#320 | Breastfeeding Q&A: Nipple Shields, Restricting Skin-to-Skin, Formula Marketing, Gentle Weaning, Nursing Strikes, Night Feeding

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Hey, hey. So we did a Patreon event on the deceptive marketing tactics in the formula industry with Andrea Haskins from instinctual mothering. And it was great. And it's, it's infuriating when you see what's going on in that industry too, like the deception and the the political handshakes and wink winks and everything like that, all to mislead moms and then this cultural push that sounds and looks good on its face to say, don't judge. But in that whole vein of saying, don't judge, which, frankly, I have personally seen virtually none of in my entire career, behind the scenes, in a million private conversations with breastfeeding women and doula I've never heard anyone judge anyone for what they're doing or not doing. But in that whole vein, there's this message that says, let's not even say breastfeeding anymore. Don't even say breastfeeding. Just just say feeding. And I anyway, it was a very interesting conversation we had. It's out there on Patreon, for those of you who are interested in it, Patricia, one thing that you shared in that conversation that we haven't talked about in a while are breastfeeding rates and how quickly it drops off. You were saying at around the six week mark. So initiation rates are very high, which is great, but the drop off rate really surprised me. Do you remember what those numbers were? Off the top of your head, we have very high initiation rates in the United States, around 80 to 85% of babies are initially starting off breastfeeding. It drops off significantly over time. And then there's various rates. There's there's obviously different rates for babies who are exclusively breastfeeding versus babies who are getting some breast milk, because many moms are combo feeding. Well, the 84% or so that general range was for non exclusive. It's like some breastfeeding, correct? Yeah, just starting off with some breastfeeding, and by six weeks, about 70% of babies are still getting some breast milk. Around three months, it drops down to 60% getting some breast milk. And by 12 months, it is down to somewhere 30 35% now the rates for exclusive breastfeeding are significantly different for exclusive breastfeeding rates, we are looking at about half of babies starting off exclusively breastfeeding. 84% of babies are getting starting off getting some breast milk. About half of them are doing exclusive breastfeeding by one month. We're in the 40% range, similar, around a similar percentage of babies are still exclusively breastfeed. Exclusively breastfeeding at three months, and it drops down to about 25% by six months. This is interesting. So the those who start exclusively breastfeeding at birth, there's almost 100% retention rate by one month. That's really interesting. It goes from 46% down to 43% so those who start off committed to exclusive breastfeeding are doing pretty well at one month, and by three months, it's almost the exact same percentage. So it's really when you are doing more of a partial breastfeeding in the beginning that we see the major fall off. Because of course, if you're not exclusively breastfeeding, it's hard to maintain a full milk supply. So most of the reason that mothers aren't exclusively breastfeeding six or eight or 12 weeks down the line is because they don't have a full milk supply. They lose their milk supply. If you're supplementing with formula, your milk supply is going to go down. And this goes back to the, you know, predatory tactics of the formula marketing and the formula companies, because they're simply saying a little bit of formula won't hurt, and it actually does. Now you can protect your milk supply if you are using formula strategically, but if you are just being told, top the baby off, which is also the advice of many pediatricians, just give the baby a little top up if they're not gaining weight. Well, that is how you lose a milk supply.

My pediatrician told me that of Alex top off, and I didn't, and it stressed me out like crazy not to be taking her advice, because what did I know? But I didn't. I just kept thinking, If I lived at any other time in human history, I wouldn't be able to top off, and I really didn't want to. But she stressed me out like crazy. She worried me so much I didn't even realize she didn't know anything about breastfeeding.

It's damn Strange, isn't it? I It's unbelievable to me. It's just unfathomable that pediatricians do not understand breastfeeding. I mean, their primary job is the health of children and infants and feeding is at the top of that list, and yet they know very little to nothing about it.

I'm very careful about that myself. Women who bring that up in my postpartum group are asking me for breastfeeding advice. I've sat through probably 100 hours of breastfeeding Workshop. Things that I had at my business, including you and before you, three other ibclc instructors, Rhonda trust was a PhD in the field. I think I know a heck of a lot more than the average person, and I am an extended exclusive breastfeeding my mother myself, and I still never I don't even go near the topic. I'm afraid to, because I know how important it is. I'm not even tempted to go near the topic, because there are credentials out there for a reason. Ibclcs exist for a reason, and the difference between an ibclc and a lactation counselor is so vast. I'm not even a lactation counselor, so I don't understand how pediatricians presume to bring up the topic of breastfeeding and start to give advice. I feel like if they had a little bit of knowledge like I do, they would be humbled and realize how very much they don't know. I think that might be the problem. It looks simple to everyone when they don't know.

It's hard for me to understand how it's not a core curriculum in their education. How are you not being educated on how babies are meant to feed and what they how breastfeeding works. The infant's health and well being and growth and development is their job, and they are lacking the knowledge on the most important piece of it. So they understand the benefits of breast milk, they understand how babies should grow, although they don't always understand how breastfeeding babies grow differently than formula fed babies, right? There is formula in itself. Is not the problem how mothers are instructed to use formula, or the casual nature of just mixing in some formula with breastfeeding. If your goal is exclusive breastfeeding, formula can actually be a remedy to getting you to exclusive breastfeeding. I use it all the time in my practice to help moms and babies get back on track with breastfeeding. But if you're not using it strategically, it will interfere. If you're not using it strategically, it will interfere with your breastfeeding relationship.

Can you just say in a sentence or two, how breastfeeding can get how very limited use of formula feeding can get a breastfeeding mother on track? Because I can't even imagine. Can't even imagine what you're referring to. How can, how can that be? Because all I know is the supply and demand situation. So help me out. What? When can that serve someone?

Because if a mother is having supply issues and her baby is not gaining weight, well, her baby will not be able to stimulate her milk supply to increase, so the baby has to be on track with their weight to effectively and efficiently stimulate the mother to have her supply meet the baby's demand. So you have to get the baby on track with their demand, and then they can help up regulate the mother's supply. A mother's milk supply is determined by the baby, so if the baby is underweight, they can't stimulate her.

So interesting. All right. Well, that's that makes perfect sense. Soon as you said it, it did, yeah. All right, so we have our questions for the episode, and I'm ready to dive in. If you are, let's do it.

Hi. I had a client call me two days postpartum, still in the hospital sobbing because the OB who performed Trisha C section told her not to breastfeed for 24 hours, and it really set her back, and she was very, very, very upset about that. I've also had a hospital who will remain unnamed, on the east coast, not promote skin to skin because they considered it a liability issue after some unfortunate events within the hospital took place. So no skin to skin is advised, was advised to my client from that particular hospital, or is advised period and when I told her that skin to skin was very, very important, especially in the first couple of hours of postpartum, she actually looked shocked that that was a thing. And we kind of got into why that was and why this hospital was so against it. So I do want people to also kind of be aware that when you do wherever you do birth to kind of know their policies and understand what they do and do not promote. So I guess that one wasn't a question, but is it possible that there are hospitals out there don't understand the importance of skin to skin? It's unreal. Absolutely it's unreal. This is also why hospitals charge for skin to skin, because it requires extra supervision, because, yes, it is true. And she mentioned, you know, some unfortunate events that happened at the hospital. Babies have fallen off their mothers in skin to skin in hospital beds. Hospital beds are not well designed for, you know, a mom and baby to be skin to skin, they're very narrow, they're very high. And there are ways around that, and hospitals could certainly design their rooms differently with different kinds of beds, wider beds, lower beds. There's also the Joey band that you can use to help secure your baby to your chest, but to deprive a mother in. Baby of skin to skin and breastfeeding in the first 24 hours is actual abuse. It's abuse. It's malpractice, it's horrific. It's detrimental to the mom and the baby in profound ways that have a significant and lasting impact. It's terrible a baby needs to feed in the first 24 hours. And you will hear that said over and over, babies don't really need to feed in the first 24 hours. They do have lots of reserves. They're born with all this brown fat that they use as energy, and yes, they will survive if they don't feed in the first 24 hours. But that does not mean that you should tell a mother that she shouldn't feed in the first 24 hours. A baby who doesn't feed well or at all in the first 24 hours is not going to stimulate the mom very well with her colostrum. They're going to get low blood sugar, they're going to get high cortisol, they're going to get stress. And then you take them away from the mother in separation, and no skin to skin, and you are just adding a whole nother level of stress to that baby and to the mom. It's not good for the mom's postpartum bleeding. It's not good for her oxytocin. It's not good for the baby's temperature. It's not good for their nervous system. It's not good for their blood sugar. They're going to have a harder time latching later. That alone could derail a woman's breastfeeding experience if she doesn't get the right support after. It makes me very uncomfortable that anyone says a baby doesn't need to feed in the first 24 hours. It's like you said we were what are they talking about? A baby getting emaciated and dying 24 hours later. It makes me so uncomfortable that they say that now, if a woman is trying to breastfeed, it's a good thing to say to her in a reassuring way, don't worry. Your baby is going to be protected, and I think that's where it's coming from. But for a hospital to use it against a woman as an argument not to provide skin to skin is really scary to me. The judge and jury, as far as I'm concerned, on this matter, is what happens when you allow a baby to crawl up the mother after birth. Watch what the baby does, and now we know what is supposed to happen. The baby does not crawl up there and go like, Oh, hey, mom, little eye contact and rest the cheek down on the breast. The baby starts using its mouth, opening up, finding the nipple, like targeted right into the nipple, opens his or her mouth and starts breastfeeding. Doesn't that just tell us everything we need to know what baby is born in its mother's arm, skin to skin, and just chooses not to breastfeed because they're like, full only a baby who maybe has had a significant drug exposure from the drugs of, you know, labor, birth, yeah, so the medications, and in normal situation like, as far as trusting nature, what does Nature demonstrate that the baby has the instinct to breastfeed immediately. It's the first thing the baby does. Maybe, yes, maybe it's because it's what is better in the long run. Maybe somehow the wisdom of nature has the baby doing this because it will stimulate the breasts and get everything going off to the right start. That must play a role in it too, but to the All the more reason the baby should go immediately on the mom. So I'm so sorry, and I'm so disappointed in in I don't know if it's just our culture or others around the world. I don't know if there would be many like this, but I'm just so disappointed that we're still so behind the times on this. And these are the very people who love to throw around the rhetoric, because I believe in science, right? These are the very people who say those things. Just it's, why am I laughing? Because sometimes I laugh out of like sleep, frustrations. No sense. Yes, I just don't even know how else to react. It's actual, in my mind, it's abuse. Yeah, it's abuse. You are disrupting a system that is designed perfectly to work together. The mother and baby are a dyad. They are meant to stay connected. They are a two person system. Yes, and if they are in this together, it doesn't work correctly for either one.

After my son was born, I remember discovering for myself, with no education or knowledge on the topic, but just being blown away and discovering. And the words I used weren't, it wasn't system that I said. I said, an organism. I said, This is so strange. We're one organism. You are. It just blew my mind.

You absolutely are uninterrupted, continuous, skin to skin contact for the baby is critical. Now that doesn't mean that it has to be the mother. 100% of those first 16 hours, if the baby is taken off the mother, the baby should be skin to skin with the other parent. That's very important. The baby should not be taken away. The baby should not be bundled up. The baby should not have a pacifier stuck in their mouth. They need a human contact.

My question is I have almost 21 volt, 20 months old, who I'm not necessarily super interested in meeting yet, but I know that will come up. And I'm curious what you guys have as far as advice or tips for gently meeting. He still nurses at night and a couple times. And throughout the day, especially to sleep for naps. And I'm just wondering what your guys's sage advice is, do you do that gently with connection and just to not to do it with as minimal tears as possible? Thank you so much. Bye. Well, she actually already answered her own question. In the question, she said, to do it with as minimal tears as possible. Whatever that takes, everybody does a little bit differently. You just want it to be kind and gentle, and you want to reduce any type of stress around it. So at 20 months, you know, children are pretty capable of understanding boundaries. At that time, they're going to push them and they're going to test them. That's their job as a normal. Job, as an almost two year old to do that, but they are capable of understanding them. So my advice is generally to try to drop one feed at a time, the one that the baby is or the toddler is least attached to. That's usually like a middle of the day feed. It's usually not bedtime or nap time. It's usually like just kind of a random moment in the day where they come to you and they and they want to feed. Usually, you can distract them from that feed with some other interesting alternative, so a replacement to the breast, whatever that is. Maybe it's a popsicle. Maybe it's a going outside and swinging on the swing. Maybe it's milk in a sippy cup, some type of interesting, exciting distraction or replacement. Once they get used to dropping the one feed, your milk supply starts to go down a little bit more. Then they get they will start to become a little less attached to the other feeds as your milk supply starts to go away, then you pick the next feed that they are least attached to. The overnight feeds are probably the hardest ones. That's where I like to get the dad involved. I think it helps tremendously to have the another parent, other than the breastfeeding mom, be with the child if they're just trying to get back to sleep without the breast, the other parent can rock them, lay with them, cuddle them, sing to them, whatever, whatever it is, it is definitely harder as the breastfeeding mom, way harder. I do think you want to set sort of a firm boundary if you decide that we're going to drop this specific feed during the time of day. You don't want to kind of go back and forth. Oh, one day I distract them and and then tomorrow I give in and they breastfeed. That's going to drag it on. It's you're finding a replacement, something that the something that the child is very excited about, more excited than the breast, something that's very exciting and interesting to them.

Hi, I wanted to see what you guys think about using nipple shields for breastfeeding. So I used one with my first baby, like three days after birth, due to nipple pain, and it seemed impossible to stop using it once she got used to it. So I was nursing her constantly, and she would cluster feed every single evening for like, hours on end, for weeks and weeks or months. Really, this cluster feeding was happening, which, in hindsight, is probably not normal, but it was the only way for her to eat enough, I think. And then once I went back to working from home, when she was five months, I spaced her feedings slightly more so I didn't have to take as many breaks from work, and that's when she started dropping off her growth curve. So I somehow miraculously got her to latch without it at six months, and at that point I had to work on getting my supply back up, but once I did that, she got right back on her curve. So I'm just wondering if this is a normal problem with the use of a nipple shield, because I just wish I would have known if so. So thanks for any insight. Ah, the nipple shield. When were these invented? Ah, probably, like, they've probably been around for a very long time. Oh, really, yeah, it's just in the 50s. They were made of metal, right? Yeah. Okay, so what's your advice?

I mean, nipple shields make a baby latch. They make a baby who's having trouble latching latch. But the problem with them is that they teach shallow latch. They teach the baby to latch onto an extended nipple. Latching effectively at the breast means latching onto the breast, not the nipple, and the nipple creates an artificial extension of the nipple and teaches a baby to nipple feed, but it does get them on the breast, and some babies can figure out how to breastfeed with a nipple shield. Most of the time, it does impact supply. Interestingly, she said that it sounded like her supply was okay, until about five months when she went back to work and started intentionally spacing out feeds. Now, her supply might have been right on the edge of being okay, or me or or maybe it was already a little compromised from prolonged use of the nipple shields, but it may have actually been the scheduling of feeds that that caused her baby to fall off the weight curve I love that her baby latch. Still around six months without a nipple shield that gives should give mothers a lot of hope to never give up on getting your baby to to latch to the breast. Nipple shields are a band aid, and I do sometimes use them. There are very specific scenarios where I find a nipple shield to be helpful for very temporary use to try to get a baby to latch onto the breast, especially if they have a preference for silicone, because they've been bottle fed for a long time. And then you try to put that bare breast in their mouth, and they're like, ah, what is this? This isn't a familiar texture. You put a nipple shield over the mother's breast, and they latch right on, and they start feeding out the breast, and they're like, Hey, this is great. And then you take the nipple shield off, and they just shield off, and they just keep going. So that's that's probably the most common reason I use nipple shields. But yes, they they because they teach a baby to latch very shallow. They can compromise milk production pretty easily because the baby isn't actually getting deep enough on the breast, to really drain the breast, or to really get kind of to the creamy, fatty hind milk, and then your milk supply can go down if your baby is under feeding. So just to answer her question for sure, yes, this is a common problem with nipple shields, and if you are using a nipple shield, it's okay, but you need to just maybe be keeping good track of your supply and your baby's weight gain. Sometimes I have moms do a little bit of insurance pumping if they're using a nipple shield. So they're pumping once or twice a day just to ensure that they keep up their supply. But we're always working to get the baby off the nipple shield, because nipple shields are kind of a pain in the butt. So but yeah, they sometimes, they sometimes do preserve a breastfeeding relationship, but just don't go at it alone. Make sure you're getting some guidance if you're using a nipple shield.

Hi, my name is Adrian. I just love your guys' information. I was calling because I wanted to know a little bit more about breastfeeding at nighttime, I listened to your breastfeeding mini series that you had earlier in your podcast and talked about feeding on demand. I was just wondering at nighttime if we need to wake up the baby at all, and how often we need to do that in that you know, what ages do we need to stop doing that. So, yeah, look forward to hearing more about it. Thank you for everything you guys do.

Bye. The question every mother is dying to know the answer to, when can I stop waking up the baby overnight? And unfortunately, there isn't, like, a set time or set number of hours, because a mother and baby are a unique dyad, and each mother and baby have a feeding rhythm that is unique to them based on the mother's rate of milk production and her breast milk storage capacity. So some women with very large breasts who make milk really quickly, can go 12 hours overnight and the baby sleeps, and they don't have to feed, they don't have to pump, and they still have plenty of milk. Other women max out at four or five. So you really, I can't give a very specific answer to that. It is dependent on the mother and baby's situation. It usually just happens naturally. Usually babies just start sleeping longer, and the mother's breasts adapt, and the whole system works well. In the beginning, you do need to wake your baby in the first two or three weeks, you should be making sure that your baby feeds at least every three hours overnight, definitely in the first two weeks, every three hours, if they are gaining weight well and they're back to birth weight by two weeks, if they are naturally sleeping four, maybe even five hours, that's fine. You can let that happen, and as that time starts to extend over time, if your breast can kind of keep up, it works. It's just a gradual process. Some babies never sleep that long. Some babies still need to feed every three or four hours for months, there's so much that goes into it.

So when they wake up during the night for months, you think that has to do with their needs, their breastfeeding needs, or, we don't really know, in the first three months, yes, and then after that could be anything, right? They're in the habit, yeah.

I mean, they start to develop habits. Around four months, they start to have developmental leaps that wake them up, and then they get into a habit. They get sick this. I see this all the time. Babies get sick for a week, they have a hard time sleeping, so they wake up frequently, and then we go to the breast to help them get back to sleep. Or during the day, they're less interested in feeding because they're sick and not feeling well. So they start feeding more overnight because they're it's just more comfortable for them, and then they get in the habit of night waking. So there's lots of reasons that it can happen. What I always try to do is help moms get to the point where they can at least get a one five hour stretch of sleep after about you know, yeah, if your baby's gaining weight, well. Uh, and they're on track after three or four weeks, and you're really sleep deprived if, if you can, if your baby will sleep up to five hours. Most mothers breasts can handle that, and that's a really restorative length of time for a mom to get sleep to kind of help get her through the long the long haul of frequent night waking.

Hi, ladies, my daughter is six weeks old. She's my first and at five weeks, she started to cry and refuse the breast. When I tried to breastfeed her, I started to do a little bit of research, and from what I could tell, it seems like a breastfeeding strike. I had never heard of this before. Neither had my sisters or my mom, who have all had multiple children, so I had a hard time finding resources to help. She's slowly gotten better over the last few days, but still refuses to breastfeed at some feeding time, any advice or tips on how to help her get over it and possible causes, things that I could change would be very helpful. Thank you, ladies.

This is actually pretty common breast feeding strikes or breast stress. It's also referred to. This happens, usually because of supply issues. It can be overproduction of milk, or it can be under production of milk. Sometimes babies get breast stressed from too much milk and the milk coming too fast, and it overwhelms them. Sometimes they get stressed at the breast because the milk supply is low, or they're doing a combination of breastfeeding and bottle feeding, and the flow at the breast is different than the flow at the bottle, so they start to get preferential to the bottle, and then they can start to refuse the breast. And as they get a little stressed at the breast, the mother's stress levels increase. And as the mother's stress levels increase, the baby's stress levels increase. And what can happen is you can get into this cycle of breast stress, where anytime we even get into a breastfeeding position, the baby automatically starts crying just just laying them down on their side and bringing them near the breast, and they're already upset and crying and rejecting the breast. And this is very, very stressful for mothers. Sounds terrible. It sounds so upsetting.

It's very upsetting, and it's really hard for moms to not kind of take it personally or wonder what they're doing wrong. And it's, it's, it's literally just like an automated response that happens in their brain. But fortunately, babies forget things really quickly, and also they still have the instinct to breastfeed. So this is almost like the baby's instinct is getting mixed up with their prefrontal cortex. Their prefrontal cortex is saying, No, I don't want to do this. And their instinct is saying, Yes, I do. And so they get stressed and frustrated. So the solution to it is scary as it seems. The solution to it is to take a full break from any attempts at breastfeeding. Now it depends on the baby's age. If they're very young, it might only be 24 hours. If they're older, her baby, I think, was six weeks, probably three or four days.

What about the supply in that time? Well, you have to pump to protect your supply, but if the baby's refusing the breast, you're pumping and bottle feeding anyway. Yeah. So you take a total breast break, no attempts at all at breastfeeding, not even putting them near the breast. Have you ever heard of a baby that just suddenly self weaned overnight, like a breast strike, a breastfeeding strike, that just that was it over and out? Baby's done, never going to breastfeed again? Because I know a mom who said her son stopped suddenly at six months and never wanted the breast again, so that too can happen. That's what this is. She is navigating her way back to it. But in the case of your friend who said her baby just stopped suddenly, they there was probably, it was probably a breast strike, and then they just didn't have the tools to get back to breastfeeding. They didn't know what to do, how to get back. So it ultimately ended in weaning, which is often how it goes if you don't know how to navigate it. But almost always, babies will go back. If you take a break, they forget. They get out of that, you know, prefrontal cortex, they get back into their instincts. And you bring them back to the breast when they feel, when it just aligns. There's a moment after you take a break where the baby's instincts take over, and everybody just feels in the mood, and it just happens naturally, and then you just build from there. It happens once, then you try it again and it works, and you try it again and it works, and now you're back on track. So it's time for cookies. Great.

All right, here we go with the breastfeeding cookies for today. Does a baby that farts often mean you need to cut something out of your diet?

I'm gonna guess no, because gastrointestinally, they're just kind of, especially in the beginning, don't they just have a lot of gas? Is a lot of gas? Yeah, digestion is, like consumes most of a baby's day and energy. Me okay I have in the early weeks. So no, it doesn't mean that okay. Are piercings okay to get done with breastfeeding. Now it depends on what kind of piercings we're talking about. Are we talking about? Definitely not nipple piercing if we're talking if we're talking that, then now we have a reason for nipple shades.

What is a nipple shade? Even?

What is that? No, you're gonna have to invent it. Now, a bra would count as a nipple shape. That's true. I didn't think about that. Okay, so what do you say? That must be what she means, I guess. Do you think this? Yeah, I'm thinking, No, I'm thinking she's talking like, is it okay to get your ears pierced, or maybe to get the baby's ears pierced? Oh, baby's you think, I mean, you can sure that's not gonna. Do you think that's what she's asking? I think that's probably what she's asking. Yeah, any type of piercing other than your nipple is fine during breastfeeding, do not pierce your nipple. Do I need to pump in between feeds the first few days postpartum to establish supply? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you do not unless your baby's not latching. And then yes, if your baby's not latching, then yes, yes, of course, you have to get the milk out of your breast. You need to stimulate your breast 10 to 1212, to 14 times per 24 hours. If it's not your baby, then it's your pump or your hand. But you don't need to go over and above and beyond what your baby needs to do. Have you ever heard of someone making breast milk butter for the baby?

Why do the baby need butter instead of breast milk? Why wait a minute? What? Okay, I just have, I mean, wow. What's the point? It just said making breastfeeding butter, I'd say, well, that's interesting. Never heard that before. And you know, whatever floats everyone's boat. But why would the baby need butter?

Maybe for the skin, like massage, like a beef tallow, but a breastfeeding butter for the skin, maybe, sure, go for it.

So you just have to churn it and churn it and churn it until it's better. Like every time I ever made homemade whipped cream, my mother always felt the need to say, don't make butter, as if it's that easy, just over whipping cream makes butter. Yeah, I don't know how. I don't know how well breast milk turns into butter, honestly.

Well, here we go. I mean, another, another creative Question of the week.

I love it. I love it. We'll have to inquire with the community. If I'm going to put made butter, I'm going to put that on our list for the Patreon Monday night chats. Okay,
if I have had a very hard time producing with my first is there hope it can change or improve with my second? Absolutely, yes. Yes, absolutely. If you get off to the right start, you get the right support. There are very few mothers out there that truly cannot produce a full milk supply if you get off to the right start. There are some cases, it's true, but very few. If I can hear a loud sucking noise, does that indicate a bad latch? Not necessarily, even clicking is not always a bad thing. It's an orange flag. It's definitely something you want to look into. If they're constantly clicking at the breast, then probably there is an underlying latch problem, but a loud sucking noise. I mean, we want to hear swallowing. I'm, you know, I should I should have to play me the sound.

She'd have to play you the sound I listen now, when we're checking voicemails next, send some sucking sounds. Okay, I mean us. I'm always when I'm doing virtual calls with people, I'm always like, Let me listen. Let me listen. Oh, my gosh. There's so much you can tell from listening to how a baby's feeding, if they're feeding well or not.

The whole idea of word getting out that the down to birth women are asking to have voicemails of sucking sounds. I'm just again, so uncomfortable. Be reasonable, people. Be reasonable. Oh my goodness. This is, this is just a day
in the life for me, I know pictures, nipple pictures, sucking sounds, oh yeah, I go into Instagram and instantly get crowning photos. Like a third of the time. I told that to a friend who absolutely didn't believe me, and I said, Doesn't everyone like, I just can't believe everyone doesn't. And, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of funny.

Hey, it's a natural process. What's the big deal? To me, it's like looking at a face. Yeah, you send me a crowning photo. It's like looking in your mouth. What's the difference? Yeah, the one, in fact, it's funny that you say that, because the crowning photo was a face presentation. So it was kind of one of those, like the entire face was out, was showing which is which is always fascinating. That is fascinating, but it's more alarming, because you see a face. You know, the first thing you see when you go into Instagram, in that case, is a face, and then you realize it's surrounded by vagina and vulva, and it's a crown. In photo, it's so close up, you sometimes don't know that that's what you're looking at, because. You don't see legs. You don't he's a super close up.

That's why my kids are not allowed to go on my phone. That's why you don't know what might be coming through on those text messages. Don't pick it up. All right. Here's a personal breastfeeding quickie. What were your biggest breastfeeding challenges?

Oh, I feel like everyone knows this, but maybe not mastitis, seven times. Yeah, that is a problem. Four times with one baby, three with the other. That's a lot. The first time or two was brutal and horrible, and the last time or two was easy, because I identified it quickly and resolved it quickly. But my God, did you need were you able to avoid antibiotics? No, I wish I did. I called, I went to my regular doctor, and I had a fever, and I it was I had no idea what was going on. Then I called my midwives, and she prescribed me an antibiotic. And I said, Is that safe when I'm breastfeeding? And she said, Sure, yeah, and I'm so sorry that I did that, so regretful that I did that. I just I can't even believe that I ever wasn't always as informed as I am today, but I have to be reminded sometimes, when I look back, I was not and I can't believe I did that, not to mention it was four times a day, and I had to set my stinking alarm every six hours. So I already was getting no sleep, but now I had to, it was terrible. It was terrible. And I stopped the course early with her consent, with her, okay, but I just it's, yeah, that was mine. Did you have one?

I had one case of I had one bout of mastitis, and it was a true bacterial mastitis because of how it presented. So most of the time, mastitis is not initially bacterial. It's usually just inflammatory. It usually doesn't need antibiotics. But in this case, it absolutely was, because it was, of course, my middle child who bit me, and I woke up with a raging breast infection, and I took one dose of the antibiotics, the only dose of antibiotics I've ever had in my whole life, one dose, one pill, and it went away instantly, and I never took the rest of the course. And that was it. But that wasn't my biggest breastfeeding challenge. My biggest breastfeeding challenge was my first child, who I now know, was tongue tied and had all the difficulties of a tongue tied baby, I was probably hyper lactating a little bit because of it, and she had, you know, very bad digestive challenges, very poor sleep, inconsolable for hours at a time. And yeah, just what you said. Man, if I knew then what I know now would have been a completely different experience, but we got through it, as one does, and we continued to breastfeed for 14 months, and it went away instantly at three months, just like classic colic, which is kind of just a, you Know, bullshit diagnosis, yeah, it's all about crying. Basically, it's turned it into diagnosis, like, let's just ignore the root cause and call it colic, right? Yes, we don't, because we don't know what it is. You've got a baby that screams and cries a lot, and it's a, yeah, it's and there's a reason, and there's a reason, and there are solutions beyond you have colic, your baby has colic, ride it out. That's we do that with everything. Write it out, swaddle her more. Always try to avoid labels and diagnoses of any kind, especially when they tell you there's no root cause and there's no treatment, yeah, well, that that's what happens. I mean, that's exactly what happens. It happens in the postpartum world. It's happening all the time. I mean, if you have an active child, they turn that into a diagnosis. If you have a teenager who's depressed, they turn that into a diagnosis. How about figuring out why the teenager is depressed? Right? And postpartum women, it really concerns me, because there's one route a woman can join a support group, develop friends, and feel like she's finally seen and understood and may even have a few laughs in the process of getting through a very tough period of her life, but if she goes straight to an obstetrician who decides, with having no knowledge and no education in the matter that she has postpartum depression, and prescribes her vitamin and prescribes her medication, and listen To episode 235, with Dr Roger mcphillen on this important topic, because that's all BS as well. The concern I have is she goes home, tells her husband she has a diagnosis, and he's like, Oh, few you're on meds, and he doesn't up his game. Give her more love and support. Talk to their parents, their friends, their support system, and say she's she's hanging on by a life. She's got a little she needs a lifeline here. She needs more support. It's like, Oh, phew, is she on medication? And she remains abandoned, unsupported, isolated, and all the things that led to the depression in the first place. So that's where that strong opinion comes from. I just think that diagnoses of any kind, we were talking about colic, same thing. A baby has colic. Oh, well, I guess it's just going to scream and cry all the time, and it's communication for the baby.

All right. Well, that's a wrap for this breastfeeding. Q and A, please continue to call in your questions to 802-438-3696. We love to answer them. If you value and appreciate this podcast, please just take a moment to go over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give us a five star review. It really helps with the podcast being more visible to more people. And we do all this work because we want to help mothers. So if you can just take a minute to help us, we really appreciate that. We are very thankful and and we'll see you next week. All right. Bye.

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.