker 1: a huge learning curve that I have been on in
Speaker 1: motherhood is it's like asked for help and asked for
Speaker 1: a help the minute you think you need it. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, because hick up the damn phone
Speaker 1: and mail your partner. Hey, this has not been going
Speaker 1: great for me. I'm not enjoying it. I really need
Speaker 1: to talk to someone about it. So is there one
Speaker 1: right way to breastfeed? How does a mom find out
Speaker 1: what's right for her? There? So, there's no right way.
Speaker 1: There's only the way that works for that mother and baby,
Speaker 1: And for any number of various reasons, there could be
Speaker 1: a special way. For example, if a baby is diagnosed
Speaker 1: with a hip displacia, they may be wearing a special
Speaker 1: harness that the orthopedic surgeons or doctors put the baby
Speaker 1: in for six to eight weeks or longer. Those babies
Speaker 1: have to be placed in a particular type of position
Speaker 1: that a mother with a normal, healthy newborn would never
Speaker 1: know or never do, so they deserve special attention. There
Speaker 1: are babies who are in helmets because they have a
Speaker 1: flathead and help my mommy me lay that's right, and
Speaker 1: it's a big thing because we've put all the babies
Speaker 1: on their back to sleep to prevent suddenifant death and
Speaker 1: created a whole other set of issues, oh, which are resolvable.
Speaker 1: But the babies are in a helmet. They're special and
Speaker 1: they need to be held in a special way. The
Speaker 1: normal nursing positions are variable. You can nurse football something
Speaker 1: that's right, the create sitting up, laying back on your side.
Speaker 1: You guys came over and laid me down and put
Speaker 1: the baby on my boob in like a laying down position.
Speaker 1: I almost you could cry of that. Bans. I was like,
Speaker 1: excuse me, what, like there are multiple positions, like I
Speaker 1: didn't know in the military, I had no idea. And
Speaker 1: the other thing that was so helpful that you taught me,
Speaker 1: which was so great, was you got me out of
Speaker 1: nursing jail is what you called it, which was every
Speaker 1: day when it would be time to nurse, I would
Speaker 1: count down the minutes that I was getting close to
Speaker 1: the window where I knew he was going to be hungry,
Speaker 1: and I was dreading it because I knew it was
Speaker 1: gonna be painful, and I was going to verse at him,
Speaker 1: and it was gonna be to curling and not in
Speaker 1: a good way, and I was going to hate it.
Speaker 1: And I was going to report to my nursing chair
Speaker 1: in his dark room where I wouldn't speak to anyone,
Speaker 1: and maybe I would put on an episode of some
Speaker 1: TV show I has binge watching, and it would be horrible.
Speaker 1: And you said, you gotta get a nursing jail. You
Speaker 1: gotta put him on that boob, standing up, laying down,
Speaker 1: sitting here, sitting there out at a restaurant. Wear a cover,
Speaker 1: don't wear a cover, whatever the heck, but you gotta
Speaker 1: make if you're going to do this, it has to
Speaker 1: be part of your life. And I can remember the
Speaker 1: first time I nursed in public in my house. Tony
Speaker 1: Goldwyn of Scandal came over to visit my son and
Speaker 1: meet Alby for the first time. I thought he was
Speaker 1: going to stay for an hour. He stayed for three.
Speaker 1: We had a lot to chat about. He's the best.
Speaker 1: It was time to nurse the baby. And I can
Speaker 1: hear Linda Hannah in my head. You don't have to
Speaker 1: report to nursing prison. You can sit on your couch.
Speaker 1: You can. And I literally, for the first time I
Speaker 1: ever learned how to like nurse him in front of
Speaker 1: a stream, not a stranger of family, the Scandal family,
Speaker 1: but I nursed him in front of someone, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I gotta get confident and I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: do it, and it's gonna like all motherhood, I've had
Speaker 1: to learn by doing. And I remember the first time
Speaker 1: I ever nursed in public at a restaurant. I remember
Speaker 1: the first time I ever nursed while walking around my
Speaker 1: house and holding him simultaneously, like there's just like okay,
Speaker 1: like we gotta move on. Life has got to go,
Speaker 1: and if I want breastfeeding to be a part of
Speaker 1: my life, he's got to come along with me. And
Speaker 1: I hear when you always say like, well, your boobs
Speaker 1: come with you, so you can they go wherever you go.
Speaker 1: They always work. And now I've learned it, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is awesome. It's going to be horrible when he
Speaker 1: starts eating food and I have to like pack stuff.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be a nightmare. That's why a lot
Speaker 1: of women breastfeed for such a long time. Easy, Like
Speaker 1: I take him off the plane, I whip out a boob,
Speaker 1: it's not a big deal. I take him to a restaurant.
Speaker 1: I don't have to like make plans. I don't have
Speaker 1: to pack stuff. It's been very you know, it will
Speaker 1: be a whole other, exciting new chain of things when
Speaker 1: I introduced food to him. I have to tell you
Speaker 1: this story really quick. The first time I ever breastfed,
Speaker 1: albeit at work. It was the first day I had
Speaker 1: ever taken him to work. He was seven weeks old.
Speaker 1: And I have an episode where I had to learn
Speaker 1: a dance routine dancing with an actor. Joe Morton who
Speaker 1: plays Papa Pope, and Debbie Allen came into choreograph the
Speaker 1: dance scene. First day at work. The baby needs to eat,
Speaker 1: I said, well, Debbie Allen and Joe more neither have
Speaker 1: to wait, which I was like, oh my gosh, I'm
Speaker 1: not making Debbie Allen and Joe Moreton waite. They are
Speaker 1: like legends no way do they care if I breastfeed
Speaker 1: while we rese the dance his first day at work.
Speaker 1: He's I have photos of it, you guys, we can
Speaker 1: post it on the light maybe, But I have photos
Speaker 1: of him under like I'm nursing him dancing with Joe
Speaker 1: Morton and Debbie Allen's teaching me the depth the dance
Speaker 1: moves while Britney spears Hit me Baby one more time
Speaker 1: is playing And that's how And I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can do this anywhere anytime. I'm multitasking to the
Speaker 1: end degree because I'm a mom. So what are some
Speaker 1: new things moms should consider when making the decision whether
Speaker 1: or not to breastfeed? Oh that's a good question. Um well,
Speaker 1: my first advice would be to tell everybody who's pregnant
Speaker 1: two really consider what their long term goals are going
Speaker 1: to be if they're planning on being a home mom
Speaker 1: versus a working mother. Thinking about does breastfeeding fit in
Speaker 1: my story? Uh? Does breastfeeding and bottle feeding fit in
Speaker 1: my story? Do I want my baby to have my
Speaker 1: breast milk? So there are there are really two schools.
Speaker 1: The one school is I want my baby to get
Speaker 1: my breast milk. I don't necessarily need my baby to
Speaker 1: nurse on me for whatever reason, but I want the
Speaker 1: baby getting breastmolk. That's one option. There are other women
Speaker 1: who say, I don't really care how much breastmolk the
Speaker 1: baby gets. I just like the feeling of nursing. So
Speaker 1: our moms who have a lower supply can still put
Speaker 1: the baby on the nurse as they like to connect
Speaker 1: with the baby. But it might not be where the
Speaker 1: baby is getting their exactly. They may have to be
Speaker 1: supplemented or bottle fed some way, or some other supplement.
Speaker 1: We do have lots of other variables for supplementing at
Speaker 1: the breast. And then there were women who just really
Speaker 1: don't I don't want to breastfeed. I don't want to
Speaker 1: make milk. It's not in my my story, or I've
Speaker 1: done it before and I'm not going to try it again.
Speaker 1: They had bad experiences. That's okay. Then we start out
Speaker 1: right away with that plan. Don't talk to this mother
Speaker 1: about nursing. Don't obligate this woman to feel she has
Speaker 1: to do something. Let's go in very kindly and say
Speaker 1: we're gonna make this as comfortable a process. It maybe
Speaker 1: a little uncomfortable. Will make it as comfortable a process
Speaker 1: as possible. You'll move through this over the next few
Speaker 1: days and weeks. We'll be in touch. We'll keep you know,
Speaker 1: reminding you what steps you need to take to make
Speaker 1: the milk supply diminish, go away, and then you're off
Speaker 1: on your own journey. If there's a mom who wants
Speaker 1: to do combination, make combinations something very manageable and reasonable.
Speaker 1: And if it's I only want a breastfeed and I
Speaker 1: don't want to use bottles at all, make sure we're
Speaker 1: really clear about if you plan to leave your baby,
Speaker 1: let me make sure I make this very clear. There
Speaker 1: are women who will not leave their baby with anyone
Speaker 1: for a year or two. I'm with the baby, the
Speaker 1: babies with me. As you said, my breast go wherever
Speaker 1: I go. There was work. I'm doing great. They exclusively
Speaker 1: breastfeed for as long as they there's no discussion of
Speaker 1: bottle feeding in their story at all. Sometimes I call
Speaker 1: those my to Panga Canyon mummiescans real hippie bill. That's right.
Speaker 1: They're very natural and yes, organic and it's wonnerful. They
Speaker 1: do not want to bott and they do not want
Speaker 1: to there's no bottle near their baby, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: Then we have other women who say, I kind of
Speaker 1: kind of do a little bit of everything, but it's
Speaker 1: gonna be my breast milk. Okay. We're going to make
Speaker 1: sure that that mother is on a very very good
Speaker 1: pumping plan really early, so that she's producing as much
Speaker 1: milk as possible in the first forty to sixty days,
Speaker 1: so that the breastfeeding story continues on for a year
Speaker 1: or two or more, because the more we help them
Speaker 1: in the early days and weeks, which is why you
Speaker 1: don't want to delay talking to electation, the more like
Speaker 1: you're a good example. I only have two ounces, Wow,
Speaker 1: I have four now, it's not crazy. I have stuffing.
Speaker 1: Once I got through the nipple fissure land in my
Speaker 1: hashtag nipple journey, then my panic attack anxieties started to
Speaker 1: rear its ugly head again when I thought I wasn't
Speaker 1: making enough. Um. I have a lot of friends who
Speaker 1: are milkmaids, and they would inst a story their freezers
Speaker 1: filled with frozen milk. Cut to my depression again. Because
Speaker 1: I did not have a freezer filled with milk. I
Speaker 1: was feeding enough for my kid. I knew he wasn't hungry,
Speaker 1: he wasn't fussy. He was happy when he was awake,
Speaker 1: he was alert when he was awake, he was sleeping well.
Speaker 1: So I knew that I was providing him with enough milk.
Speaker 1: I also went so far as to call him too
Speaker 1: Hannah again. And you would weigh him before. I would
Speaker 1: nurse him on one side, then weigh him after, and
Speaker 1: you would see, tell me because I'm really crazy. You
Speaker 1: would say, look, he's had two and a half ounces
Speaker 1: on this side. Let's put him on the other breast.
Speaker 1: He would drink. We would measure he was eating. He
Speaker 1: was getting enough. I knew he was, but I was
Speaker 1: so upset that I was not this like milkmaid I
Speaker 1: dreamed of being. And then I kept saying to my pediatrician,
Speaker 1: I'm just so scared. I'm gonna have to start supplementing.
Speaker 1: And why is that a dirty word? And she said,
Speaker 1: some mommies just grow with the baby. It's right. He
Speaker 1: doesn't need six ounces right now. He has a tiny belly.
Speaker 1: He only needs two and a half ounces three ounces off.
Speaker 1: You're feeding him every three hours. Um, and my milk
Speaker 1: supply now, I grow, I grew with him. Now I
Speaker 1: make seven eight ounces. If I've gone, you know, through
Speaker 1: the night, I make ten ounces. But that's now he's
Speaker 1: taking a five ounce bottle and he's four, he's sixteen
Speaker 1: weeks old, so I've grown exactly with what his belly needs.
Speaker 1: And when I'm at work and i'm shooting scandal, I
Speaker 1: pumps on. When he's eating at home a bottle and
Speaker 1: I've managed to save up enough and I'm still going.
Speaker 1: And I've never been more proud of something that has
Speaker 1: made so hard for me. It's truly amazing that people
Speaker 1: would think that I'm I'm a failure. I'm done, it's
Speaker 1: never going to get better, and then magically it gets better,
Speaker 1: because it does get the baby helps you. Well, the
Speaker 1: baby has helped. He's gotten better at it, and I've
Speaker 1: gotten better at it, and I've thank God learned to
Speaker 1: just like chill out a little go and just hey,
Speaker 1: like we've got this. You're gonna let me know if
Speaker 1: something's not working, and I'm gonna go with you through this,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like I just you have.
Speaker 1: There is this motherly instinct of knowing your baby and
Speaker 1: knowing he's okay. He like there's this crazy thing about
Speaker 1: breastfeeding that when you give a bottle and you know
Speaker 1: you've had he's had five ounces and whatever, and you're good.
Speaker 1: There's something about breastfeeding where you really got to rely
Speaker 1: on Oh he's done, he's full, he's pulled off, he's good.
Speaker 1: Let's put him on the other side. Oh we tried it.
Speaker 1: He's uninterested. He'll tell me if he's full. The baby
Speaker 1: has the magic. People don't have to really learned to
Speaker 1: read his cues, which has been something for me. I
Speaker 1: just has been hard to just like really relax and
Speaker 1: know that he's going to communicate with me, not through
Speaker 1: words because he can't speak yet. Um, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: You have to remind them mothers to make sure they're
Speaker 1: taking care of themselves. It's it's vital for the mother
Speaker 1: to be eating well and to be getting proper nutrition.
Speaker 1: Andrunch about this A lot, very important, a lot, And
Speaker 1: you have to take yourself and your ego out of
Speaker 1: the equation, especially for someone who's on camera. You know that, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not just jumping into diet land because that's not
Speaker 1: what's best for my baby and for breastfeeding. Right now,
Speaker 1: he I have to have carbohydrates. I might not cardio
Speaker 1: for some women makes their milk supply go down, um,
Speaker 1: which is definitely my excuse of why I'm still not
Speaker 1: doing because I ate it, um, And why I have
Speaker 1: my oatmeal in the morning and all of my nuts
Speaker 1: and my oat stout beer on weekends, because how delicious
Speaker 1: that I get to have that right now, because it's
Speaker 1: good for my milks. And probably the only time in
Speaker 1: your life will will say you eat everything you love.
Speaker 1: I love it everything in moderation, You'll be fine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great. Can you um? Is it normal to feel
Speaker 1: pain and discomfort while breastfeeding? What is the normal threshold
Speaker 1: for that? Everybody has a different paint holerance, So some
Speaker 1: women would be a two on the pain scale and
Speaker 1: others are nine. I think we have to use that
Speaker 1: scale very carefully to make sure we're treating appropriately. If
Speaker 1: somebody says there are two, then that's okay. But if
Speaker 1: they say there are seven, eight or nine, we need
Speaker 1: to address that issue with either changing positions, or evaluating
Speaker 1: the nipple or evaluating the baby. So the like tation
Speaker 1: consult has a responsibility to look at all the key
Speaker 1: pieces in the story, but it shouldn't be painful. Breastfeeding
Speaker 1: is not without sensations. That's very different. Not without a
Speaker 1: double negative. That means that you're not going to feel nothing,
Speaker 1: but you don't have to use the word painful as
Speaker 1: a descriptor. This is uh, I feel like tugging in
Speaker 1: a pulling for example, or maybe this is not the
Speaker 1: most comfortable. But again, nipples are meant to be used
Speaker 1: for loving and romanticizing, and there are a sensory organ
Speaker 1: so they're going to be much more sensitive, and they
Speaker 1: do a lot of nerve ending, so they're much more sensitive.
Speaker 1: But they can also get very badly damaged with inappropriate
Speaker 1: latch or as you said, that is just the way.
Speaker 1: One time, I was like, my nipples are black and
Speaker 1: blue after I got through the fissure, and but it
Speaker 1: didn't really hurt, and you're like, oh, yeah, that's just
Speaker 1: wear and tear, and I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes insane for me. Yes, sometimes my nipple journey was insane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes the pumping can be a little bit of a
Speaker 1: insult that you put out. We don't want the nipples
Speaker 1: to look bruised or black and blue, but they certainly
Speaker 1: can go through their their own For a few days,
Speaker 1: I to get better that's right, but we want women
Speaker 1: to get an intervention early. There shouldn't be breastfeeding and
Speaker 1: this is killing me, and the word pain should not
Speaker 1: be in the same story. There's something that can be
Speaker 1: done for almost everyone. There are very minimal exceptions to
Speaker 1: this rule where it's going to be painful no matter what.
Speaker 1: There are some unusual situations. I don't know that we
Speaker 1: want to talk about them today, but there are some
Speaker 1: unusual situations in the breast anatomy story where you can't
Speaker 1: avoid this. But even in your case, a fissure can
Speaker 1: be resolved and the pain can be removed from the story. Guys,
Speaker 1: guess how I resolved it. I did not do a stitch.
Speaker 1: I just kept putting the kid on there and fix
Speaker 1: and the kid is resolved me. The antibodies in my
Speaker 1: breast milk and the antibodies in his mouth is what
Speaker 1: made the proper latch. Taking the nipple shield away and
Speaker 1: and having the baby on correctly is a game changer.
Speaker 1: So if we can help women by reminding them you
Speaker 1: don't have to suffer through this and sit through a
Speaker 1: twenty or forty minute oh my god, oh my god,
Speaker 1: doing your childbirth breathing that's a problem. You know, say,
Speaker 1: if you have to do your chop with breathing we
Speaker 1: did right minutes while they're breastfeeding, something's wrong, right, And
Speaker 1: or if you need boats from all the wrinkles that
Speaker 1: you've made in your face from screnching up your face
Speaker 1: for twenty five minutes. And also, you know, the breastfeeding
Speaker 1: gets easier and shorter. We were talking about this. I
Speaker 1: used to breastfeed. I'm just remembering now, used a breastfeed
Speaker 1: for like twenty minutes on each side, thirty minutes total.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe this was going to be my future.
Speaker 1: What a nightmare. Now it's like six minutes, eight minutes,
Speaker 1: and he's done. That's right, It's like it's gotten. It's
Speaker 1: a game changer. Absolutely. I tell a lot of moms this.
Speaker 1: If you can't make it all the way, you'll miss
Speaker 1: out on the most amazing part, which is the funny part.
Speaker 1: They're actually comical. They look up and smile. Oh, that's
Speaker 1: all my baby's doing. I know is that I'm like, oh, shoot,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't make eye contact because as soon as he
Speaker 1: sees my laughing and smiling, and I'm like, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: like now you know what I mean, and I gotta
Speaker 1: get it back on. But and sometimes they're very funny.
Speaker 1: They'll hold onto the nipple and turn their head when
Speaker 1: they hear the door open to see is that Grandma
Speaker 1: coming in, and the nipples become like rubber banding, kind
Speaker 1: of stretched out. Oh my god, And the mothers actually
Speaker 1: say I didn't feel that. That's kind of crazy or
Speaker 1: actually it hurts, which in which case we have to
Speaker 1: fix it. But the baby goes through their own developmental
Speaker 1: phases and milestones as well at the breast, so it
Speaker 1: becomes kind of comical. And oftentimes mothers will say, I've
Speaker 1: got to actually go in a quiet room now because
Speaker 1: all of you talking distracting. Yes, I can't talk. I
Speaker 1: used to be able to send emails and have conversations
Speaker 1: that don't have to be in a dark room. I
Speaker 1: was chatting with Tony Goldwyn I just spoke about But
Speaker 1: now I I do have to find a place where
Speaker 1: I just he has to focus and he has to
Speaker 1: eat for a short time a right, eight minutes now
Speaker 1: six minutes. But but I can't be holding court because
Speaker 1: he's like, oh we're talking conversation, good time, Like he's
Speaker 1: very alert now he's just wearing and they're funny. And
Speaker 1: they get older, they get even sillier and funnier. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the older babies will go to the breast, suck for
Speaker 1: two minutes, pull off, do a little thing, go back
Speaker 1: to the breast. I'm saying, don't put you brought back
Speaker 1: on yet, because he's coming right back and it's actually fun.
Speaker 1: So if you can get to the fun part past
Speaker 1: the first eight weeks or ten weeks, it just shoots
Speaker 1: off like a rocket to amazing nous and gets better
Speaker 1: and better and better. Eight I turned such a cord,
Speaker 1: a tremendous shot. I just really thank God for you,
Speaker 1: because I, like I said, I just I, had I
Speaker 1: not seek to the help I needed, would not have.
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of it. Looks amazing. The baby is
Speaker 1: doing great. Um. What is the most common question you get?
Speaker 1: I think probably still the biggest question is can I
Speaker 1: breastfeed and also take breaks, not be at every feeding,
Speaker 1: use supplements, pumped milk if I have it, or bottles
Speaker 1: And the answer is yes to all of them. The
Speaker 1: answer is yes if you start early, and you start
Speaker 1: intervening correctly, and you don't rush too quickly to get
Speaker 1: a bottle in there, but take your time and process,
Speaker 1: understand and learn about your baby and yourself. There is
Speaker 1: a way to combine breastfeeding with supplementing breastfeeding with pumped
Speaker 1: milk bottles, having someone else helped feed your baby for you,
Speaker 1: giving the mother a break so she can rest. There's
Speaker 1: a way to do all of this really well. But
Speaker 1: most of the time we remind mothers, your story is
Speaker 1: gonna keep changing. You have to be on your toes.
Speaker 1: You've got it exactly what happened crazy, absolutely like we
Speaker 1: were in such a groove and now he's like to
Speaker 1: you know, like looking around and being a mayor, and
Speaker 1: like it's just like changing sleep cycles, change their poopy styles,
Speaker 1: change their behavior at the breast changes. There's so many changes.
Speaker 1: Your lifestyle changes, your family changes. Maybe you start feeling better.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to step out a little bit. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go and leave the baby for two or three hours.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get my hair done. We call all the time.
Speaker 1: Can I get coloring? Can I get a perm Can
Speaker 1: I get a week when I do something? And the
Speaker 1: answer is yes, there's a way to do. You're going
Speaker 1: to be yourself again, although you may not feel it,
Speaker 1: but it's a new self. So you're an improved, better
Speaker 1: version of yourself, a mother and a companion. You now
Speaker 1: have a permanent friend for life, and they're the best
Speaker 1: part of your day. So leaving in the morning to
Speaker 1: go to work for a working mother is sad and emotional.
Speaker 1: Is a tearing feeling. Will I will be there and
Speaker 1: remember when when I get home and the baby is
Speaker 1: so happy to see you. Or we have many moms
Speaker 1: who have to travel for work. They're gone to New
Speaker 1: York where they're gone. I'm going to my first time
Speaker 1: next week. I'm horrified. It's scary. Some women get to
Speaker 1: travel with their babies and their helpers. Some people have
Speaker 1: to leave the baby behind and wonder, well the baby
Speaker 1: breastfeed when I get back. I'm telling you, and I
Speaker 1: will tell everybody. It is your attitude. Of course, the
Speaker 1: baby will breastfeed if you leave saying listen, I'll be
Speaker 1: back in four days. We'll be doing nursey again. When
Speaker 1: I get back, the baby we'll nurse. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: if you leave, he'll never nurse. He won't like me,
Speaker 1: he'll be Why is mothering so mental? Man? Why is
Speaker 1: it a mental state? I'm telling you yes, and it's like, oh, shoot,
Speaker 1: I didn't become a mother to teach a child everything
Speaker 1: I know. I actually became a mother also to to
Speaker 1: learn so many things about how I can be a
Speaker 1: better human and better person, Like just really tackle all
Speaker 1: of my fears, endings, ideas. It's really been And I'm
Speaker 1: only at this for three and a half months, you guys,
Speaker 1: and and look how far you come. You open up
Speaker 1: opportunities in your own self that you didn't know you had.
Speaker 1: You become a much kinder person when you're parenting a baby,
Speaker 1: parenting a child, being a partner in a partnership with
Speaker 1: someone and respecting and understanding each other and your relationships
Speaker 1: with one another, respecting the space to let the baby go.
Speaker 1: For example, when you have a helper and nanny adula
Speaker 1: um your partner and you say I'm going to let
Speaker 1: you take charge of this is a very hard and
Speaker 1: emotional journey for a parent to do. And on the
Speaker 1: flip side, for somebody else to say, I'm going to
Speaker 1: leave and trust you to feed my baby well, feed
Speaker 1: my baby well for me please, because you're the primary
Speaker 1: person feeding my baby. There's a lot of anxiety on
Speaker 1: the other side, where often a parent will feel like, um,
Speaker 1: maybe the mother isn't in her right place or doing
Speaker 1: what she needs to do that's right for her and
Speaker 1: for her baby. So oftentimes we'll get dad's or other
Speaker 1: moms involved in saying, I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: really working the way it should be. I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: worried about my wife. I'm worried about my partner. I'm
Speaker 1: worried about her and my baby. So this is a
Speaker 1: very big, big, big span of possibilities that we can't ignore,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't ignore. The lactation is on the only one
Speaker 1: piece of the story that we refer and go to
Speaker 1: the physicians and our advisors and our support and counselors
Speaker 1: to help us understand all of these pieces that our
Speaker 1: parents is going through. It's an octopus. Last question, Linda Hannah,
Speaker 1: what is the strangest question you've ever gotten? So strange?
Speaker 1: Strange is a weird word. I've had so many funny,
Speaker 1: funny things happen. They're not strange necessarily, but they're actually funny.
Speaker 1: One of my funniest ones and my lactation consultant staff
Speaker 1: and I talked about this a lot. We'll often get
Speaker 1: a parent who wants to breastfeed, but they start the
Speaker 1: conversation with I want to be able to breastfe my baby,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to pump and it don't actually
Speaker 1: want to breastfeed at night. I only want to breastfeed
Speaker 1: a couple of times in the day. But I want
Speaker 1: to make all the milk for the baby, and I
Speaker 1: don't want the baby getting any supplementing at all. Well,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be really hard because as it may look
Speaker 1: like I'm a magician, I'm not actually a magician. So
Speaker 1: I can't. My staff and I also laugh about this,
Speaker 1: and we can't make things like that happen. We want
Speaker 1: people to know going in this is the steps that
Speaker 1: are needed to take to get to this goal right here.
Speaker 1: So we have to know the goals first. So when
Speaker 1: when people ask me what's the funniest or the strangest
Speaker 1: thing that's ever happened, I'd have to say, honestly, it's
Speaker 1: trying to make milk appear out of nowhere. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so that's kind of a that's one of the funny ones.
Speaker 1: Another really odd thing that's happened. Uh. And I feel
Speaker 1: very honored that this has happened to me. I've had
Speaker 1: four occasions where a parent has called me to ask
Speaker 1: me to help them breastfeed, that they've adopted a baby
Speaker 1: and they are pregnant with a baby when they want
Speaker 1: to breastfeed both of them. And I've been very lucky,
Speaker 1: and that has happened to me four times. And uh,
Speaker 1: that's a lot to have. That happened where we were
Speaker 1: planning on having a baby, We couldn't get pregnant, we
Speaker 1: tried IVF, we've tried I U I, we finally decided
Speaker 1: to adopt. We've gotten a baby. We're so happy, and
Speaker 1: we've and many of these. In two of these stories,
Speaker 1: the baby was getting breast milk from someone else a
Speaker 1: milk bank don'tor was giving the infant and the mother
Speaker 1: can currently had found out on the adoption process or
Speaker 1: receiving a baby that she herself was actually pregnant. Once
Speaker 1: they stopped trying, they became pregnant. This happened to me
Speaker 1: a couple of times. And those are really odd cases.
Speaker 1: Now I've got a four month old and a new
Speaker 1: born trying to nurse together, and that possible. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: pretty crazy pictures of it, because it's so amazing when
Speaker 1: it happens. It is possible, and oddly enough, the older babies,
Speaker 1: the four month or five month or six month old,
Speaker 1: because I've had a few of them now, are so
Speaker 1: silly when they breastfeed because they've been bottle fed, but
Speaker 1: they've had They're so adorable. And then when the newborn
Speaker 1: is there and they sometimes can do it together, but
Speaker 1: oftentimes we will have the older baby nurse or the
Speaker 1: newborn first, so the milk comes down easily for the
Speaker 1: second baby, and then they latch on and it's funny.
Speaker 1: They don't actually fully breastfeed, but the fact that the
Speaker 1: mother can then say, my adoptive baby is breastfeeding is
Speaker 1: my bobling believable. Those are my best story. It's so
Speaker 1: crazy and special, and when I have them, they usually
Speaker 1: I'm the four times this has happened, I've had baby
Speaker 1: into racial babies, so they'll be like a darker skinned
Speaker 1: and a light skinned baby, or one was an Asian
Speaker 1: baby adopted baby and a Caucasian baby, or one was
Speaker 1: an Asian baby with the black newborn. A beautiful story.
Speaker 1: So I've had that happen. Those are wonderful parts of
Speaker 1: my personal life that I get to be part of
Speaker 1: I feel so lucky. And my staff we talked about
Speaker 1: this a lot. We feel so lucky to be included.
Speaker 1: I feel like them. I'm when I was first doing
Speaker 1: this my professional work, I was thirty years younger. I
Speaker 1: was a young mother or not even a mother in
Speaker 1: my own story, and then became a mother. Now I'm
Speaker 1: like the grandma. I've been doing this for a long time.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm a grandma to all these babies
Speaker 1: and I love them. And I feel like my staff
Speaker 1: when I tell people all the time, thank you for
Speaker 1: letting us be part of your story, because inviting us
Speaker 1: into your private life sometimes very sad and scary and vulnerable.
Speaker 1: As an emotional talk about the waves of emotion that
Speaker 1: come over. I've had dad's cry. I've had grandmother sit
Speaker 1: down and say thank you for giving my daughter or
Speaker 1: my daughter in law something I did not have. I
Speaker 1: feel like part of their story. And we, as lactation
Speaker 1: consultants in the community and nurses in the community, feel
Speaker 1: you're inviting us in and then you're letting us stay.
Speaker 1: And when I get to go back to a third
Speaker 1: of the family, I've been with the mother for all
Speaker 1: of her children and were on number three, number four.
Speaker 1: I was at somebody with number six and I took
Speaker 1: care of number one, number two. She didn't call me
Speaker 1: in the middle, she didn't need my help in number six.
Speaker 1: I feel like part of their family. The hole into
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. We were very lucky to get to have
Speaker 1: this opportunity. People several times, you so lucky at this job.
Speaker 1: And I don't even think of it as being with
Speaker 1: the babies. I think it is being I get to
Speaker 1: be with the mothers, and the mothers bring me back
Speaker 1: and remind me I'm the mother. I'm mothering, and mothering
Speaker 1: is a very big job with a very tremendous, tremendous
Speaker 1: responsibility factor. That really is is really a very private
Speaker 1: and emotional thing. I'm very lucky. We love you, Linda.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being on Kate's Crib. You are such
Speaker 1: a treasure. Thank you. We are very lucky to have you.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for listening and joining us
Speaker 1: on this adventure. Please make sure to subscribe to keats
Speaker 1: Crib