Why Is Breastfeeding SO Complicated ( (Pt. 2)

sozzo so helpful to me when I started my breastfeeding journey. Um, you guys, I've never been more excited in my life. This is the amazing Linda Hannah of My Nursing Coach. And just to give you guys a visual, Linda Hannah shows up at people's houses in a van that says my Nursing Coach along the side. She has an amazing T shirt on right now that says my Nursing Coach on it that has been did very well. You were branded very well, and you really came to visit me

for the first time. When I was a shell of a human, I just had a baby. I desperately wanted to breastfeed. It was the only like I was so scared of labor. But what I knew more than anything, I just really wanted to breastfeed. I really wanted to and I didn't know how hard it was going to be for me. And it was awful. Like it was.

I called in Linda. I had an amazing night nurse at the beginning, and my nipple got what I came to learn through you was a fisher on the right side where I've had inverted nipples my whole life, which means guys, when you like wear a T shirt and it gets cold and you can see your hot, sexy nipples that never happened to me growing up, like, it's amazing and you and you still a breastfeed still with

inverted nipples. Yes, so he had to pull them out, I guess is that what happens they actually even from the pressure from the baby strong jaw. So my nipples ever did And some women can have one inverted nipple and one nipple that's not inverted. I had both inverted, and he pulled one out and a wrinkle that was on the nipple actually ended up completely splitting in half and opening up, causing a Fisher, like the Grand Canyon gaping, gaping, and normally we would have asked you to stitch up.

Normally it would be stitched up. Linda showed up at my house and I have this visual that I'll never forget. You came in and I was so scared. And there's nothing more vulnerable than breastfeeding because people are looking very up close and personally your boobs, and you are a new time mom and you're super emotional and hormonal and you just want to give food to your kid. And

I felt like a failure. And you came right at me with your little adorable hands and pulled open that cut and I was like, oh my gosh, what's happening. But you are someone who's so like you cut to the chase, you get in and you just start like becoming the Olivia Pope mix fix It of boobs. That that's a character on my show who's like she fixes scandals. And I feel like you fix women who are really in need. Um, and you definitely fixed me. Um. Can

you explain, um how you got into what you do? Absolutely? And people asked that a lot. Um. What I do is I helped mothers and I've been doing this for many, many years, even before I even was my own mother myself, I am a nurse. I worked in abstetrics and labor and delivery first, and then Mother Baby became a lactation consultant on the way, and it just helped women in the hospital after they had their babies. I felt like, well, you want to breastrate, right, so we've better help you.

And that's kind of how it took off on its own. People started saying to me, I guess you can probably develop a program around this, and I did, and I started developing lactation programs and hospitals around the city, and then spreading out further and further so that other women could get help. Not just the patients that I got to see, but all of the people got help, and it just sort of grew and grew, and lactation consultants

have been around for about thirty five years now. As an actual field, women helping women have been around forever. Uh and um, it just became something that was very near and dear to me. And I didn't have any breastfeeding issues of my very own, but so many women did. I thought, well, I should really help as many women and teach other women like myself to do what I do.

And that's one of the things I love to do, is is nurture and take along other women who want to do this field and bring them along with me and want to do this field. A lot of women do or not like should after scandal ends, like I might, can I train under you to be a lactation Interesting that you said that, because the field itself now has become extremely, extremely exclusive and there are very special rules for people who want to do lactation consulting. And it's

good because it's become a little bit more monitored. However, that being said, there should always be a woman who knows more than someone else that can help her. And I think if you can have another mother say to another mother listen, I know that I do, that I've been there, that's the best help. Then people like myself can step out and let women to women help each other. Yes, for example, and I'll share that with you with the

breast milk story. But then people like me get to step in when there's a problem like in your case, another mother might not have been able to say no one knew what the hell was wrong my nipple. I was texting photos of my all of Los Angeles and everyone was like, hold up, this looks really insane. You have to call. There's only one person in this town, and that's Linda Haney. I was like, holy crap. I

didn't write. I know there are people, but you came so highly recommended for so many groups of Frank and you are right. I think what we have found a lot um is that in this in this podcast, we have found that there was a time when women lived in villages and there were lots of mommies around helping them, guiding them. And now we live in a time where your aunts and mothers and cousins aren't living with you or next door, and so um, it's just we really

need a community. We really need specialists like you, and when we need it. Um. And I was texting all my girlfriends at the time, like I had said, and it got to a place where it was so bad that I needed an expert. We spend a lot of time and attention as a nurse myself labor and delivery.

I taught Lama's classes for twenty years childbirth education. We talk a lot about what to expect in the actual labor through and then it's like the lucky and then we actually send people home from the hospital not knowing what they're doing. So we're working very hard to improve the postpartum aspect of care long term so that women get attention after they leave the hospital every day, a contact person, someone they can connect with, talk to, even

another mother. Many of my patients say, can you just tell me about another mother that I could call? Like, sure, I can. Actually, your neighbor just had a baby, or somebody down the street from you, or the girl and your mommy group that went through what you went through. That's a secret because you do not reveal your deepest pain to somebody else that they might think you weren't strong enough to do with that. That's just nipple pain.

My god, So nipple pain on the have something. We have a hashtag on my mommy group called hashtag nipple journey, which every single moment, I have a wonderful mommy group, Thank God. I think it's so much about community, as I was saying, but everyone has gone through their own nipple journey. Of this, some nipple journeys came to an end. Some nipple journeys were cracked and bleeding. Some nipple journeys were leaking and overproducing and filled with mastitis, you know

what I mean. It's like everyone has had their nipple story and I didn't know about any of this, which is what most women feel. I should have trained. I trained for my labor, I did not train for breast fading. I was like, Oh, it's going to happen instinctually, like this is gonna be easy, and it is for some women, and God bless them yet, but there are also some women where that is not the case, and they have no one to talk to, and they have no one

to talk to. So um, when would you say that you typically get called in when there's an issue or do women book you in advance? And like that's I do actually do get calls like that to We all do. But what I'd like to tell you a little bit about the role of the lactation. Think how important it is. So what we've tried to do because of what we just discussed about lack of attention and support on this issue, is bring the immediate attention right after the baby is born.

Train the labor and delivery nurses so that this is very natural for them to know how a baby begins the latching process from the vaginal delivery or a cessarian.

So training the staff was critical in a hospital setting, in a birth center, in a birth center, a birth setting, in a midwife's office, to have a collaboration of people and not necessarily all lactation consultants because you don't always need to have the board certified lactation and early on, as you said, many women, the baby is born that maybe creeps up on the tammi latches right on piece

of cake. No problem. Maybe problems present in a week or two weeks after what happens, but it's the next step. So then having attention to a mother in the early days is something that a hospital has a responsibility to

now provide as part of their support care. So many of the hospitals you're finding in this community and around this country UH provide lactation support, not always lectation consultants, but educators and hands on people who are not great because these are not It didn't exist for a long time.

We've had now a lot of lactations and it's getting stronger and stronger as people are becoming more keyed into this and understanding you just can't send a mother home expecting her to feed her baby when she doesn't even know all about feeding. That's number one. And then people like me step in in a variety of settings. So a lactation consultant could be called pre nataly. How I'm

going to be having a baby in two months. I want to be prepared, and an important visit could be talking about what to expect after the birth, what type of birth you have, how is the baby. There's a baby in this story, they have their own they haven't come to class either, if they have their own set of issues that they have to deal with, Like, that was really tough on me. My head hurts, I got vacuumed out. I came out the way I wasn't expecting.

Babies go through a lot too. We have to respect the baby and their ability to just certainly the nurse early or to be delayed. Some babies won't nurse for six hours, sometimes ten hours. Sometimes they come out and they need a little help. Are they going to a neonatal intensive care unit where they're getting specialized attention and not on the breast. How does that hurt or help delaying breastfeeding for the mother. So there are many many keys.

Think of it like an octopus with a lot of tentacles, and the different parts all have to be addressed at different times. For example, in the nicke baby, the intensive care baby who had to go to the nursery, there were no exceptions. The mother should be instructed to start pumping early. A mother whose baby is given to her right after delivery and latches right on a different story twenty four hours later, has now been admitted to the

NIKE for a different problem. She needs a different set of rules and different orders to place on that mother. So expectations have to be set so that everybody knows going into the story, you are not going to all fall in the same category, and this baby, unlike your other baby or the next baby coming, will have a very very different story. So we want mothers to end, father's parents and wives to be prepared for expect unexpected, and then be ready and armed so that you know

how to put information. Man, why you need You don't know any of this stuff. It's crazy and about the baby. The baby is a participant in the story who may or may not be its game. Babies are often born with a slight challenge called a fremulum, whether anterior mid posterior or posterior freenmulum, and there's a little tongue tie that often can prevent the baby from doing a perfect

latch right away. They can all be helped. These babies can get the support and help and even not necessarily an intervention, but training to learn how to latch properly. So if you don't know, that could be a potential something for a baby. A parent would be very concerned, what's wrong with my baby. My breastfeeding is not working. It's not it's hurting. The baby's not latching properly. So we'd like parents to have knowledge and information. We also

want women to know about milk supply. It is not a guarantee that because you had a birth, you are going to produce enough milk for your baby, or your twins or maybe multiple triple my god, could you imagine. And if you have a baby and you don't make enough milk, what are your options? There are many, many options, So we want women and their partners to be prepared

for every aspect of the breastfeeding happens. Women can have babies and just no milk comes in ever, like genetically, or maybe they've had like breast augmentations, or maybe they is there some surgeries less likely to be a problem in breast milk production. There's still anatomy left in there. When the surgeon does their job, whatever they're doing, whether they're doing a lift or a um augmentation or a reduction. In some cases, they're not taking out all of the

memory tissue. There's still milk producing cells there, but they may have been compromised or maybe they've been enhanced. In some cases, there are times when there is a physical anatomical disruption in the breast anatomy that happened very very early in that young woman's life that might change her ability to a full milk supply. May not be possible hypoplastic breast anatomy or tissue that hasn't fully developed, or women who have gone through a traumatic injury, injury of

the chest to burn. I had a client once it had gotten in a burn accident when she was very young, and her anatomy was destroyed and you don't get to make up new pressed tissues. So there are women who do have milk supply issues. As a rule, we don't go to the automatic you're going to have a problem because you had breast surgery does not necessarily preclude you from being a good producer of breast milk. Some women have amazing breast anatomy, but their hormonal shifts are off

and so they're not producing tremendous volume. I had a really good friend who has pretty some very hard autoimmune stuff like lupus and of stuff, and so she made milk, but very it was such an effort, in such a struggle for her to make enough, you know, and she she did, you know, six weeks or something, and then she was like, it was just depressing her how little she was making, and so she started to introduce for me, and that was a choice for her. But it was

an autoimmune thing, that's right. And on the same token, there were women who are taking medications for other medical condition is that can't breastfeed are told not to breastfeed. This may not be safe for you to be off of a medication that you really need, even though yes, your baby should have breast milk maybe a week or two of nursing before you put your back on your medication. There are so many possibilities that women could face. We don't want everybody to feel like if you didn't get

a chance to breastfeed. Although I know how important and special and wonderful it is that that you're a failure because you didn't provide breast for your own baby. Women are are very kind. Some women share their breast milk or offer their breast milk to a milk bank or a donor center where milk can be made available for

another baby. So we want women to know you go into the story planning to latch your baby, planning to nurse, and then we'll deal with whatever issues that present, whether it's too much milk, hardly ever really anything to be too upset about, but it can be a problem, or not enough milk, or just enough to get by but not extra. There's no storage in this house versus we have a freezer full and endowed women who's happy to

share her milk or donate her milk. So we run into generally the typical problems for mothers that call a lactation consultant to come out and see them, or the people we see in a pediatrician's office are difficult latch, painful latch. Difficult latch meaning I can't get coordinated to do it by myself. I need help to learn, or my baby doesn't seem to know what to do well.

The baby can't do it. Sometimes they're compromised because their jaundice and or the bili rien levels are high, or they've had, like I said, a difficult birth and they're not able to do the mechanics of nursing, and the baby needs a little training. And sometimes it's the mother's milk supply, which is a big issue. We get called a lot for I don't have enough milk, my baby is hungry, or I need to supplement and things like

that and help the mother increase her milk production. Many calls, however, are about I'm a working parent and I need to go back to work, and you help me navigate a journey with breastfeeding in it, pumping in it, or possibly supplementation in it, which is not a curse word. It's

a good thing. The fact that we can feed a baby something other than their own there's milk or don't, they can survive is like a mirriad and you can and you can can continue for a very long time that way, whereas it might have been I'm done because I don't have enough breast milk. I'm gonna have to switch. Nobody has to switch completely. We can take you a long way with some nursing once or twice a day or three times a day, or some pumping and some

supplementation if needed. So lactation consultants are called in for a variety of things. We're even called in to help mothers stop breastfeeding. Sometimes mothers are at the point in their story where you know what, I've got to make a transition. I've had many many women call me saying, I'm pregnant with my new baby and my physician asked me to stop nursing for my health and the new baby's health. That's a big issue for a lot of women.

You'd be surprised how many people actually find out there twenty weeks pregnant and they're nursing a seventeen month old. They were pregnant and loved every second of that second baby. There's so many stories out there. Um so, just knowing that there's someone you can call, someone you can talk to, who then, if needed, can connect you. The lactation consultant

is a a conduit to a massage therapist. Some women have damaged their neck and shoulders from leaning into their baby when they could have been more comfortable just not knowing how to position a massage therapist, chiropractor, a um e anti doctor, for example, or a dentist who does for nectomes or pontoms. Is there if there's a bad when there's a tongue tie or a lipti in some cases they may want to clip that. UM will connect people to a cranial sacral therapist if that's the case,

sometimes to a therapist. Some women need a little help, some dads need a little help. Sometimes sees little hearts in this. Yes, there are people in the story. Besides, there's a sibling in the story. Maybe there are two. I've been at homes where there are five other siblings and everybody wants the mommy time or the daddy time, or you know, grandma time. And the people in the

story are are busy with a newborn. So there are a lot of pieces why a lactation result can be a vehicle and a conduit to other support people in finding the right nanny, helping find the right baby. But you're never leaving my house, is what you're doing? Because you are all these things and I meet you. So how are some ways that partners can really help a

breastfeeding mom. It's very important to have everybody around in the beginning with the pregnancy to talk about what their roles are going to be and who's going to be helping and doing what, so we don't over tax anybody with getting up in the middle of the night when they are working parents in the family, or um expecting people to do everything around the house instead of just pick up a few things around the house that the mother may have done before, or the other mother may

have done before, the dad may have done before. Especially in the case of a single mom. If there's a mom having a baby by herself, we need to make sure she's got people around her who are going to help her and support her, whether it's bringing in a two day a week person to help straighten up the house. So setting up people's expectations is very important, making sure everybody understands their role and how important they role is, and then trying not to step on each other's toes.

I think one of the big things is when a when a woman is running a home, for example, UM and there are partnerships in the home, letting go of the things that they normally would do to take care of the baby can be very hard and when someone else steps in and says, well, I'll put the dishes away for you, but I like to put away a certain way, son Ames. You have to be willing to

let go. A very famous story is the daddy's uh piece for a second here, mother may have asked there her husband or friend or somebody to change the baby's diaper, only to have the baby come back and be ridiculed about the diaper wasn't done correctly. You got to learn to turn your yeah, your little tuneer down one help. It's just there's that are just really not worth fighting,

and let it go and you'll look huge. I know I had, because I'm very type A and like very to just let go, and honestly I didn't really the

first two weeks of his life. I really I was able to let go because I I really was just so lost, Like I was so lost and so emotional and just really didn't even know who I was and breastfeeding was it was really I remember getting off the phone with you at one point and I literally sobbed, like I've never hello something just felt that was probably something in the baby's room, but I sobbed Um, I just breastfeeding to me was such an emotional I really like,

I I've never felt like more that I wasn't going to be able to do it and that I was injured. I just and it was so painful. I never felt like such a failure in my entire lit too. Because of the hormones that are raging, it's so triggering. It's really such a triggering thing. And for um, women who choose not to breastfeed or something. Have you have you taken moms through that and what do you say to them? I know we've talked about how formula is like it's

not a bad supplementing, not a bad word. You say these wonderful things that I that I remember and make me feel better because I'm sure there might get to a place where I might need that. I don't know when, but I have to train my mind to say that's not a bad thing, it's okay. It's a wonderful thing that you have something else to feed your baby in

that case. And we get concerned when mothers are afraid to use a supplementation of either another mother's pump milk don't or milk or formula because their babies need to be fed. There are certain criteria that have to be met, growing, gaining, and thriving in a baby and all the developmental milestones.

And if the mother is not able to produce enough chooses not to breastfeed or chooses to breastfeed part time, that's okay so long as the other criteria, which you and I've talked about a lot, is the baby wedding and pooping appropriately. Is the baby acting appropriate at wake times, alert and happy and content, playful and engaging, sleeping well, not having meltdown, smelting, freaking now, screaming, crying that something's wrong, So exactly could be that? Yea, The most important thing

is you have to feed your baby. Yes, that isn't And the baby that's fed well is a baby who will feed very well. The better we feed them, the better they want to be fed, and the more they cooperate. So we have to take a big, you know, open lens of what's really going on. Going back to the story about helpers, we never want to overtax the helper either.

So when a mother is feeling so vulnerable and so um lost and and sad or depressed, of course we always worry about mother's falling into a postpart and more than baby blues, but a depression of some sort. A physician needs to be stepping in a psychologist and a well trained professional counselor to help women. We want to make sure that the other people are also not getting lost.

We don't want to lose the mother or the father, the other mother, if there's a lesbian couple or the dad or her people that they are so overtaxed by a mother in trouble that they are not able to perform their jobs either. So everybody has to stay healthy. What's remember the first staver came. I was like, I'm having a lactation specialists come in. Something's really wrong. Um. And my husband was like, well, can I be there

for that? And I was like yes, please, like please be here because you're going to hear things that I might miss that are helpful. UM. I do think the most important thing with lactation and actually post baby just get help early. Yes, that is the most important thing with lactation. If you're feeling blues depression, somebody that it's like,

don't sit in that for too long. Like, I'm just so relieved that at two weeks you know three weeks I saw something was wrong and I didn't just try to figure it out on my own going down Google spirals for like weeks because I wouldn't have made I wouldn't I would have quit. I would have quit breastfeeding. I would have I think I would have felt even

worse than I did. But I it really I remember taking one baby class where someone was like, you just ask for help as soon as you think that something is wrong and meaning and for lactation, especially if you feel like you're not doing a great hold and your back is really hurting you, or the latch is really not going perfectly, or for some reason it's super painful

for the entire length of the feed. These are all major flags and that you should make a phone call, or you should call your hospital or OBI or someone that can just ask for help, for someone who might know more than you to lead you down another path of someone who can help you. That is like, I think that's very critical to say, and I will speak on behalf of the physicians and the midwives. They are very sad when they find two or three or four

or five weeks later my patient didn't call me. They are part of the story that is so vital Without them. I mean I certainly could not do my work. I take orders from physicians and midwives. Pediatricians as well, get very very discouraged and sad with their client relationship when the mother or the father have not called to say the baby has been up every night, or I don't understand why the baby's acting like this, and they go

everywhere else but to the perfect person. The relationship you'll have the longest of any physician relationship is your patrician, eighteen years with the same person. They know you well, they know you inside out, and and they know your family. And if there are other siblings that come along, and there are other parents that are coming to the appointments or grandma steps info. I've actually been in the patrician's office within nanny comes with the children. The parents are working.

These relationships. These bonds are huge, and people who are having a baby, or who have had a baby or expectant need to know that that person, midwife, doula, doctor, pediatrician, lactation, that's therapist will come together united. We are a force, a strong force together. We don't work well fragmented. This is what keeps having and and we have still need it. It just looks differently than it did hundreds of years ago.

People didn't know that they could get help, or didn't a way to go to get Hell, are they're embarrassed or they're ashamed or don't think they need or you know, I think women are. So it's about being strong and doing it on your own or you know I I it's my own problem off exit And I think such a huge learning curve that I have been on in motherhood is it's like asked for help and asked for a help the minute you think you need it. You know what I mean, because hick up the damn phone

and mail your partner. Hey, this has not been going great for me. I'm not enjoying it. I really need to talk to someone about it. So is there one right way to breastfeed? How does a mom find out what's right for her? There? So, there's no right way. There's only the way that works for that mother and baby, And for any number of various reasons, there could be

a special way. For example, if a baby is diagnosed with a hip displacia, they may be wearing a special harness that the orthopedic surgeons or doctors put the baby in for six to eight weeks or longer. Those babies have to be placed in a particular type of position that a mother with a normal, healthy newborn would never

know or never do, so they deserve special attention. There are babies who are in helmets because they have a flathead and help my mommy me lay that's right, and it's a big thing because we've put all the babies on their back to sleep to prevent suddenifant death and created a whole other set of issues, oh, which are resolvable. But the babies are in a helmet. They're special and they need to be held in a special way. The

normal nursing positions are variable. You can nurse football something that's right, the create sitting up, laying back on your side. You guys came over and laid me down and put the baby on my boob in like a laying down position. I almost you could cry of that. Bans. I was like, excuse me, what, like there are multiple positions, like I

didn't know in the military, I had no idea. And the other thing that was so helpful that you taught me, which was so great, was you got me out of nursing jail is what you called it, which was every day when it would be time to nurse, I would count down the minutes that I was getting close to the window where I knew he was going to be hungry, and I was dreading it because I knew it was gonna be painful, and I was going to verse at him, and it was gonna be to curling and not in

a good way, and I was going to hate it. And I was going to report to my nursing chair in his dark room where I wouldn't speak to anyone, and maybe I would put on an episode of some TV show I has binge watching, and it would be horrible. And you said, you gotta get a nursing jail. You gotta put him on that boob, standing up, laying down, sitting here, sitting there out at a restaurant. Wear a cover, don't wear a cover, whatever the heck, but you gotta make if you're going to do this, it has to

be part of your life. And I can remember the first time I nursed in public in my house. Tony Goldwyn of Scandal came over to visit my son and meet Alby for the first time. I thought he was going to stay for an hour. He stayed for three. We had a lot to chat about. He's the best. It was time to nurse the baby. And I can hear Linda Hannah in my head. You don't have to report to nursing prison. You can sit on your couch.

You can. And I literally, for the first time I ever learned how to like nurse him in front of a stream, not a stranger of family, the Scandal family, but I nursed him in front of someone, and I was like, I gotta get confident and I'm just gonna do it, and it's gonna like all motherhood, I've had to learn by doing. And I remember the first time

I ever nursed in public at a restaurant. I remember the first time I ever nursed while walking around my house and holding him simultaneously, like there's just like okay, like we gotta move on. Life has got to go, and if I want breastfeeding to be a part of my life, he's got to come along with me. And I hear when you always say like, well, your boobs come with you, so you can they go wherever you go. They always work. And now I've learned it, like, oh,

this is awesome. It's going to be horrible when he starts eating food and I have to like pack stuff. This is gonna be a nightmare. That's why a lot of women breastfeed for such a long time. Easy, Like I take him off the plane, I whip out a boob, it's not a big deal. I take him to a restaurant. I don't have to like make plans. I don't have to pack stuff. It's been very you know, it will be a whole other, exciting new chain of things when I introduced food to him. I have to tell you

this story really quick. The first time I ever breastfed, albeit at work. It was the first day I had ever taken him to work. He was seven weeks old. And I have an episode where I had to learn a dance routine dancing with an actor. Joe Morton who plays Papa Pope, and Debbie Allen came into choreograph the dance scene. First day at work. The baby needs to eat, I said, well, Debbie Allen and Joe more neither have to wait, which I was like, oh my gosh, I'm

not making Debbie Allen and Joe Moreton waite. They are like legends no way do they care if I breastfeed while we rese the dance his first day at work. He's I have photos of it, you guys, we can post it on the light maybe, But I have photos of him under like I'm nursing him dancing with Joe Morton and Debbie Allen's teaching me the depth the dance moves while Britney spears Hit me Baby one more time is playing And that's how And I was like, oh, yeah,

I can do this anywhere anytime. I'm multitasking to the end degree because I'm a mom. So what are some new things moms should consider when making the decision whether or not to breastfeed? Oh that's a good question. Um well, my first advice would be to tell everybody who's pregnant two really consider what their long term goals are going to be if they're planning on being a home mom versus a working mother. Thinking about does breastfeeding fit in

my story? Uh? Does breastfeeding and bottle feeding fit in my story? Do I want my baby to have my breast milk? So there are there are really two schools. The one school is I want my baby to get my breast milk. I don't necessarily need my baby to nurse on me for whatever reason, but I want the baby getting breastmolk. That's one option. There are other women who say, I don't really care how much breastmolk the

baby gets. I just like the feeling of nursing. So our moms who have a lower supply can still put the baby on the nurse as they like to connect with the baby. But it might not be where the baby is getting their exactly. They may have to be supplemented or bottle fed some way, or some other supplement. We do have lots of other variables for supplementing at the breast. And then there were women who just really don't I don't want to breastfeed. I don't want to

make milk. It's not in my my story, or I've done it before and I'm not going to try it again. They had bad experiences. That's okay. Then we start out right away with that plan. Don't talk to this mother about nursing. Don't obligate this woman to feel she has to do something. Let's go in very kindly and say we're gonna make this as comfortable a process. It maybe a little uncomfortable. Will make it as comfortable a process as possible. You'll move through this over the next few

days and weeks. We'll be in touch. We'll keep you know, reminding you what steps you need to take to make the milk supply diminish, go away, and then you're off on your own journey. If there's a mom who wants to do combination, make combinations something very manageable and reasonable. And if it's I only want a breastfeed and I don't want to use bottles at all, make sure we're really clear about if you plan to leave your baby,

let me make sure I make this very clear. There are women who will not leave their baby with anyone for a year or two. I'm with the baby, the babies with me. As you said, my breast go wherever I go. There was work. I'm doing great. They exclusively breastfeed for as long as they there's no discussion of bottle feeding in their story at all. Sometimes I call those my to Panga Canyon mummiescans real hippie bill. That's right.

They're very natural and yes, organic and it's wonnerful. They do not want to bott and they do not want to there's no bottle near their baby, and that's okay. Then we have other women who say, I kind of kind of do a little bit of everything, but it's

gonna be my breast milk. Okay. We're going to make sure that that mother is on a very very good pumping plan really early, so that she's producing as much milk as possible in the first forty to sixty days, so that the breastfeeding story continues on for a year or two or more, because the more we help them in the early days and weeks, which is why you don't want to delay talking to electation, the more like you're a good example. I only have two ounces, Wow,

I have four now, it's not crazy. I have stuffing. Once I got through the nipple fissure land in my hashtag nipple journey, then my panic attack anxieties started to rear its ugly head again when I thought I wasn't making enough. Um. I have a lot of friends who are milkmaids, and they would inst a story their freezers filled with frozen milk. Cut to my depression again. Because I did not have a freezer filled with milk. I was feeding enough for my kid. I knew he wasn't hungry,

he wasn't fussy. He was happy when he was awake, he was alert when he was awake, he was sleeping well. So I knew that I was providing him with enough milk. I also went so far as to call him too Hannah again. And you would weigh him before. I would nurse him on one side, then weigh him after, and you would see, tell me because I'm really crazy. You would say, look, he's had two and a half ounces on this side. Let's put him on the other breast. He would drink. We would measure he was eating. He

was getting enough. I knew he was, but I was so upset that I was not this like milkmaid I dreamed of being. And then I kept saying to my pediatrician, I'm just so scared. I'm gonna have to start supplementing. And why is that a dirty word? And she said, some mommies just grow with the baby. It's right. He doesn't need six ounces right now. He has a tiny belly. He only needs two and a half ounces three ounces off. You're feeding him every three hours. Um, and my milk

supply now, I grow, I grew with him. Now I make seven eight ounces. If I've gone, you know, through the night, I make ten ounces. But that's now he's taking a five ounce bottle and he's four, he's sixteen weeks old, so I've grown exactly with what his belly needs. And when I'm at work and i'm shooting scandal, I pumps on. When he's eating at home a bottle and I've managed to save up enough and I'm still going. And I've never been more proud of something that has

made so hard for me. It's truly amazing that people would think that I'm I'm a failure. I'm done, it's never going to get better, and then magically it gets better, because it does get the baby helps you. Well, the baby has helped. He's gotten better at it, and I've gotten better at it, and I've thank God learned to just like chill out a little go and just hey,

like we've got this. You're gonna let me know if something's not working, and I'm gonna go with you through this, you know what I mean, Like I just you have. There is this motherly instinct of knowing your baby and knowing he's okay. He like there's this crazy thing about breastfeeding that when you give a bottle and you know you've had he's had five ounces and whatever, and you're good.

There's something about breastfeeding where you really got to rely on Oh he's done, he's full, he's pulled off, he's good. Let's put him on the other side. Oh we tried it. He's uninterested. He'll tell me if he's full. The baby has the magic. People don't have to really learned to read his cues, which has been something for me. I just has been hard to just like really relax and know that he's going to communicate with me, not through words because he can't speak yet. Um, what do you mean?

You have to remind them mothers to make sure they're taking care of themselves. It's it's vital for the mother to be eating well and to be getting proper nutrition. Andrunch about this A lot, very important, a lot, And you have to take yourself and your ego out of the equation, especially for someone who's on camera. You know that, like, oh, I'm not just jumping into diet land because that's not what's best for my baby and for breastfeeding. Right now,

he I have to have carbohydrates. I might not cardio for some women makes their milk supply go down, um, which is definitely my excuse of why I'm still not doing because I ate it, um, And why I have my oatmeal in the morning and all of my nuts and my oat stout beer on weekends, because how delicious that I get to have that right now, because it's good for my milks. And probably the only time in your life will will say you eat everything you love.

I love it everything in moderation, You'll be fine. Yeah, it's great. Can you um? Is it normal to feel pain and discomfort while breastfeeding? What is the normal threshold for that? Everybody has a different paint holerance, So some women would be a two on the pain scale and others are nine. I think we have to use that scale very carefully to make sure we're treating appropriately. If

somebody says there are two, then that's okay. But if they say there are seven, eight or nine, we need to address that issue with either changing positions, or evaluating the nipple or evaluating the baby. So the like tation consult has a responsibility to look at all the key pieces in the story, but it shouldn't be painful. Breastfeeding is not without sensations. That's very different. Not without a

double negative. That means that you're not going to feel nothing, but you don't have to use the word painful as a descriptor. This is uh, I feel like tugging in a pulling for example, or maybe this is not the most comfortable. But again, nipples are meant to be used for loving and romanticizing, and there are a sensory organ so they're going to be much more sensitive, and they do a lot of nerve ending, so they're much more sensitive.

But they can also get very badly damaged with inappropriate latch or as you said, that is just the way. One time, I was like, my nipples are black and blue after I got through the fissure, and but it didn't really hurt, and you're like, oh, yeah, that's just wear and tear, and I was like, oh my gosh. Sometimes insane for me. Yes, sometimes my nipple journey was insane. Yeah, sometimes the pumping can be a little bit of a

insult that you put out. We don't want the nipples to look bruised or black and blue, but they certainly can go through their their own For a few days, I to get better that's right, but we want women to get an intervention early. There shouldn't be breastfeeding and this is killing me, and the word pain should not be in the same story. There's something that can be done for almost everyone. There are very minimal exceptions to this rule where it's going to be painful no matter what.

There are some unusual situations. I don't know that we want to talk about them today, but there are some unusual situations in the breast anatomy story where you can't avoid this. But even in your case, a fissure can be resolved and the pain can be removed from the story. Guys, guess how I resolved it. I did not do a stitch. I just kept putting the kid on there and fix and the kid is resolved me. The antibodies in my breast milk and the antibodies in his mouth is what

made the proper latch. Taking the nipple shield away and and having the baby on correctly is a game changer. So if we can help women by reminding them you don't have to suffer through this and sit through a twenty or forty minute oh my god, oh my god,

doing your childbirth breathing that's a problem. You know, say, if you have to do your chop with breathing we did right minutes while they're breastfeeding, something's wrong, right, And or if you need boats from all the wrinkles that you've made in your face from screnching up your face for twenty five minutes. And also, you know, the breastfeeding gets easier and shorter. We were talking about this. I

used to breastfeed. I'm just remembering now, used a breastfeed for like twenty minutes on each side, thirty minutes total. I couldn't believe this was going to be my future. What a nightmare. Now it's like six minutes, eight minutes, and he's done. That's right, It's like it's gotten. It's a game changer. Absolutely. I tell a lot of moms this. If you can't make it all the way, you'll miss out on the most amazing part, which is the funny part.

They're actually comical. They look up and smile. Oh, that's all my baby's doing. I know is that I'm like, oh, shoot, I shouldn't make eye contact because as soon as he sees my laughing and smiling, and I'm like, oh gosh, like now you know what I mean, and I gotta get it back on. But and sometimes they're very funny. They'll hold onto the nipple and turn their head when they hear the door open to see is that Grandma coming in, and the nipples become like rubber banding, kind

of stretched out. Oh my god, And the mothers actually say I didn't feel that. That's kind of crazy or actually it hurts, which in which case we have to fix it. But the baby goes through their own developmental phases and milestones as well at the breast, so it becomes kind of comical. And oftentimes mothers will say, I've got to actually go in a quiet room now because all of you talking distracting. Yes, I can't talk. I used to be able to send emails and have conversations

that don't have to be in a dark room. I was chatting with Tony Goldwyn I just spoke about But now I I do have to find a place where I just he has to focus and he has to eat for a short time a right, eight minutes now six minutes. But but I can't be holding court because he's like, oh we're talking conversation, good time, Like he's very alert now he's just wearing and they're funny. And

they get older, they get even sillier and funnier. Sometimes the older babies will go to the breast, suck for two minutes, pull off, do a little thing, go back to the breast. I'm saying, don't put you brought back on yet, because he's coming right back and it's actually fun. So if you can get to the fun part past the first eight weeks or ten weeks, it just shoots off like a rocket to amazing nous and gets better and better and better. Eight I turned such a cord,

a tremendous shot. I just really thank God for you, because I, like I said, I just I, had I not seek to the help I needed, would not have. I'm very proud of it. Looks amazing. The baby is doing great. Um. What is the most common question you get? I think probably still the biggest question is can I breastfeed and also take breaks, not be at every feeding, use supplements, pumped milk if I have it, or bottles

And the answer is yes to all of them. The answer is yes if you start early, and you start intervening correctly, and you don't rush too quickly to get a bottle in there, but take your time and process, understand and learn about your baby and yourself. There is a way to combine breastfeeding with supplementing breastfeeding with pumped milk bottles, having someone else helped feed your baby for you, giving the mother a break so she can rest. There's

a way to do all of this really well. But most of the time we remind mothers, your story is gonna keep changing. You have to be on your toes. You've got it exactly what happened crazy, absolutely like we were in such a groove and now he's like to you know, like looking around and being a mayor, and like it's just like changing sleep cycles, change their poopy styles, change their behavior at the breast changes. There's so many changes.

Your lifestyle changes, your family changes. Maybe you start feeling better. I'm ready to step out a little bit. I'm gonna go and leave the baby for two or three hours. I'm gonna get my hair done. We call all the time. Can I get coloring? Can I get a perm Can I get a week when I do something? And the answer is yes, there's a way to do. You're going to be yourself again, although you may not feel it, but it's a new self. So you're an improved, better

version of yourself, a mother and a companion. You now have a permanent friend for life, and they're the best part of your day. So leaving in the morning to go to work for a working mother is sad and emotional. Is a tearing feeling. Will I will be there and remember when when I get home and the baby is so happy to see you. Or we have many moms who have to travel for work. They're gone to New York where they're gone. I'm going to my first time

next week. I'm horrified. It's scary. Some women get to travel with their babies and their helpers. Some people have to leave the baby behind and wonder, well the baby breastfeed when I get back. I'm telling you, and I will tell everybody. It is your attitude. Of course, the baby will breastfeed if you leave saying listen, I'll be back in four days. We'll be doing nursey again. When I get back, the baby we'll nurse. Oh my god, if you leave, he'll never nurse. He won't like me,

he'll be Why is mothering so mental? Man? Why is it a mental state? I'm telling you yes, and it's like, oh, shoot, I didn't become a mother to teach a child everything I know. I actually became a mother also to to learn so many things about how I can be a better human and better person, Like just really tackle all of my fears, endings, ideas. It's really been And I'm only at this for three and a half months, you guys,

and and look how far you come. You open up opportunities in your own self that you didn't know you had. You become a much kinder person when you're parenting a baby, parenting a child, being a partner in a partnership with someone and respecting and understanding each other and your relationships with one another, respecting the space to let the baby go. For example, when you have a helper and nanny adula um your partner and you say I'm going to let you take charge of this is a very hard and

emotional journey for a parent to do. And on the flip side, for somebody else to say, I'm going to leave and trust you to feed my baby well, feed my baby well for me please, because you're the primary person feeding my baby. There's a lot of anxiety on the other side, where often a parent will feel like, um, maybe the mother isn't in her right place or doing what she needs to do that's right for her and

for her baby. So oftentimes we'll get dad's or other moms involved in saying, I don't know if this is really working the way it should be. I'm not I'm worried about my wife. I'm worried about my partner. I'm worried about her and my baby. So this is a very big, big, big span of possibilities that we can't ignore,

we shouldn't ignore. The lactation is on the only one piece of the story that we refer and go to the physicians and our advisors and our support and counselors to help us understand all of these pieces that our parents is going through. It's an octopus. Last question, Linda Hannah, what is the strangest question you've ever gotten? So strange? Strange is a weird word. I've had so many funny, funny things happen. They're not strange necessarily, but they're actually funny.

One of my funniest ones and my lactation consultant staff and I talked about this a lot. We'll often get a parent who wants to breastfeed, but they start the conversation with I want to be able to breastfe my baby, but I don't want to pump and it don't actually want to breastfeed at night. I only want to breastfeed a couple of times in the day. But I want to make all the milk for the baby, and I

don't want the baby getting any supplementing at all. Well, that's gonna be really hard because as it may look like I'm a magician, I'm not actually a magician. So I can't. My staff and I also laugh about this, and we can't make things like that happen. We want people to know going in this is the steps that are needed to take to get to this goal right here.

So we have to know the goals first. So when when people ask me what's the funniest or the strangest thing that's ever happened, I'd have to say, honestly, it's trying to make milk appear out of nowhere. Uh. And so that's kind of a that's one of the funny ones. Another really odd thing that's happened. Uh. And I feel

very honored that this has happened to me. I've had four occasions where a parent has called me to ask me to help them breastfeed, that they've adopted a baby and they are pregnant with a baby when they want to breastfeed both of them. And I've been very lucky, and that has happened to me four times. And uh, that's a lot to have. That happened where we were planning on having a baby, We couldn't get pregnant, we tried IVF, we've tried I U I, we finally decided

to adopt. We've gotten a baby. We're so happy, and we've and many of these. In two of these stories, the baby was getting breast milk from someone else a milk bank don'tor was giving the infant and the mother can currently had found out on the adoption process or receiving a baby that she herself was actually pregnant. Once they stopped trying, they became pregnant. This happened to me a couple of times. And those are really odd cases. Now I've got a four month old and a new

born trying to nurse together, and that possible. Oh, it's pretty crazy pictures of it, because it's so amazing when it happens. It is possible, and oddly enough, the older babies, the four month or five month or six month old, because I've had a few of them now, are so silly when they breastfeed because they've been bottle fed, but

they've had They're so adorable. And then when the newborn is there and they sometimes can do it together, but oftentimes we will have the older baby nurse or the newborn first, so the milk comes down easily for the second baby, and then they latch on and it's funny. They don't actually fully breastfeed, but the fact that the mother can then say, my adoptive baby is breastfeeding is

my bobling believable. Those are my best story. It's so crazy and special, and when I have them, they usually I'm the four times this has happened, I've had baby into racial babies, so they'll be like a darker skinned and a light skinned baby, or one was an Asian baby adopted baby and a Caucasian baby, or one was an Asian baby with the black newborn. A beautiful story. So I've had that happen. Those are wonderful parts of my personal life that I get to be part of

I feel so lucky. And my staff we talked about this a lot. We feel so lucky to be included. I feel like them. I'm when I was first doing this my professional work, I was thirty years younger. I was a young mother or not even a mother in my own story, and then became a mother. Now I'm like the grandma. I've been doing this for a long time. I feel like I'm a grandma to all these babies

and I love them. And I feel like my staff when I tell people all the time, thank you for letting us be part of your story, because inviting us into your private life sometimes very sad and scary and vulnerable. As an emotional talk about the waves of emotion that come over. I've had dad's cry. I've had grandmother sit down and say thank you for giving my daughter or my daughter in law something I did not have. I

feel like part of their story. And we, as lactation consultants in the community and nurses in the community, feel you're inviting us in and then you're letting us stay. And when I get to go back to a third of the family, I've been with the mother for all of her children and were on number three, number four. I was at somebody with number six and I took care of number one, number two. She didn't call me in the middle, she didn't need my help in number six.

I feel like part of their family. The hole into It's wonderful. We were very lucky to get to have this opportunity. People several times, you so lucky at this job. And I don't even think of it as being with the babies. I think it is being I get to be with the mothers, and the mothers bring me back and remind me I'm the mother. I'm mothering, and mothering is a very big job with a very tremendous, tremendous responsibility factor. That really is is really a very private

and emotional thing. I'm very lucky. We love you, Linda. Thank you for being on Kate's Crib. You are such a treasure. Thank you. We are very lucky to have you. Thank you guys so much for listening and joining us on this adventure. Please make sure to subscribe to keats Crib