‘Full pandemic mama’ becomes full spectrum doula

Allysa Singer was, as she describes, a “full pandemic mama.” Singer became pregnant with her first child in the winter of 2019. As she became aware of the threats and the consequences of COVID-19, she started researching her options and her rights in the delivery room she’d find herself in August 2020.

What started as personal preparation– How many support people would she be allowed? Would she be allowed a support person at all? What restrictions would she encounter? How could she advocate for herself? What were her options?–  propelled her into a world of birth support and autonomy advocacy.

“I was just dumbfounded by the disparities that exist in maternal health,” Singer begins.

In 2020, Alabama, where Singer and her family live, had the third-highest Maternal Mortality Rate in the nation, at 36.4 per 100,000 live births.

BIPOC families suffer from massive disparities in maternal and infant deaths. In a recent piece, Childbirth Is Deadlier for Black Families Even When They’re Rich, Expansive Study Finds, Tiffany L. Green, an economist focused on public health and obstetrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is quoted: “It’s not race, it’s racism…The data are quite clear that this isn’t about biology. This is about the environments where we live, where we work, where we play, where we sleep.”

Still, unlike so many of her peers, Singer reports having had an amazing birth experience.

Inundated by birth horror stories, she decided to change care at 27 weeks in hopes that she would be better supported in her choices at a different institution.

Here, she was allowed a doula and support person to accompany her during her birth.

“Not a lot of women had that luxury,” Singer comments.

Knowing well that birth support is a right and not a luxury, she started her own doula practice in December 2021. 

Singer shares that she experienced severe postpartum depression, but she was able to divert and ultimately reshape this energy into her doula work.

“My doula training was the lifeboat that saved me from drowning in my PPD,” she says.

And now her practice, Faith to Fruition, has become the lifeboat for many of the birthing people Singer supports.

She shares: “I don’t believe that a birther’s desire to have more children should be dictated by their birthing experience. I have heard so many stories from people who had one kid but say, ‘I would never do this again because my experience was so traumatic.’ One of my biggest missions and goals is to support birthers to feel empowered in their process; not as bystanders of their process.”

Singer also holds a full time position as an industrial psychologist where she channels her advocacy work, pushing for organizational change and understanding of proper maternal support.

In fact, as part of a public speaking course for a training curriculum, Singer presented on why it’s important to support breastfeeding. She reports that her audience of roughly 25 was engaged, especially as she pointed out the absurdities of infant feeding culture in our country: How would you feel if I asked you to eat your meal in the bathroom? How would you like to eat with a blanket tossed over your head? for instance.

Singer also points out the “insanely amazing public health outcomes” breastfeeding affords.

If 90 percent of U.S. babies were exclusively breastfed for six months, the United States would save $13 billion per year and prevent an excess 911 deaths, nearly all of which would be in infants ($10.5 billion and 741 deaths at 80% compliance). [Bartick, Reinhold, 2010]

“Not only is there a personal investment, there is a public investment and value to understanding the larger implications,” Singer comments. “As a taxpayer, [breastfeeding] impacts you; as someone who utilizes our healthcare system, [breastfeeding] impacts you.”

With the recent passing of the PUMP Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act coming soon, Singer says “We still have a long way to go.”

Organizational policy doesn’t support motherhood; instead it fuels detached parenting which goes against nature, Singer goes on.

“Mothers feel the brunt of that more than ever,” she says.  “[We aren’t] supported to be able to care for our children the way that we want to.”

Singer says she sees it as her mission as an organizational psychologist to encourage change that supports parenthood, so that women don’t feel threatened to care for their children the way that they want to. This means ensuring that women are provided with ample space to pump their milk while away from their babies and empowering them to approach HR when there aren’t appropriate accommodations.

“Outside forces shouldn’t be able to dictate how you care for and feed your child. The end of one’s breastfeeding journey should be a personal decision.”

She continues, “It’s amazing that legislation is catching up. The thing that I fear with any law, there are still people behind those laws that have to enforce them and carry them out. Education and garnishing an understanding of what this looks like is a key component to implementation. The people behind those policies have to make them successful, but this is  moving things into a very good direction, and I hope that more changes to legislation follow suit, especially with paid parental leave. It’s a catalyst for change; I am hopeful but cautiously optimistic.”

Singer says she owes her personal success continuing to breastfeed her two-and-a-half year old to Chocolate Milk Mommies, where she now serves as a board member.

Through Chocolate Milk Mommies, Singer started a subcommittee to focus on education for individuals within the breastfeeder’s support system.

“The people in the village need to be supportive. When you don’t know better, you can’t do better,” she explains.

Singer recently completed the Lactation Counselor Training Course (LCTC) as part of Chocolate Milk Mommies’ mission to best support their constituents and as a way to benefit her doula clients with more well-rounded support.

“I really loved the training because I already thought that our bodies are amazing, but learning more science was great. I would text my friends the ‘Boobie Fact of the Day’,” Singer shares. “[The science] allows me to really appreciate my journey that much more and how impactful I’m being with my daughter.”

You can follow Singer’s work here and here.

USBC Deputy Director Amelia Psmythe Seger’s ‘The Four Pillars of Infant Nutrition Security in the United States’

Our headlines are overloaded with tragedy, perversion, inequities, the unthinkable yet preventable.

Journalist Mary Pilon says in Throughline’s Do Not Pass Go episode “It’s a shame to waste a crisis. A crisis can also be a moment when you look at things and make changes and improvements.”   

And so, from that vantage point, we are honored to be republishing United States Breastfeeding Committee Amelia Psmythe Seger’s piece The Four Pillars of Infant Nutrition Security in the United States originally published here last month. 

“We will get through this because we must. Together we must ensure we build an infant nutrition security system worthy of parent’s trust,” she writes. 

In celebration of World Breastfeeding Week and National Breastfeeding Month on the horizon, there’s no better time than now to take action.  #TogetherWeDoGreatThings

 

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The Four Pillars of Infant Nutrition Security in the United States by Amelia Psmythe Seger, Deputy Director USBC

Throughout its 22-year history, the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee has been working towards the policy, systems, and environmental changes that build a landscape of breastfeeding support.

The catastrophic infant formula shortage demonstrates the value of this work and the need to build a robust infrastructure for infant nutrition security in the U.S. that holds all families in care.

This infrastructure includes four pillars: Parents, Programs, Policies, and a Plan for emergencies.

Parents:

Parents are critical stakeholders in infant nutrition security. The Parents pillar includes people of all races, genders, caregiving roles, routes to parenthood, immigration status, religious or political views, and infant feeding methods. Everyone who loves and cares for a young child belongs. Welcome.

Parents deserve the full support of a robust national infant nutrition security infrastructure. Without it, many are forced onto painful and difficult paths of infant feeding and care. The U.S. needs equitable programs, policies, and a plan for emergencies that centers on the most impacted.Parents and caregivers whose infants rely on formula are the highest priority right now. They need help finding formula, advice on switching between formulas, reassurance that reliable supplies are on the way, and an answer to the question: what should I feed my baby if I cannot find formula?  With appropriate caution, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published an article on what to feed babies of different ages and situations in an extreme emergency (such as this). Babies under six months should truly only consume human milk or infant formula. In considering very short-term alternatives, the stakes are so high that a physician should monitor the baby.

Parents who are breastfeeding or feeding human milk are in anguish right now, too. Many are feeling pressure to share their milk without acknowledgment of how hard this society has made it to establish and maintain milk supply. Few families have access to lactation support providers, paid family leave, and workplace accommodations to pump breast milk during the workday. In this context, many turn to formula as their backup plan, and it is very scary for them to see that their safety net is in tatters. To answer questions related to human milk, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) published a guide. This ABM guide addresses pregnancy, low milk supply, re-lactation, options for donation or safe milk sharing, and healthcare guidance and training.

Additional burdens or blame should never be placed on the families and caregivers whose hands are literally full of babies and toddlersWhen capacity allows, however, the collective potential power of parents is significant. Consider if parents insisted on being at the table with the commercial milk formula industry, playing a role in ensuring industry quality, safety, and ethics. They are key stakeholders, after all, so this should be encouraged. Parents could also insist the U.S. enhance our nonprofit milk banking system to ensure an affordable, plentiful donor milk supply for medically fragile infants and those whose parents cannot or do not wish to breastfeed. This would diversify the infant food supply and provide parents with more options.

Programs:

Federal programmatic funding needs to be expanded considering setbacks caused by the pandemic, including the current infant formula shortage.

Federal funding supports quality improvement investments to implement maternity care best practices in hospitals, especially while recovering from pandemic-induced breakdowns in those settings.

Expansion of this funding supports state and community efforts to advance care coordination and strengthen lactation support through policy, systems, and environmental change interventions to reduce or eliminate breastfeeding disparities along the fault lines of income and race.

Federal investments enhance and deepen partnerships to integrate infant feeding and lactation support services into emergency response systems and food security programs during acute disasters and prolonged public health crises.

This funding supports critical national monitoring and public reporting activities, including annual analysis of the National Immunization Survey (NIS), administration of the bi-annual Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care (mPINC) Survey, bi-annual production of the National Breastfeeding Report Card, and administration of the longitudinal Infant Feeding Practices Study. All of which is especially needed in light of recent updates to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which, for the first time, provides nutritional guidance for infants and toddlers.

Policies:

Due to major policy gaps, families face obstacles that make it difficult or impossible to start or continue breastfeeding. Policymakers must choose to prioritize the policies and investments for infant food security so that we never find ourselves in this situation again.

Critically needed policy solutions are waiting for Congressional action:

  • Establish a national paid family and medical leave program. The FAMILY Act (S. 248/H.R. 804) would ensure that families have time to recover from childbirth and establish a strong breastfeeding relationship before returning to work.
  • Ensure all breastfeeding workers have time and space to pump during the workday. The Providing Urgent Maternal Protections (PUMP) Act (S. 1658/H.R. 3110) would close gaps in the Break Time for Nursing Mothers Law, giving 9 million more workers time and space to pump. Contact your legislators about the PUMP Act!
  • Invest in the CDC Hospitals Promoting Breastfeeding program by increasing funding to $20M in FY2023This funding helps families start and continue breastfeeding through maternity care practice improvements and community and workplace support programs.
  • Create a formal plan for infant and young child feeding in emergencies. The DEMAND Act (S. 3601/H.R. 6555) would ensure the Federal Emergency Management Agency can better support access to lactation support and supplies during disasters. Contact your legislators about the DEMAND Act!

Additional areas for policy development

The U.S. has not regulated the marketing practices of the commercial milk formula industry, unlike 70% of the world, which has implemented at least some part of the WHO’s International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes. In the absence of regulation, these marketing practices are predatory.

Diversify the nation’s production of infant formula. Plainly it is a mistake to allow 42% of the infant formula in this country to be produced not only by one company but by one factory of that company. Infant formula companies are part of an infant food security system, but we don’t have to be so dependent on that industry.Enhance the national network of nonprofit donor milk banks. Support innovative partnerships across existing structures, taking a cue from a national model such as what exists in Brazil. Consider: Red Cross has the infrastructure to support donor screening; WIC offices or community health clinics could be donor drop-off sites; more hospitals could provide space and equipment for donor milk processing and distribution, as some have done. Models exist to create an affordable and plentiful alternative to commercial milk formula when a parent’s own milk is not available.

Plan:

All nations should have a robust plan for infant and young child feeding in emergencies that includes three phases: preparedness, response, and resiliency. The USBC-Affiliated Infant & Young Child Feeding Constellation has published a Joint Statement on Infant & Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E) in the U.S. context.
Emergency preparedness includes building a lactation support provider directory and a system to track the inventory of national resources such as infant formula.Emergency response for infants, young children, and their families must include priority shelter, trauma-informed care, lactation support providers in every community; access to breast pumps, and milk storage and cleaning supplies; non-branded infant formula, clean water, bottles, and cleaning supplies.

Emergency resilience includes trauma-informed care that centers on the needs of communities that have been historically undersupported, and disproportionately impacted in emergencies.

Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. The insufficient system we’ve had, led to this crisis. It was predictable, and thus it was preventable.

Now that there’s a mass mobilization of activity – from neighbors driving many miles to find spare formula tins, to the President invoking the defense production act – we must collectively build the resiliency to support a community during a flood, a region during a power outage, or a nation during a pandemic and supply chain crisis. We will get through this because we must. Together we must ensure we build an infant nutrition security system worthy of parent’s trust.

Physicians as parents: How can one pour from an empty cup?

A medical student once told Nikki Lee, RN, BSN, MS, Mother of 2, IBCLC,RLC, CCE, CIMI, CST (cert.appl.), ANLC, RYT500  about an obstetrician who loved to pump while she was catching babies because she collected more milk than usual. Lee theorizes that perhaps it was due to the high levels of oxytocin in the atmosphere during childbirth. 

It’s a fascinating concept, and quite unusual considering physicians often find themselves in a terrible paradox. As Lee puts it, they are supposed to take care of everybody else, and no one takes care of them. They’re expected to be experts on everything;  as childbirth educators and lactation care providers, we often disclaim “this information is not meant as a substitute for medical advice.”

In this two-part series, Lee and I set out to explore the forces that surround infant feeding, ones that physicians must muscle through as parents themselves and as professionals. We explore emerging themes inspired by the article Medical training taught this Philadelphia doctor about breast feeding. But the real lessons came from her twins. In Part One, we offer thoughts on physicians functioning as parents themselves. Part Two covers physicians as professionals trying to support breastfeeding most often with inadequate education and training.

Source: United States Breastfeeding Committee

With insufficient support in their personal infant feeding goals, physicians’ struggles sometimes seem to spur advocacy and a “do-better-for-my patients” attitude. Just the same, these experiences can lead individuals to harbor resentment, despair, resignation and defeat, and might unintentionally influence the breastfeeding support they are able to offer their patients. 

When physicians’ basic needs aren’t met, we can’t expect them to meet the needs of their patients. How can one pour from an empty cup?  Kathleen Kendall Tackett offers Burnout, Compassion Fatigue, and Self Care for Members of the Perinatal Team which presents insights on the effects of little institutional support and specific strategies for integrating self-care into care for others. 

Self-care is sustainable only when everyone can do it. 

Before physicians are done with their decade or more of training, they are challenged by inadequate support in their efforts to feed their own children. 

“In a survey of 412 medical trainees with children, more than 80% of women reported feeling stressed about breastfeeding, and one-third did not meet their breastfeeding goal,” Gaelen Dwyer points out in Pumping up support: Making breastfeeding easier for med students

What’s more, a  recent research letter, American Board of Medical Specialties Board Examination Lactation Accommodation, evaluates the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) member boards’ lactation-specific board examination accommodation policies highlighting that a minority of female physicians (42%) achieve the recommendation that infants receive mother’s milk at least until age one. 

Source: United States Breastfeeding Committee

“Board examinations are a key aspect of medical training,” the authors begin. “With up to 22% of female trainees delivering a child during postgraduate training, and nearly 59, 000 female physicians in residency and fellowship in the US, there is a large group potentially affected by board examination lactation accommodations.”

About a decade ago, ​​in a landmark case that has implications for all testing organizations in Massachusetts, a unanimous Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that breastfeeding mothers are entitled to special accommodations to allow them sufficient time to pump milk during lengthy testing for medical licensure. [https://www.wbur.org/news/2012/04/13/breastfeeding-doctor-ruling ] 

The elephant in the room is the issue of parental leave. Honestly, it’s hard to stomach that we are still arguing that there are medical and psychosocial benefits of protected parental leave for both parents and children. The U.S. is the only Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member country—and one of only six countries in the world—without a national paid parental leave policy. The U.S. is also one of the few high-income countries without a national family caregiving or medical leave policy. [https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/paid-family-leave-across-oecd-countries/

Women don’t breastfeed; societies do. The societal burden on the mother is magnified when the mother is a physician and is compelled to take care of everyone else, with no support for their own breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is blamed for being difficult, instead of us all getting furious that we don’t have paid maternity leave.

In the current U.S. healthcare system, physicians find themselves paid in Relative Value Units (RVUs), which bluntly put, is a pretty mechanical way to value providing care to other humans. In short, the more RVUs a physician racks up, the more they’re paid. Often that leaves lactating physicians forgoing pumping to spend more time with patients. The Providing Urgent Maternal Protections (PUMP) for Nursing Mothers Act would close the loopholes that force physicians to choose income or feeding their babies. The PUMP Act advanced out of the Senate HELP Committee with unanimous bipartisan support in May 2021 and then passed with significant bipartisan support (267-149) in the House last October. Despite this strong bipartisan support, the bill has languished in the Senate for almost a year. Get updates on progress here

In February 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a policy statement on Parental Leave for Residents and Pediatric Training Programs.

Source: United States Breastfeeding Committee

The policy reports that the Institutional Requirements of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education require training programs to provide written policies regarding leaves of absence, including parental leave, and these policies must comply with current legislation such as the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), but that the length of leave has considerable variability among residency programs. The statement outlines the challenges of parental leave policies in training programs and gives recommendations to protect trainees and their families. One challenge is that education calendars are set long before a person enters a medical program, but labor, delivery, and the establishment of breastfeeding don’t fit into a predetermined calendar. 

Despite this dismal landscape, the medical world is changing and there are stories and models to celebrate. 

Catherine Wagner, a cardiothoracic surgery resident at Michigan Medicine, managed to breastfeed and pump for a year during her residency with a network of support. 

A committee at the University of Michigan is calling on pediatricians to support their fellow physicians.  Pediatricians Advocating Breastfeeding: Let’s Start with Supporting our Fellow Pediatricians First describes the efforts to support lactation within the department. The committee collected university policies, state and federal laws, identified the needs of breastfeeding mothers and then created a policy to support lactating individuals as well as a handout to help supervisors and colleagues support lactating women in the healthcare setting. (Supplemental material; available at www.jpeds.com).

Got Milk? Design and Implementation of a Lactation Support Program for Surgeons describes an initiative where “Multiple faculty members offered to offload resident workload before starting cases to provide time for a lactating resident to express milk… The University of Wisconsin adopted a ‘cross-cover’ model encouraging lactating residents to have other residents assist in the operating room during non-critical portions of the case if the primary operating resident needed to express milk that has been very well received and easily implemented.”

Source: United States Breastfeeding Committee

There’s attention being paid to lactation accommodation information in urology residency programs too. 

In this study, “Of 145 urology residency programs, 72.4% included information about lactation accommodations anywhere on the institution’s website.” The authors conclude that “efforts to recruit and retain female urologists should include making [lactation accommodation]  information more easily accessible.”

Authors Annery G Garcia-Marcinkiewicz and Sarah S Titler call on  anesthesiology as a workforce and specialty, to support the unique need of lactating and breastfeeding anesthesiologists in Lactation and Anesthesiology

This study offers the first comprehensive scoping review of the literature on breastfeeding policies pertaining to surgical residents in Canada.

The authors write: “…We aim to use these data to advocate for breast feeding for surgical resident physicians through the creation and improvement of current breastfeeding policies as applicable. This work aims to help change surgical culture to be more inclusive, which is vital in creating a breast feeding-friendly environment. This would include leadership endorsement of the policy, a culture shift (for example, no repercussions to resident for coming back on a modified schedule or taking breaks for expressing milk), visible educational notices throughout the workplace (ie, ‘breast feeding-friendly workplace’ notices, common in Canadian public settings), and creation of a network of ‘new moms’ within the surgical resident programme to ensure there is support and mentorship for new moms returning back to work. ”

While we wait for policies to catch up to the needs of lactating physicians, wearable pumps are helping them reach their infant feeding goals.  The Impact of Wearable Breast Pumps on Physicians’ Breastfeeding Experience and Success found that “those who had used a wearable pump reported statistically significant shorter lactation breaks (p < 0.00001) and were more likely to be able to provide breast milk to their infants for their entire intended duration (p = 0.005) compared to the traditional pump group.” 

The support network Dr. MILK (Mothers Interested in Lactation Knowledge) has been successful at helping physicians mothers reach their infant feeding goals. 

Where else are you seeing physician parents being supported in their infant feeding journeys? Email us at info@ourmilkyway.org