Breastfeeding is ours. Breastfeeding belongs to us.

–This post is part of our 10-year anniversary series “Breastfeeding is…” When we initially curated this series, we planned for 10 weeks, but breastfeeding is so many things that we just couldn’t fit it all in, which means we have two bonus weeks in our anniversary series.–

Breastfeeding is ours. Breastfeeding belongs to us.

Nicole Starr Photography Originally featured on Our Milky Way in ‘ Non-profit Julia’s Way proves babies with Down syndrome can breastfeed’

For decades, the 55 billion dollar formula milk industry has positioned itself as an ally to parents. 

Through conniving tactics, like the distortion of science to legitimize their claims, the systematic targeting of health professionals to promote their products, and the undermining of parents’ confidence in breastfeeding, the industry impacts the survival, health and development of children and mothers, disrupts truthful information– an essential human right as noted by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, disregards the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, and exploits the aspirations, vulnerabilities and fears at the birth and early years of our children solely for commercial gain. (WHO/UNICEF, 2022, p. x) [More at WHO report exposes formula milk marketing, offers steps forward

Far before the advent of formula milks and their subsequent marketing campaigns, breastfeeding sustained the human species. When breastfeeding wasn’t possible, wet nursing was the primary alternative feeding option. [Stevens, et al 2009

For generations, cultures across the globe have honored breastfeeding as a central part of their identities, and now they’re reclaiming these traditions after being challenged by the formula milk industry and other forces.

Photo by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz : https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-woman-breastfeeding-her-son-12359528/

HealthConnect One’s program manager Brenda Reyes, RN, CLC describes that reclamation of Latino/Hispanic birth and breastfeeding traditions in Reclaiming Latino/Hispanic birth and breastfeeding traditions for instance. 

In It’s Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Week: “Reclaiming Our Tradition”, To-Wen Tseng covers just what the title suggests. 

Navajo Breastfeeding Coalition/Dine Doula Collective, Amanda Singer, CLC discusses the revitalization of Indigenous breastfeeding in Honoring Indigenous Milk Medicine Week: “Nourishing Our Futures”

Hispanic Health Council’s Breastfeeding Heritage and Pride (BHP) Program manager and lactation consultant Cody Cuni, IBCLC, BS reminds us in Hispanic Health Council’s Breastfeeding Heritage and Pride (BHP) Program heals, empowers and celebrates through peer counseling model that breastfeeding has always belonged to the people.

Photo by willsantt: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-breastfeeding-her-toddler-under-the-tree-2714618/

Cuni offers commentary on her and her colleague’s responsibility to help facilitate breastfeeding without capitalizing, claiming and dominating. She sees her role as an empowerer. 

Without diminishing the need for larger structural supports, let us also remember and celebrate the innate power we hold as individuals who can nourish and nurture our young and ourselves through breastfeeding. 

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Our 10-year anniversary giveaway has ended. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Self-care strategies for lactation care providers

Tomorrow is World Mental Health Day. Read on about self-care strategies for lactation care providers.

Image credit: WHO

When a gas-powered vehicle is low on fuel, it’ll often show signs of fuel starvation like a sputtering engine and intermittent power surges. Eventually, when the engine dies completely, the hydraulic power to the brakes and steering lose power too. Steering and stopping is still possible at this point, but it requires greater effort.

Perinatal professional Sara BhaduriHauck, CLC of Mandala Motherhood analogizes the vehicle and the human body and how self-care and nurturing mental health is crucial to providing sustainable care.

“It feels good to give,” she begins, speaking from the perspective of lactation care provider. “But you can only give so much.”

Learning to sense the feelings and sensations that warn us of burnout, is like filling up the gas tank when it hits a quarter tank.

“Keep an eye on your gas tank,” BhaduriHauck advises.

This wisdom of self-discipline, knowing when to stop giving to others so that one can give to themselves, allows for a healthy care provider/client relationship.

Liba Chaya Golman, CLC with lev lactation shared her struggle after a particular session: “I just met with a dyad dealing with weight loss and low supply and while we have a short term plan and pediatrician involvement, I am feeling so emotionally spent after the consultation. I’m empathetic by nature and became a CLC after my own difficult breastfeeding experience. I feel capable of managing the situation and have people to refer to and rely on, but came home and cried after the visit.” Soliciting tips for lactation provider self-care, BhaduriHauck offered up some suggestions.

“I find therapy to be an amazing self-care tool, especially when client situations trigger my own traumas,” she shared. “The situations that hit us the hardest shed light on the areas inside of ourselves that need some tender attention.”

BhaduriHauck endured traumatic birth experiences herself, like so many maternal child health care providers who are drawn to this work because of personal challenges that they endured.

After slogging through our mental health system,  BhaduriHauck eventually connected with a trauma-informed therapist specializing in EMDR and a perinatal mental health specialist. Later, BhaduriHauck pursued training as a postpartum doula.

“Doing that work and learning how to help other people also helped me help myself,” she explains. “You have to have healed enough of your own emotional stuff to put it down and to pick up someone else’s, but in learning to help others, I was also learning how to support myself.”

She continues that journaling allows care providers to give their feelings space and “attention to be seen and articulated.”

“Sometimes I just need the space to express them before I can let them go,” she shares.

Affirmations are another avenue of self-care for care providers to explore.

BhaduriHauck uses this one most often: This work isn’t about its outcomes. It’s about making a difference.

“Over-giving/over-investing is something I fall into naturally, and I have to work at creating distance between a client’s situation and my responsibility to it,” she explains. “Reminding myself that me just doing my job, makes a world of difference to the client [and]  helps me release some of the big feelings I’m holding onto about the client’s situation.”

BhaduriHauck acknowledges two types of processing: active and passive.

Going to therapy, having someone who is trained in validating and providing empathy, is an example of active processing. When our feelings are “infused with empathy,” as BhaduriHauck puts it, “we can put them away inside ourselves softer.” The opposite of this can happen if we have not chosen the listener appropriately, she warns.

Passive processing sometimes comes in the form of slowing our pace and down regulating our nervous systems. For BhaduriHauck, she finds a calmer state of being by going for a walk, snuggling her dog, or taking a hot bath. In these scenarios, she might not be actively processing trauma or emotions, but she’s giving her body space.

Intentionality in practice can help preserve mental health, and allow a care provider to be a more effective support person too. BhaduriHauck suggests checking in with oneself, “Am I doing this in service of the client, or in service to myself?” If it’s the latter, there are better avenues to pursue the boost of “feeling good by doing good” and/or getting the assurance that “my knowledge is valuable”.

BhaduriHauck shares some final thoughts on mental health as a lactation care provider. “The emotional learning I’ve done in becoming a care provider and overcoming my own struggles, they’ve gone hand in hand.  My experiences help other people and others’ experiences have helped me in learning emotional management techniques. When I talk to parents… I can listen without it triggering past traumas.”

Photo by Madison Inouye

She goes on, effective care requires the provider to have trained themselves to embrace the emotional component of the work in ways that are in service to their clients.

In 2021, the CDC issued a call to action to protect health care workers’ mental health. You can find that  information here.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) offers resources for Health Care Professionals including peer and professional support options. Find those resources listed here.

Praeclarus Press offers Burnout, Secondary Traumatic Stress, and Moral Injury in Maternity Care Providers, an opportunity to learn about the stresses of maternity care and how to care for yourself on the job. Learn about the course here.

VA Maternity Care Coordinator (MCC) program facilitates specialized care for military Veteran parents

For new families, healthy, evidence-based infant feeding education and support can be hard to come by, but among this often barren landscape of support, the VA Maternity Care Coordinator (MCC) program provides an oasis for military Veteran mothers.  

Retired USAF Lt Col Tammy Tenace BSN, MS, APRN-BC, now Women Veteran Education, Outreach and Research Coordinator  for James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa, Fla. says that the VA understands that pregnancy and parenthood often requires specialized care.

About a decade ago, as care providers started to notice that lactation and breastfeeding support was severely limited in civilian communities, they established the MCC role. MCCs maintain contact with Veteran families throughout the perinatal period, facilitating care that meets their specific needs. 

Because the VA does not provide obstetric care, the MCC acts as a liaison between the VA and the community obstetrical provider. MCCs follow Veterans through pregnancy and postpartum at one and six weeks postpartum. [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-019-04974-z]  The VA supplies Veterans with lactation supplies like breast pumps, nursing bras, nursing pads, storage bags, etc.

The MCC role has been established at every VA medical center, and Tenace has served as MCC at her hospital since 2016.  

Photo by George Pak : https://www.pexels.com/photo/family-sitting-on-sofa-beside-house-plant-near-the-windows-7983863/

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, what little perinatal support existed in civilian spaces, dwindled to almost nothing, Tenace points out. 

Hospital breastfeeding support groups, while only meeting a couple of times a week, stopped meeting altogether. Women weren’t allowed support people or their partners at appointments, and they began to feel isolated. 

“I realized I needed to do something; I couldn’t depend on the community,” Tenace says.  

Working through the Office on Women’s Health as a subject matter expert, VA National Consultant for Lactation Ashley M. Lauria, MA, RD, LDN, IBCLC helps establish standards of care in lactation programs at VA facilities nationwide. 

Tenace and Lauria both comment that among the hundreds of parents they have cared for, it is truly a rarity for an individual to express disinterest in lactation. Their experience reflects national numbers, where most dyads start out breastfeeding. 

Women Veterans are the fastest growing group among the Veteran population. In fact,  “by 2040, VA estimates they will comprise 18% of the Veteran population, versus just 4% in 2000,” according to a VA Pittsburgh press release.

In order to keep up with this demand, Tenace and her colleagues are in the process of curating a Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) program. Made possible through funding from the Women’s Health Innovations and Staffing Enhancements (WHISE), ten of their staff members are completing the Lactation Counselor Training Course (LCTC), including Tenace, physicians, a health coach, advanced practice nurses, among others. 

“The most up-to-date information is really important,” Tenace begins. “[We are all] unlearning the things we thought we knew. The course has been instrumental to helping us feel like we are actually helping women, instead of relying on the knowledge that we thought we had. The course is detailed and professional, yet practical. The practicalness is what’s to our advantage. It’s how we actually help women breastfeed.”

Photo by Timothy Meinberg on Unsplash

Tenace and Lauria go on to explain that their efforts are Veteran-led. That is, their facilities host quarterly focus groups where they can learn about Veterans’ requests. 

“We want to know from women: what do they want?” Tenace comments. 

Because Veteran women often prefer support groups comprised of other Veterans, Lauria offers virtual lactation support groups that also act as social circles and a place for comradery. 

As James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital designs new facilities, Tenace has been invited to offer input on the creation of lactation space for both employees and patients. Tenace applauds their leadership for focusing on improvement for the patient and employee experience. She also highlights that the newly designed main entrance will host a lactation pod. 

“I can’t think of a better way to show commitment,” she adds.  

Tenace and Lauria have embodied a passion for birth and lactation since their youth. Their work with the VA allows them to continue their mission to celebrate parents and their families and position themselves as life-long learners, evolving with the needs of Veteran mothers. 

 

Photo by Brianna Lisa Photography: https://www.pexels.com/photo/mother-breastfeeding-her-child-in-park-11620457/

For more on VA maternity care services visit https://www.womenshealth.va.gov/docs/WomensHealthReproductiveHealthBrochure508.pdf

More on Veteran Health https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2021/birth-equity-Veterans-and-servicemembers  

Regulations and resources for all military branches https://www.mom2momglobal.org/bficb 

Coverage for pregnancy and lactation care in the military health system https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/11/01/tricare-cover-doulas-lactation-consultants-some-starting-jan-1.html 

Facilitating the bond between children and fathers or male-identifying partners

 There’s quite a bit of literature on why it is important for fathers to support breastfeeding, and robust recommendations on how fathers can be good support people.

Photo by Anna Shvets: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-in-blue-long-sleeves-playing-with-his-baby-11369399/

Specifically in Black communities though, there’s a “lack of resources for men to learn about and advocate for breastfeeding.”  George W. Bugg, Jr, et al. write in Breastfeeding Communities for Fatherhood: Laying the Groundwork for the Black Fatherhood, Brotherhood, and Manhood Movement  that “Black men deserve to be educated in culturally competent ways about prenatal and postpartum care to advocate for their partners. This is not happening in a systematic way in the Black community. In the Reproductive Justice space, Black men are basically being treated as if they are invisible.” 

As a whole, our nation lacks support for fathers and male identifying partners to bond with their babies. The father–infant relationship should be honored “in its own framework rather than as an alternative to mother–infant theory.” (Cheng 2011

Author Carolynn Darrell Cheng, et al points out in Supporting Fathering Through Infant Massage that “fathers may feel dissatisfied with their ability to form a close attachment with their infants in the early postpartum period, which, in turn, may increase their parent-related stress.”

Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash

Infant massage is such a neglected modality, especially in the NICU, where it reduces both the risk of sepsis and bilirubin levels, and gets babies home sooner because their brains mature more quickly and they gain weight faster,” Nikki Lee points out. 

Beyond its benefits to infants, Cheng and colleagues have found that “infant massage appears to be a viable option for teaching fathers caregiving sensitivity.” Their work showed that “fathers were helped by increasing their feelings of competence, role acceptance, spousal support, attachment, and health and by decreasing feelings of isolation and depression. Although not all fathers saw the direct benefit of infant massage instruction, they did note they enjoyed participating in an activity that gave them special time with their infants and appreciated the opportunity to meet other fathers.” 

More broadly, skin-to-skin contact has a positive effect on paternal attachment.  

The results from Effects of Father-Neonate Skin-to-Skin Contact on Attachment: A Randomized Controlled Trial identified touching as the highest-scoring Father-Child Attachment Scale (FCAS) subscale. 

Ontario artist Lindsay Foster’s viral image of fathers BJ Barone and Frankie Nelson meeting Baby Milo captures perfectly the flood of oxytocin that skin-to-skin affords fathers and male-identifying parents.

Fathers BJ (left) and Frankie (right) embrace their seconds-old-newborn boy Milo. Milo’s umbilical cord is still attached to the surrogate in this image.
Photo by Ontario artist Lindsay Foster.
Formerly published in: http://www.ourmilkyway.org/skin-to-skin-image-goes-viral/

The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) identifies other ways in which fathers can be “empowered by a whole-of-society approach to fulfill their fathering capacity.” 

WABA suggests that fathers should be engaged and involved throughout the 1,000 days and health systems and care providers can provide knowledge on breastfeeding through antenatal visits, other breastfeeding classes and enabling their participation during labor and delivery and postnatally. 

Sufficient paternity or parental leave is vital to allow time to care for and bond with their new family. 

There is also “a need for greater vigilance against promotion and unethical marketing of breastmilk substitutes targeting fathers to ensure that they also get unbiased information.” [More here.] 

In our national sphere of advocacy, last month, Foundations of Fatherhood Summit hosted Wide World of Fathering  with a mission to advance fatherhood and families in Michigan communities and beyond. The speaker lineup was full of individuals passionate about fatherhood and working to shift the way we view males as parents. 

Presenter Reginald Day, CLC for instance, hosts a podcast called Get At Me Dad which reveals the true narrative of BIPOC fathers–”present, connected and raising strong families.”

Father-son duo Mark and Corey Perlman host another podcast called Nurturing Fathers based on the Nurturing Fathers Program

Last week, New Mexico Breastfeeding Task Force Board Member Francisco J. Ronquillo hosted a Hearing our Voices virtual roundtable for fathers and male-identifying partners. 

Reaching Our Brothers Everywhere (ROBE), an organization which seeks to educate, equip, and empower men to impact an increase in breastfeeding rates and a decrease in infant mortality rates within the African-American communities, hosts a monthly virtual call where males can discuss maternal child health related topics.   

In partnership with Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE), ROBE will host the 11th Annual Breastfeeding and Equity Summit in New Orleans from August 25  to 27, 2022 where presentations center on equity in breastfeeding, maternal health, fathers and partners, and infant health initiatives.

 

Our Milky Way past coverage on fathers

Photo by PNW Production: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-family-walking-together-on-a-boardwalk-8576210/

New CLC engages fathers, supports breastfeeding, heals communities

Fathers profoundly influence breastfeeding outcomes

Founder of Fathers’ Uplift adopted into breastfeeding movement

The Institute of Family & Community Impact hosts event to boost paternal mental health

Paternal mental health and engagement

Robert A. Lee, MA answers the call

A lasting bond 

Skin to skin image goes viral

Changing families demand changing policies

The Lactation Pharmacist guest post in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Leslie Southard, PharmD, BCACP, CLC is a community pharmacist turned lactation activist on a mission to “provide up-to-date, evidence-based information regarding medications and lactation so individuals are able to make educated decisions regarding their health while reaching their lactating goals, and so healthcare providers can make the best recommendations for their lactating patients,” as she describes in her The Lactation Pharmacist bio.

Last year, Southard published Stop Using the Words “Just” and “Only”, a piece describing part of her journey navigating childhood cancer.

In honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Southard’s work and her family’s journey fighting cancer, we’re republishing that piece here on Our Milky Way.

You can find more at The Lactation Pharmacist blog here.

Stop Using the Words “Just” and “Only”

LESLIE SOUTHARD

As a newly inducted member of a group no one wants to be apart of – the Cancer Mom group – I’ve had a lot of emotions. Our world changed with one touch, and then one doctor’s appointment, and then a series of tests that led to the ultimate diagnosis: cancer. I’ve never experienced so many emotions in such a short period of time and forced to keep going with the rest of my life. This has led to a lot of thinking and working through what I’m feeling, because you can’t earn a living to support your family if you’re an emotional blob that breaks down every 5 minutes.

Multiple people recently told me “it’s just/only hair, it’ll grow back” when I told them that my daughter’s hair was falling out. This made my blood boil, and it took me a while to figure out why. Here’s the deal – it’s NOT “just” hair. If it was, we’d all be able to just up and shave our heads without any concern. My daughter’s hair represents so much in this cancer journey. We lost our lives as we knew them as soon as the doctor’s appointments and tests started. My daughter is losing a chunk of her childhood – no, not just the part that involves treatment, but the years after for follow up. My husband and I were robbed of the “easy” parental concerns. Now, we’re on high alert any time she spikes a fever, stumbles, mentions something is cold when it’s not, doesn’t pee or poop as much as normal, complains about her stomach hurting, etc. Any of those issues could mean a call to the doctor, a trip to the emergency room, or a side effect of her chemotherapy. Cancer has given me a whole list of worries I never expected. This person had no way of knowing how I’d feel about such a seemingly harmless statement, but it’s important to know that it isn’t and won’t ever be “just” or “only” hair.

This has made me think of all the other times we use the words “just” or “only”. I “just” had a cesarean birth. I “only” lactated for 2 days. I “only” pumped 2 ounces. I “only” lost 2 pounds. It’s “just” a job.

STOP.

By using the words “just” and “only”, you are dismissing all the emotional turmoil something caused you, dismissing all the hard work you put into something, dismissing what the rest of that statement means to you. DROP the “just” and “only” words from your vocabulary. What you did, what has happened to you, what you’re going through MATTERS, and the words ”just” and “only” rob you of that importance.