Transcript:
Ep. 132 – Review of the Creepiest Breastfeeding Gadgets
This is Maureen Farrell and Heather ONeal and this is The Milk Minute. We’re midwives and lactation professionals bringing you the most up-to-date evidence for all things lactation. So you can feel more confident about feeding your baby, body positivity, relationships, and mental health. Plus, we laugh a little or a lot along the way. So join us for another episode.
Ooh, are you feeling the fall vibes? Happy Halloween, everybody. Do you have pumpkin spice in your veins? . Today we wanted to bring you a creepy, funny episode about terrifying. Breastfeeding gadgets, devices, whatever we wanna call them today. Apparatuses. That’ll make you squirm. make you scream sometimes. I bet.
Yeah. But before we get into that, we would like to thank our newest patron Caroline C. Oh yeah. Thank you so much Caroline. We really appreciate your contribution. Yes, thank you so much. I, Well I, Before we start, I had a question for you cuz I know you just went to your block party. Yeah. You were like a little nervous.
How, how’d that go? It was good. I actually put. These episodes together all day and right up until the point where the block party started and there was like 200 people there. And I had no transition time between like Jesus working and being around so many people. And a lot of them I’ve known since my childhood and, but I never see them.
So it’s like a lot of catch up, you know, It’s like a lot of pressure. And I just was like, Ugh. So I just wanted to shout out my friend Mary, because when I’m overwhelmed like that, Find the one person in the crowd that I can sequester myself with until I feel like communicating with other people. And Mary has a wonderful six month old baby who I’m obsessed with.
And it was about time for him to nurse. I was starting to, you know, branch out and talk to other people and all of a sudden I hear Mary go Heather and I turn Turnaround. And Heidi is under her nursing cover . All up in her business while her baby is nursing. And Heidi is like very touchy because she sees what I do for a living and at one point it’s like family help.
Yeah. Like, so if you see me on a Saturday, there’s a strong chance that there will be Heidi in the telehealth. Or if you want me to do a home visit, I might have to take her with permission. I always tell people in advance, especially if they have older kids for her to play with. Mm-hmm. , you know So anyway, one time I went on a home visit with Heidi and I turned my head for one second and looked back around and Heidi is thoughtfully holding the breast sandwich position on this lady’s breast.
And she’s looking up at her and she’s going, You’re doing a good job, . And I was just like, Heidi, first of all, you don’t have gloves on. Which is fine, but also you need to like keep your hands to yourself. Keep your hands to yourself, sticky, little sticky fingers. Believe it or not, you’re not actually getting paid for this consult today, so I’m gonna need you to go play with the other three year old here.
So anyway, future lactation consultant. Absolutely. Thank you, Mary, for being so kind and gracious. , what have you been into? Well, you just reminded me. I don’t know. It was a while ago now. But a friend of mine asked me for some help because she had to go on an urgent trip unexpectedly you know and didn’t really think much of it.
Just packed. Her pump went. She’s a nine month old, but when she got back he was refusing to nurse. Mm. And so we tried like everything we could think of, you know, and it wasn’t working. And finally she was like, Look, I have to go. Like, we’re going back home. You know, They just come here for the summers. And she was like, Can we just try some peer pressure?
Like, do you wanna come over and be topless all day with me with lira and we’ll see where, who wants to nurse where? And I was like, Absolutely I do. We went over, you know, we were tits out to the wind sitting on the floor with the kids. You know, Lira was like, Open Buffet. Amazing. Her son was like, These are interesting, but I will not partake
Yeah. Although there was one moment where he climbed on my lap and Lara was nursing on one side and he like, he like assumed the position, Uhhuh and like, , you know, put a hand out tentatively. And then he was like, Actually, this toy looks more interesting. And we were like, No, no. So sad. So at least we were not successful that day.
I’ll have to catch up with her and see if she managed to turn things around, but we did do lots of counseling on pumping and commiserating and, you know, screaming into the void. , it’s so hard, man. And. But it was, you know, it was nice to spend time with a friend, even if it was , even if it was in an urgent nursing situation.
man, that’s, Yeah, Bodies are weird. People are weird, you know? And these kids become their own person. Yeah. Which is like, you can’t control their experience, you know? You can do a point, but the older they get, the more outside experience plays into it, and it’s just, You, you can’t force it. You can’t force anything when they start to move on their own and just like, Yeah.
Yeah, it’s tough. Speaking of unexpected body things and also creepy things let me run this one by you. Okay. So my last period Yeah. Was a bloodless period. Have you ever seen this? Was it? It was like my uterine lining. But there was less than a teaspoon of blood the entire time, so it was just like tissue.
Whoa. It was super weird. Weird. And that’s not like me. And I was, I keep forgetting to look into it, , but I’m a midwife like I should. Freaking what? No, but it was right on time. I got it the day I was to get it. What did it look like? It just looked like; Did you take pictures? No. It was like a mixture of mucus and just like black tissue.
I want to know. And weird. And that’s it. And I was just like, the endometrium was just undernourished. Was it? I don’t. I don’t know what’s happening, or it’s like it forgot to turn the faucet on to flush it out, and it was like, meh. Get rid of it anyway. Did you have one after it? ? No. I’ll be okay if it happens again.
You need to send me pictures. A couple weeks, I’ll tell you in a couple weeks. But it was very strange. Wow. And like, do you wear a pad? Like It was weird. Like I put a pad on and then I go because a tampon felt too dry. Yeah. And then I would, they always feel too dry. I’d like sit down to pee and I’d, This is so tmi, but I’d like pull my underwear down with the pad.
And the pad would just grab the. Tissue mucus trunks and just pull it down and I’d be like, Where is the freaking blood? What is this? Are you pregnant? No. Are you sure? Yeah, I mean, I got it on time. It was like, okay, I’m just saying like, Are you sure though? Pretty sure it’d be very; I’d know by now because I vomit like crazy when I’m pregnant.
Okay. I’m just giving you a second. I will pee on a pee test. I kind of want you. In this bathroom right adjacent to our recording room. After we’re done. Okay. Anyway, now I’m just gonna be looking at you weird all day. Yeah. Creepy though. Very creepy. Creepy. Very creepy. Yeah. Haunted. Period. Well, do we have a question before we hop into it?
We do. Okay. So our question today is from Sammy in the Facebook group. Sammy says, How do I know if my clogged duct is turning into mastitis? The pain is horrible. Well as we learned recently, there really isn’t like a huge difference. A clogged duct is essentially inflammatory mastitis, not necessarily bacterial mastitis.
So pain level is absolutely subjective. And it doesn’t really tell us a whole lot about what’s going on, except that we definitely have some inflammation. So, I would say initiate the protocol regardless of ice, ibuprofen, acetaminophen for your pain. Absolutely. Lymphatic massage and normal breast drainage, so feeding or pumping normally.
And then if you don’t see an improvement in 24 hours. Call your doctor and get the antibiotics right. So it’s more of a time thing. It’s not actually a symptom thing, it’s a time thing. Yeah. And also it try to figure out if you have an underlying oversupply issue. Mm-hmm. So treating oversupply is gonna be absolutely huge and.
If you have any dysbiosis, so if you did like a lot of recent antibiotics, if you had a C-section, you definitely had antibiotics. Oh yeah. And we’re looking at L Salia, I think, and one other for probiotics can’t, I can’t pronounce it. But we will link our mastitis episodes, 129 and 130 in the show notes for you.
Absolutely, and good luck. All right, let’s take a quick break to thank our sponsors of our creepy episode, and then we are gonna talk about terrifying breastfeeding devices.
You guys. Breastfeeding for Busy Moms? My little breastfeeding clinic isn’t so little anymore. I’m so excited that not only can people book with you in person here or virtually, but they can book with the other IB CLCs in. We also do accept some insurance directly. A lot of insurance will actually pre-approve you for a certain amount of visits, even prenatally.
So please head on over to breastfeeding for busy moms.com and check out the services tab to see if your insurance is approved. Book with me or one of my IBCLCs, and we would love to work with you. You can do prenatal consults. What else can they do, Heather? Well, I often work with people who have supply issues.
We’ve got pumping, troubleshooting. We’ve got preparing to go back to work, weaning, starting solids. We really cover the entire journey. So if you’re struggling, stop struggling and just schedule with me or somebody on my team at breastfeeding for busy moms.com. dot com.
Welcome back, everybody, to your spooky, scary episode of breastfeeding, torture, , breastfeeding, torture. Everybody just like held up their three girl scout fingers. Yeah. In solidarity, . Yeah. Well first step, Heather. . I wanted to bring us back toward our history of the breast pump episode, but to one that I don’t actually think we included in there,
Mm. This is a patent from some dude named Cunningham called the quote, Full torso device. What? ? Yeah, so it’s basically looks like, I mean, it must be leather, like a leather harness with these like, cups over your boobs with straws coming out. , That baby sucks from the straws. . Why? I’m gonna assume this was like if baby can’t latch for some reason, that this is like the solution, like it’s just supposed to fall out.
Into the straw? Well, well there’s like a flange in there that fits over the nipple. Okay. And then the straws attached to it. But strap in everybody cuz this looks horrifying. Oh my God. How do you even clean that? You know, shout out to all the similarly terrifying Victorian baby bottles that had straws that nobody cleaned.
Right. The most terrifying. Oh, I hate it. But yeah, this is from 1910. Is it that one on the right? Yeah, it’s the one on the right and it just, I’m just, It looks like an sns. It does look like a supplemental nursing thing, sort of, but also like we are maybe a Dori sort of Yeah, you’re like a fem bot using an sns.
Yeah. But instead of the baby being on your nipple with the straw. The baby is like near your nipples, sucking out of a nipple on a straw . I feel it also just like the way that the straps, like there’s straps over the shoulders, under the arms, around the waves. You know what it looks like Is one of those Lowe’s guys tool belt?
It does. Or like the roofing harnesses. Yes. It looks like a roofing harness. Lows belt. So you’re strapped in and sucked dry. Yeah, but is the bag, so it’s kind of like a nipple shield and an SNS had a love child and strapped itself to a utility belt, who also then like decided that they liked bdsm. Yeah.
nothing says sexy time, like being hooked up to a bunch of stuff that’s restricting and sucky in the worst ways. It’s just this, I, you know, this is the first thing I found when I was like, What? Creepy breastfeed. Oh my God. I mean, our level of creepy. I would give it like a six, I think on the level of physical torture.
This might be like a nine. It might be a nine, but also, It’s creepy and scary how dangerous and disgusting it probably was. Absolutely. Absolutely. It just, we’re not into this . Oh my goodness. What’s next up? Okay, next up. Which we’re gonna, we’re gonna go, you know, Way back to the time of the first nipple shields, which were made of lead.
Oh yeah. Suck on that. Ew. That’s absolutely terrifying. Yeah, they were like, It’s weird. His teeth just never came in . I, I don’t know if that’s a symptom. I’m just guess I don’t know, but like it took a really long time for humans to know that lead was bad. So for possibly people with more money. , I’m not really sure.
We also had glass nipple shield. Which just in many ways sound horrifying. I mean, can you imagine the person that went to the glass blower and they were like, Hey, Floyd, would you make me a piece of glass that looks like a sombrero that goes on my nipple? He was probably like, What do you want? Yeah, And I
So when I first saw this, I was like way more terrified cuz I just imagined. The, So it’s like, it’s shaped like a bell and then there’s like a ball on the end. Hmm. And I really just imagined to the baby latching onto the ball and I was like, How did these break off in baby’s mouths? Like, what was going on?
But I guess there was a rubber teeth that like fit onto the ball. Still kind of horrifying, but slightly better. Like what if that broke while you were using it Also nipple stem at zero. At zero. at absolute zero. Nothing. But like, I just, after having. Had a painful enough breast infection to feel like glass was being shoved in my nipples.
Seeing that, I’m like, absolute no. Yeah. I’m a hard no on that as well. That is definitely super creepy. Yeah. Oh, where are we going next? Okay, well, so I was trying not to do too much overlap with old breast pumps cuz pretty much all of those are creepy. So if you wanna listen to that, we have an early episode on it, but, you know, I was like, let’s go all the way back, right?
Like to the Iron Age 3000 years ago. They , I found this little picture. Like kind of cute little like ceramic, I assume baby bottles from like the Austria region. And, and I was like, Okay, these are a little bit creepy, Like maybe I’ll go along with this. And they’re like, They, they’re like these little round pots with little feet and then like amorphous animal heads on one side and a tail on the other.
And then like an opening at the top for feeding babies milk. But then I found, then I found this horrifying creation of, Oh, oh, I just scrolled down. Ew. This one is supposed to look like a pig and you drink. From the snout, but it in fact looks more like a night. that you are feeding your baby their milk from
Yeah. So it definitely looks like a tea kettle. If a tea kettle was a pig and it looks like you pour the milk in the top of the pig’s head and you must hold the handle on the top of the pig and like tip it into the baby’s mouth. Mm-hmm. as the baby sucks on the, through the pig’s nose. Ew. . But then it, I like that it has feet so it can just, like, you can set it down, it doesn’t get knock over this feet and it kind of just looks like.
If you’d maybe never seen a pig before, But a toddler drew one for you, . And you were like, That’s definitely what a pig looks like. And then you made it into a baby bottle and then they drew eyes on it. Yeah. With paint or something. That’s the worst part. And the eyes are very separated and like downturned at the side.
So it looks like a sad deranged forward facing in the way that like predator eyes are. . Yeah. Oh, you’re right. Oh yeah. A predator pig. You know what I’m thinking about the whole time looking at this is like how many of them had their little prehistoric blogs about bottle refusal? You know, like I just could not get my baby to suck on that pigs now for anything.
I’ve got pigs snout, refusal, and it’s affecting my ability to hunt and gather to some. It was so, It’s so creepy. It is definitely like the nightmare baby. How do they know it was a baby bottle? Yeah, I don’t know. Oh, they found, I think they were saying they found like actual, like remnants of milk when they analyzed the particles and stuff in some of them, and then they just assumed from the rest shaped Similarly.
What if it was pigs? Milk could have been, You can milk anything with TE’s Barker. You . . Yes, you can. I imagine pig milk is probably pretty similar to human milk. They eat about the same that we. Like they’re omnivores. Yeah. Can you imagine? I can. Well, we’re gonna go noodle on that. We’re gonna Google it, the content of pig milk, and we’re gonna take a quick commercial break and when we get back, we’re gonna talk about more creepy things.
I tell all my patients who are brand new parents to put a list of soothing techniques on their refrigerators so they can both remember what they’ve already tried for soothing baby. I like to put a happy tummy on that list. It’s a natural herbal wrap that soothes and relieves pain instantly, and it’s so fuzzy.
It’s so great. It helps baby sleep at night, resolves. Call it gas or constipation, and it’s great because it has. Cute animal on the front for when they’re doing tummy time, which provides gentle pressure to help them get their tooths out. And you know what? They’re not just for babies. They have them for teens and adults too.
Mm. So if you’re struggling with those period pains, get your herbal warm, happy tummy wrap today by going to happy tummy.com. And if you love us, enter promo code milk Minute 10 for 10% off. That’s Milk Minute 10 for 10% off your happy tummy. Thank you so much for supporting the show.
If you’re pumping milk away from your baby at all at work or wherever you go, you deserve a bougie product. To make that easier for you, you deserve a series chiller and frankly, I could not live without one right now. The series Chiller is an excellent way to store your breast milk safely, and it keeps your breast milk cold for 24.
It is the only thing I use to transport my breast milk to and from work while I’m working. It’s got a sleek and beautiful design. Lots of great colors, high quality materials and manufacturing series chill. Also has other products that you might wanna check out too. My personal favorite is the milk stash.
They have a great nipple shield that actually changes colors and it’s not clear like all the other ones. And you know how we feel about that . If you want to have your very own series chiller, please go to the Lincoln, our show notes and use code milk minute 15 at checkout. That’s Milk Minute 15 for 15% off your series.
Chill products. Enjoy.
All right. Welcome back everybody. Last we checked, we were talking about pigs milk, right? And I did look it up for you because I know inquiring minds want to know. All right, so the medians of protein, fat, and lactose concentrations. , our 5.85% protein, 5.4% fat, and 4.6% lactose. So this means that sows appear to have comparatively higher milk fat concentration than us.
You know, cuz we’re, we’re at about 4%, but not so much milk protein or lactose. Yeah. Interesting. So not too far off. Wonder what it tastes. Well, it can’t be good because if it was, they’d be milking ’em and selling it. No, you know what though? It’s, I think it’s not that. I think it’s that pigs can be very difficult animals to manage and they have eight teeth.
Even better . So that would be, Can you imagine though the milking machine for that and also you’d have to suspend the pig in midair because there’s not enough clearance. You like drag on the crowd. ? I think there probably, yeah, those are probably the reasons we’re not milking pigs, . Okay. If you can think of any other reasons that we’re not milking pigs, you can email us at Milk Minute podcasts@gmail.com.
Anyway, the next thing I wanted to talk about was breastfeeding cor. There’s this cute little window version , but it’s honestly, it’s like a corset that goes all the way to the top of your boobs, and there’s just holes covered by little breast pads that you like. FLA up. Oh, there it’s like little eyelashes , like the eyelashes on your VW bug.
You know, they just like, blinky like mm-hmm. , like your boobs are blinking. Oh, the, the button one next to it seems kind of horrifying though. Cuz I feel like your nipples would be straight in the seam. Oh yeah. Where the buttons go. Oh yeah, like cuz that’s just like a string of buttons, like right down the nip line.
It’s amazing what we’ve been able to do. for millennia, y’all. I mean, we’re just trying to stay fashionable. We’re trying to stay hot for our partners, trying to feed our babies. What a nightmare. The last one is my favorite. I’m this one. Okay, so you know of corsets have laces, right? Well, this one has a set of laces for each boob, , and it looks like they’re all connected, like each set of laces is connected together on like a button.
And you like unbutton it and open to feed and then you like pull the laces tight over to the . But imagine if you have such big boobs that you’re like, like a, like a can of biscuits in there. . Oh my gosh. Yeah, your little hotdog nis after your baby’s been suck, like just sticking right after you. I just imagine it’s like trying to zip up a purse that’s too full where you have to have a friend push the sides together so you can get it to zip.
Or like when you have to lay down on the bed to do your jeans up, do you think you have to do the same on this year? You have to lay back and you’re like, Or you have to have a bathroom buddy to go with you so they can help lace you back up. You would definitely need a bathroom buddy for any of these corsets, I think.
Oh my God. All right. Well, yeah, that, No thank you, . Well, I was having trouble finding more terrifying gadgets, but I did stumble upon some. Really horrible. Interesting. I’m gonna call these medical muddles around breast milk. Oh, good. . Okay. So some interesting historic applications of human milk as medicine.
Right. Cuz we’ve known this as pretty magical stuff for a while. However I’m glad we’ve moved on from injections into the urethra for gonorrhea What? and vaginal pessaries that contained human milk. Yeah. Whoa. Go back to the part where you’re injecting me with human milk in the urethra. Yeah. Can, first of all, like this is like this is very you know, like several hundred years old medicine, so I’m sure whatever device they were using to inject was horrible and disgusting and dirty into the urethra catheter.
Of human milk. What? Ugh. . Actually, that’s kind of interesting. I wonder if that’s where the idea of milking the bladder came from as far as, mm-hmm. , you know, like if they’re doing surgery and they mm-hmm. are wondering if they nicked your bladder, they’ll actually fill it with baby formula. What? Wait a second.
You didn’t know that? No. What? Yeah. To see if it comes through the Foley. No, I’m joking. I’m not joking. What? Yeah, though. Yeah. How does that not immediately give you a uti? It probably does, but you already have a Foley, so, And you’re already getting antibiotics. I, I did not realize that happened. Oh, yeah. I thought, Well, they put.
Hold on, let me just, let me make sure they didn’t discontinue that practice in the past couple years. Hold on. So this was a nurse on like a chat room and they say, Okay, I’ve only been a nurse for a year and I know I don’t know everything. Last night we did a C-section and the doctor told me he wanted me to irrigate the bladder through the Foley with baby formula.
I seriously thought he was joking. Apparently he thought he may have nicked the bladder. I know the baby formula is supposed to be sterile or. That just seems super strange to me. Does anyone else do this? ? Oh my goodness. Yeah. I get, Wow. Anyway, because if you push it through and then you see formula in the cavity, then yes, there’s a hole in the bladder.
Sure. I just assumed they would use like a dye or something. Maybe they also do, maybe. I don’t know. But anyway, that happens. Wow. Terrifying Things still happen today. Everybody. Happy Halloween. Anyway. Slightly less terrifying. But interesting thing that I came across while I was looking at this is people used to use butter, human milk butter as part of a treatment for tuberculosis.
It for eating or I don’t, I couldn’t like a that you put on the outside of your chest. I honestly have no idea. , I need to know. We’re not injecting it anywhere, are we? You know, , hopefully not that you’re, we’re free basing human milk to inhale it into the lungs. Well, you know, it like we’ve known for a very long time that, you know, some of the things we eat come through human milk and things in your blood.
So there was a long period of time that wet nurses would take like medical treatments as a proxy for the sick baby. Oh. And probably have zero choice about it. Right. So, Wet nurses used to take opiates, which was probably just, you know straight up opium, just, just like trafficking and, and mercury to treat syphilis in the child.
And yeah, I’m pretty sure both of those do breasts into breast milk. Oh, well, Kind of hor, it’s horrifying. Can, That’s both of them with mercury. Oh, that’s awful. And then things like, you know, this was in the era of like bloodletting, right? And like balancing the humors so wet nurses would have bloodletting and scarification and cupping and purging both ends to treat sick babies.
Right? They were like, okay, we’ll just treat them. Yeah, I’m sure that did not help the breastfeeding rates . I’m sure rich moms everywhere. Were like, I’m definitely using a wet nurse because I don’t want anyone coming near me and making me vomit and poop myself and blood let and take opium and. Mercury and like, Oh my God.
Truly terrifying. That actually really is, That’s probably the scariest one. I’m, I’ve actually had the thought about what if I made butter out of human milk, what would it be like? I’ve made ice cream out of it. What? Tell me more. Yeah, so do you remember the story about Ivan? Leaving all of my frozen milk out with Griffin?
Yeah. Right. If you guys are unfamiliar, I didn’t really pump a lot with Griffin, and when I did it was really hard and I finally got something close to like 50 ounces in the freezer, and then Ivan had a sleepwalking issue that is mostly resolved since, and he went and opened the freezer and took out the milk and put it on the counter.
Back to bed. Oh yeah, I remember that now. And then it all thaw out to room temperature and I cried, but then I made ice cream out of it because I was like, Okay, well we’re just using it. We put it in an omelet. I was like, We’re all drinking milk today. Everybody . And I was like, Everybody drink up. She’s got crazy ice
But yeah, I mean, it was good. I like, I think I mixed some cream in and you know, just like use, it was fine. It was just, That’s awesome. Mm-hmm. . Well, you know, breastfeeding’s not always terrifying, but no. Some of the ideas surrounding it are, some of the gadgets are, I think, Overall, we’re headed to a good place.
I think so too. A less, less terrible place. Although, here’s my fear is that Tony Robbins keeps going on his health book promo tour that he, he just wrote like a thousand page book or something about health and aging, and he’s talking about like, Placenta’s being the answer. Mm-hmm. for anti-aging, which maybe, you know, because of the stem cells, who knows?
But then we’ve got all this great research on microbiome and breast milk. I’m stem cells and breast milk. Oh my God. Shut up. If the government finds out that we are the answer with all of our magical properties to antiaging as well as chronic health conditions, they’re gonna start farming us and it’s gonna turn into the fricking Handmaid’s Tale I think.
While it does feel like we’re living in a dystopian reality, sometimes we don’t need to imagine quite such a terrifying welcome to my brain, . It’s not real. I know that, but it is a little questionable that all the billionaires who are like the life coaches to presidents. . Hear me now. They are the life coaches to the presidents.
They’re like placentas. That’s it. breast milk. This is it. I, I agree. And the fact that people sometimes are not allowed to take them home from the hospital. I’m like, What are you doing with them? Yeah. They wouldn’t let me take mine. That was terrifying. Creepy President the nurse. Yeah, the nurse looked at me and she was like, It’s actually already behind a locked door, so I couldn’t get it for you if I wanted it.
And I was like, Don’t you find that odd? That’s uncomfortable. Hello. Well, everybody, we’re just, you know, here every day to point out the uncomfortable parts of life, , but I hope that you all are having a wonderful Halloween, wonderful fall pumpkin spice season, whatever it is that you’re enjoying right now.
Yes. Unless you’re in Australia, in which case it’s spring or something. . That’s true. We do have some listeners there. Hey folks. Hello. What’s up? Let’s take a quick break. So thank a sponsor and we’re gonna come back and we’ve got a really good award today. Think you’re gonna love. Yes. So excited. Okay,
Heather, have I told you about my new favorite place to get nursing bras? Ooh, tell me. It’s called the Dairy Fairy. The dairy Fairy offers bras and tanks that try to solve the challenges that come with nursing and pumping. Their ingenious intimates are beautiful, supportive, and can be worn all day. Oh, you’re allowed to look good and feel good about yourself while wearing a nursing bra.
Absolutely. And they offer sizes up to a 52 G. Oh, amazing. I’m so glad a company has finally realized that a DUP is not a large Absolutely. And I, it’s so affirming to feel included in sizing and not feel like I’m asking for too much that clothing fits my body. Well, what else do we. Well, if you guys follow the link in our show notes, you can use the Code Milk Minute at checkout for free shipping on all domestic orders.
Oh, thank you so much. Dairy Fairy. Absolutely. Once again, that’s the link in our show notes and use the code milk minute for free shipping on all domestic orders.
All right. Welcome back everybody. I love my award section, and today I have a special patron to thank as well as give an award to, Okay, so this goes to Anne Marie Hext of Milk Maiden’s, Lactation in Manhattan Beach, California. I a mm-hmm. Yes. So Anne Marie says that she’s celebrating a year in private practice as an IBCLC, and she shared with me some of her obstacles and wins, and she told me I could read them on the.
Anne Marie says The biggest obstacle in launching my private practice was me. I was lacking the courage needed to take this big leap. It wasn’t until I began sharing my dream out loud that it started to become a reality. Been there girl, and then it’s like a runaway train. The support and encouragement from my colleagues helped me see that I had everything I needed to be successful once I recognized that there was no stopping me.
I work with clients in other states, other countries, in even remote areas in my surrounding community that lack any lactation services. Those are some of my favorite visits. The commitment and determination of a breastfeeding parent who is willing to hunt down a consultant to get the care they need is inspiring.
The extra care and attention I can provide at a home visit is an opportunity I just don’t get in a hospital or outpatient setting. One of my absolute favorite moments of this past year was a home visit for a parent of twins whose partner was away for work, ugh, knowing that they could use a little extra help.
I stayed a little bit longer so that I could do a tummy time session. Each one of the babies as I lay on the floor chatting about lactation and watching this little peanut, they rolled over for the first time. My client’s eyes grew wide and their face absolutely lit up. That moment of joy and excitement carried me all the way home with a smile on my face that just wouldn’t fade.
Although it’s only been one short year, I cannot see myself doing anything but this, and I can’t wait for year number two. Oh and the hardest part, definitely social media. I suck at it . I’m longing for the day when I can justify the expense of pain. Someone gonna do that for me, honestly, My dog could do better than I can
Aww. It’s so lovely of you to share that with us. I, I think we can really both relate to a lot of that. A hundred percent. And I think a lot of other IBCLCs who have always wanted to do private practice mm-hmm. , who have been like teetering on the edge for a really long time, are going to be really thrilled to.
Yeah. And you took the leap and that you did it. Yeah. Good job. Well Anne Marie, I think we’re going to give you the Courageous Consultant Award today. Oh hell, yes. We are Anne Marie and we wish nothing but the best for you. You courageous consultant. I hope your practice continues to fly and that you keep getting to serve all of the patients that you get to serve.
Absolutely. Well, thanks for tuning in everybody to kind of a silly, silly episode today. The way we change the system that’s not set up for lactating parents, in addition to just having a good time, is educating ourselves, our friends, our family. Providers, everybody. If you guys like the podcast today or any other day, please share with a friend.
Share on social media. Join our Patreon. We would love to have you there. You get access to like private questions with us, special videos, bonus content, early episodes, all that. So just head over to patreon.com/milk minute podcast. You all are the best and we hope you have a great week. Bye bye.
Sources:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/sucky-history-of-the-breast-pump-180980653/
