E14: Discovering the Support Systems for New Nursing Mothers

The journey of breastfeeding often presents unanticipated challenges that demand learning and perseverance, akin to a baby learning to walk. By recognizing breastfeeding as a learned skill rather than an automatic function, we aim to empower expectant parents with the knowledge and resources necessary for a successful experience. 

We delve into the critical role of pediatricians, Baby Cafe support groups, La Leche League, WIC peer counselors, and especially International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLCs). You'll gain insight into the reassurance that comes from weighted feeds, the strides taken by the Lactation Network to ensure insurance coverage for lactation consultations, and the plethora of video resources and virtual support available on birthlearning.com. Tune in and equip yourself with the tools and confidence needed to navigate your breastfeeding journey.

Visit our website, here: https://birthlearning.com/
Follow us on Facebook at Birth Learning
Follow us on Instagram at @birthlearning

Show Credits

Host: Angie Rosier
Music: Michael Hicks
Photographer: Toni Walker
Episode Artwork: Nick Greenwood
Producer: Gillian Rosier
Voiceover: Ryan Parker

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Welcome to the Ordinary Dula Podcast with Angie Rozier, hosted by Birth Learning, where we help prepare folks for labor and birth with expertise coming from 20 years of experience in a busy Dula practice helping thousands of people prepare for labor, providing essential knowledge and tools for positive and empowering birth experiences.

Speaker 2: 0:48

This is Angie Rozier, your host, and we are sponsored and hosted by Birth Learning. In this podcast we like to help people prepare for childbirth, but in this episode we are also going to address another important component and that is preparing for breastfeeding. So breastfeeding most people we're in the 80 to 90 percent. Most people plan to breastfeed Most people. We have different times that we measure breastfeeding and one of those is leaving the hospital. We measure it three months, six months, a year and things that percentages drop off pretty drastically in time, but by and large, most people plan to breastfeed and breastfeeding does take a bit of planning and preparation. So we're going to talk about some things we can do ahead of time to prepare for that.

Speaker 2: 1:38

So a lot of folks think and it's true that breastfeeding is natural. It just happens Our bodies are built for. It's a part of nature, which is true, but it's natural in a way that requires a little bit of work. It's not easy, because it's natural food for the baby, a natural process for the mom's body to continue to nurture the baby, but it does take a little bit of work, sometimes for lots of different reasons. So I encourage folks to do some preparation ahead of time, do some learning about it. What to expect?

Speaker 2: 2:13

So when we look at a baby, babies are born and they have to learn a lot of things. One of the very first things they learn is how to breathe, and that comes quickly. Like if they don't learn it fast, we've got problems right. So breathing is very natural and babies learn it very quickly. Later on down the line, babies learn all kinds of things. They learn motor skills, they learn you know, there's so many developmental landmarks that babies work through and as they get closer to a year old, they learn to walk. So learning to walk is not as instantaneous as Learning to breathe. Like learning to walk is a trial and error thing. Babies are gonna fall, they're gonna make mistakes, they're gonna get back up again. And babies don't just quit right there like, oh, this is hard, I'm not gonna be walking in this lifetime. They keep at it and they keep tripping over it and literally, and Get to a spot where they are able to walk and they do the work.

Speaker 2: 3:10

Breastfeeding is very similar. It is natural, it's an occurrence. It's not as instantaneous as breathing it is. It's more like walking, where there's a learning curve, there's tripping, there's falling, there's getting bruised and bumped sometimes along the way, but you keep at it and inevitably babies learn to walk and in most cases there's only a very small percentage of people who really and it's like two to three percent range really are not able to breastfeed and With them the answer is to stop breastfeeding. So there's lots of different components that go into that.

Speaker 2: 3:44

Today We'll talk about preparation. So if you think about the touch points that a pregnant person has in their Cares in the, you know the system of care that they get in pregnancy. They're gonna be seeing a provider, a midwife or a doctor several times throughout the process. They check on so many things right that with that prenole care there's like 13 visits they're having. They have a lot of touch points during labor and delivery. They're being cared for right by nurses, by their provider, doctors, midwives, whoever they've chosen to be on their team and they go home. They're on their own. They may take the baby to see a pediatrician in those first two or three days. They may take the baby, you know, a couple weeks later, a couple months later, they Generally have for themselves for their own body. The moms will have a six week ish postpartum visit. But if you think of all these different touch points, none of them are focused on breastfeeding, so that's something that people have to fit in and figure out along the way. Maybe an OB or midwife will talk to a little bit about breastfeeding in the hospital and we have a whole lot of touch points when we're being cared for pretty intensely by the health care system. For a day or two or three or however many, that is, depending on the length of labor and the postpartum stay, we generally, most hospitals, will have access to Lactation support of some kind. That might be nurses in postpartum unit, that might be IBCLCs that work on the unit, and those are pretty quick touch points as well. Like, you hope to get a visit or two, hopefully one a day while you're there, but that's pretty brief.

Speaker 2: 5:23

A lot of times the challenges of breastfeeding are not immediately presented. Sometimes they come two or three days later, two weeks later. So folks, I want folks to understand they need to do their own Preparation for that. They need to do their own prep work. So I want to talk a couple points about breastfeeding and and then some resources that people can reach out to.

Speaker 2: 5:48

So in preparing to breastfeed, it's important to understand that breastfeeding is a learned behavior. So there are cultures around the world where everyone does it, knows it, sees it, is familiar with it. Maybe in your particular community or family culture it's very normal. You've seen it before, people have talked about it in your life. But perhaps it's not. There are some folks who have never seen anyone breastfeed. They've never. You know, it's not been a topic of conversation ever in their life. So that can be more of a challenge where you're kind of going into a little more blind. But have you seen it done or do you have friends who talk about how normal is it in your everyday life? That can have a factor with it.

Speaker 2: 6:33

And then a lot of times there's some inaccurate information about lactation. That's pretty common and you can get inaccurate information from some surprisingly educated resources and that could be sometimes a provider, an OB or a midwife. They're not specifically trained for lactation support. Hopefully they can send you to some resources for that. Pediatricians there are some pediatricians who are amazing at education and supporting and guiding folks through lactation, but by and large most pediatricians that is not their specialty. They have other realms of specialty with your baby. But that, if you think about it as babies go to a pediatrician on day two or three or whatever, to establish care with that pediatrician, check everything out. That is the most common touch point. So that would be a perfect time I wish it was built into our system, but a perfect time to have a visit with a lactation consultant at that pediatrician visit and really focus on that, because some of those you know that's even early for some challenges to arise.

Speaker 2: 7:43

Another point about preparing to breastfeed is that having some preparation taking a class, reading a book, doing some online video training, training your expectations to be realistic increases your confidence and it helps set realistic expectations. So breastfeeding I always look at as an anatomy matchup. We don't know exactly what we're dealing with until we put a baby's mouth on a particular nipple, that it's going to be feeding it and there's a lot of components to that. So until we actually have the baby in arms and we don't know exactly what we're dealing with. But preparation can go a long ways in being more successful or having easier success along the way to breastfeeding. So I encourage folks to prepare, know what resources are available to you and when you are in the hospital. If you have a hospital that has lactation consultants, ask to see them. They are there to help you, the nurses a lot of nurses can help as well and it's interesting we hear over and over again People can get kind of frustrated as they talk to, say, a nurse and then a lactation consultant and maybe their pediatrician, or if they're giving birth at the birth center.

Speaker 2: 9:00

You have a really short period of time at a birth center or home birth to have access, you know, to folks who might know, but they get varying pieces of advice, conflicting pieces of advice. That can be really frustrating. So when I'm working with someone who has gotten conflicting information or is, you know, getting their information from various professionals, even I Tell them to take all the information, take all of that and then, as you'll do many times as a parent, take the information and then discover and kind of weed through it to find out what works best for you and for your situation. Because you might get some advice that if you had really supple nipples that were the perfect length and a Great milk supply would be great advice for you. But maybe you have short nipples or we're working with a flat nipple and the milk supply had you rough to work hard for that Supply, that advice might not be Exactly what is going to be helpful, but take it, weed through it and be prepared to hear conflicting things, as we do so much in parenting, and then you have to decide what works best for you. So I'm talking about a couple resources that are available to people.

Speaker 2: 10:11

There are a lot of online courses about breastfeeding and that's great to learn. Just get some information, get some basics. They're going to talk about different positions, different ways to hold a baby. Some people get their baby placed in their arms and Everything feels quite natural like okay, awesome, I can hold my baby like this and I can breastfeed like that. Other big people get a baby handed to them and Like what, what do I? What do I do with this? I'm scared of holding this little thing and, of course, they get really good at it.

Speaker 2: 10:39

I had a client years ago who was? She was a NICU nurse and I helped her. I helped her have a couple of babies, but with her first baby you could tell that she was very familiar with holding babies. I mean, she worked in the NICU and so she got that you know, her first born child and just kind of Handled it very confidently and steadily and where most parents like I don't know what to do with this little thing. So get familiar with positions for breastfeeding and positions. You know, a position that work for your friend or your sister may not work for you. We have different, so many variables with each baby and each set of breasts that we're working with, sometimes even variability between two breasts. So get familiar with positions and understand to and we'll do some podcasts about this as well get into the nitty gritty of it. Understand what to expect those first few hours. A lot of times you know an hour three I'll hear oh yeah, breastfeeding is going great, baby latched for 25 minutes. They're probably not going to keep that up and we'll talk about well and other podcasts. We'll kind of dive more into the details of what to expect those first couple of days. So resources Understand that there are resources out there in, hopefully, in your community.

Speaker 2: 11:52

You have some great resources available to you, like in person. That may be in a pediatrician's office. That may be a support group. An a breastfeeding support group is great to see it if it's not a part of your normal culture. There are baby cafe support groups throughout the country. There are La La Lacha League support groups throughout the country and those are run by different People of varying training with breastfeeding. Wic is a resource that can be. They have peer counselors, so that's someone who has breastfed and that can be a good resource as well. There are lactation consultants who can help you. You can make an appointment with them. They can come to your home and the kind of the top offering of resources that it's available to folks around breastfeeding is an IBCLC lactation consultants. That's an international board certified lactation consultant. That is someone who has hundreds and thousands of hours of experience in seeing all kinds of challenges. So they are gonna be able to kind of troubleshoot problems. If there's nipple challenges, supply challenges, position challenges, tongue tie challenges, any kind of oral tie, lip tie, tongue tie, bucleties, an IBCLC will be your top resource for challenges that come along and I am always surprised in the last 20 years as being a doula, how often people need some lactation support. It's quite common, so you'll find yourself in good company if you need a little bit of help and with an IBCLC you can do weighted feeds.

Speaker 2: 13:39

A lot of people have a hard time with the fact that they can't measure exactly what's going into their baby and when they do a bottle then they're like, okay, awesome, we got in 60, you know 60 mils. But it's more difficult with breastfeeding because we can't see and track that and measure that. And we're used to being able to measure a lot of things. We measure in different ways and we'll talk about that in another podcast. But they can do a weighted feed. So we weigh the baby on a really sensitive gram scale before and after and see what the intake is for that baby. So that puts a lot of people's mind at ease, like, okay, awesome, the baby is getting enough. Or oh, the baby's not getting as much as I thought. How can we help with that supply? So reach out to an IBCLC, find one in your area. There is an organization called the Lactation Network that is striving nationwide to have visits. These visits covered by insurance. So either you can have up to like a lot of IBCLCs may work for themselves or a small agency or something. Some may work for the health department. Some pediatricians offices have them. Some pediatricians are IBCLCs. But reach out to an IBCLC near you and the Lactation Network is striving to get insurance coverage for that, because it is so important.

Speaker 2: 14:56

When people don't have the proper information, support and education around breastfeeding, the challenges become too great sometimes and we have that like this would never happen to a baby, but we quit trying to walk. We're sick of tired of tripping and falling down and we're not gonna get up again. So if you, some folks will find that with their breastfeeding journey that it's just too much, too hard and they'll shift to other forms of feeding their baby, which is also fine. But I want you to know that there are resources available and you'd be surprised how many people take advantage of that. Do some preparation for breastfeeding at minimum kind of know what to expect, watch some videos, read a book there's some great resources out there in our world so that you kind of know what you're going into and then seek help if you need to after. Some people have an easy breezy situation and their baby's latching fine and growing fine and the weight gains are great. Others have challenges. So please reach out. There's support to be had.

Speaker 2: 15:57

If you'd like to hop on over to our website, birthlearningcom, we do have a basics breastfeeding video available for purchase. You can enjoy it in the comfort of your own home. There's several. It's broken down into several different videos. That is very available. We also have available.

Speaker 2: 16:16

I am an IBCLC and can do lactation support virtually for some folks If they're interested in that. I love to do it in person. But for those who are geographically unable or they live in rural areas and the lactation network does cover virtual support as well. So check out our website. There's a button there you can see if lactation visits are covered by your insurance. We do have consultations as well. If you need to call in and chat with one of us about your particular situation, we do video calls, would love to help you and be a resource so that you can feel successful. Breastfeeding is. It can be a great journey. It's not positive for everyone but hopefully with proper support, preparation and resources, it can be successful for you and your baby. Thank you so much for being with us here today. On the Ordinary Dullo podcast. Again, this is Angie Rozier. We are hosted by Birth Learning and we hope to see you again next time. Hope you go, have a wonderful day, do something that brings joy to you and joy to others. See you soon.

Speaker 1: 17:16

Thank you for listening to the Ordinary Dullo podcast with Angie Rozier, hosted by Birth Learning Episode. Credits will be in the show notes Tune in next time as we continue to explore the many aspects of giving birth.