Transcript:
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. All right. Welcome back to The Milk Minute. Welcome, welcome everybody. Today we’re going to bring back an old favorite theme for an episode. Yeah. Our first episode ever was a Myth Buster episode and it’s one of our most popular episodes to date. And we thought everybody needs a little bit of fun in their lives at this point in time.
The weather’s changing. It’s getting a little colder. The pandemic is still trickling on, it’s still pandemicing around, which we’ve just coined that new term, and we’ve given you a lot of heavy hitter episodes lately that have been pretty long, in depth, research-based, which are necessary, but we gotta have fun every once in a while.
Not that those aren’t fun, but let’s really throw our hair out of a bun. Yeah, this is a good one if you just want to like antagonize your mother-in-law or something and just put it on, on the speaker, if she’s in your house. What do you mean if? Anyway yeah, so we’re going to bust some myths. But first let’s do a listener question.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. The question we’ve chosen today is from Samantha Thomasson. And she is a member of our Breastfeeding for Busy Moms Facebook Group. And she says, I just started my first period while breastfeeding. Welcome. He is 11 weeks old and last time with my daughter, it really slowed my supply. Is there something that can help me or did anyone else go through something like this?
The answer is yes. Many people see their period return eight weeks, 12 weeks, six months, whatever. It’s normal. Has to happen sometime. For most people, it does not affect their supply. And from what I’m reading there, if your period is already back and you haven’t noticed a change in supply, you might not be, it might not happen.
Because usually what we see is two to three days before you bleed people are like, oh my gosh, what’s going on my supply? Oh, it’s my period. Right? You have this big estrogen progesterone surge, and then it drops off if you’re not pregnant and it kind of just go, the drop off is what triggers the menstrual cycle to start.
So, you know, and then even a little bit after there’s a smaller little blip in estrogen after the week of your period. But that one usually doesn’t affect anything because it’s such a small spike, but sometimes that big peak and then valley of the estrogen progesterone combination can show a temporary dip in supply, but it’s kind of hard to determine if it’s that or if maybe it’s just the natural progression of your milk supply dwindling as the day goes on like a natural change in volume.
But typically what we see is if you keep at it and you’re persistent and you keep breastfeeding, it’ll resolve. Yeah, and we have some evidence that taking extra calcium and magnesium could help. It’s not super definitive, but also that’s not going to hurt you. So if you’re not already getting a good amount of that in your daily multivitamin, that you are definitely for sure taking, right.
Just, just, you know, maybe take a little bit extra the second half of your cycle. Okay. So the levels that we’re going for here. For calcium it’s suggested that people who are lactating take 1300 milligrams daily baseline. If you’re already taking that much every day and you see a dip in your supply while you’re menstruating, you could add a couple, a little extra, you could do like 1500 but that’s probably not necessary every single day.
And then for magnesium the RDA kind of varies based on what website you check of course, but it’s usually around 400 milligrams daily. Magnesium is pretty safe to supplement with though. You can easily go up to a thousand milligrams. What’s really going to happen if you’re taking too much, is you get diarrhea.
Hm. So, and, and like, it’s not, you’re not just gonna like explode. You’re gonna be like, oh, okay, that’s getting a little loose. Let me like, take a little less magnesium. So if you’re not already taking about 400 daily, you should start that. And then if you’re noticing a dip in your supply, you know, maybe try 800 a day for the last four days of your menstrual cycle and see how that goes. But, you know, be smart with these. Increase your supplements incrementally in small increments, you know, but both magnesium and calcium are pretty safe to play around with, in those lower ranges. Yep. Yep. Okay.
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Well, let’s talk about some myths. Yeah, I’m pretty pumped to talk about these myths because these are things that we hear regularly, and I am the kind of person that does the stare and blink when I’m not sure what to say next. Like, somebody will tell me that their mother-in-law told them that if they would just eat more steak, they would make more milk.
And I just like, I don’t want to offend anybody if they dearly love this family member. Or if they have this preconceived notion, but it’s like everything I have in my being to not be like seriously?! Oh, I know. Sometimes I just, like, I like smile a little and I like look away and I’m like, what? How do I not be mean?
Yeah. You’re like recalibrating, recalibrating. Ready? Yeah. Let’s talk about that. Okay. So are you ready for Myth #1? Hit me. Okay. So this one is X food, insert, broccoli, cauliflower, garlic, onion, spicy food, coffee, whatever is going to give your baby colic. So you can’t eat it while breastfeeding. Oh, my gosh, this one is so sad.
Those poor Italians. Is there anything they cook that doesn’t have this delicious things in them? I mean, my God, like you would never be able to eat again. Well, and the spicy one kills me. Cause I’m like probably two thirds of the world routinely eat food that white Americans would think of as like real spicy.
Right. How ethnocentric do you have to be to think that your bland, boring, brown diet is the standard for lactation. It just doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. So if we just take a 10,000-foot view of all of the breastfeeding/ chest feeding parents in the entire world, just zoom out a little bit and think about all the varying types of food and diets that they have that still successfully feed their babies.
It should hopefully allow you to take the pressure off and trust that your baby’s gut is maturing and changing in a way that is appropriate. Right? And that’s key because yes, sometimes certain proteins or other elements of what we eat do get absorbed into our bloodstream in large enough quantities that then we see it in milk in large enough quantities that maybe it’s going to have an effect on baby.
However, even if that’s happening, it’s usually recommended that you kind of see if you can just push through it. Because baby’s gut is maturing and changing and we want that to happen. And part of that process is them being introduced to new components of your milk. Yeah. And this happens with you also. So your GI system is your brain’s connection to the outside world.
Your brain is just this organ floating around in your skull. It doesn’t have fingers itself to experience the world. It has your fingers, and it has to get that data from your fingers to figure out what it’s touching. And your gut is the data that tells your brain what your environment is like, and are you healthy?
Are things good? Are we functioning in a place that’s safe for us? Is there poison everywhere? Is there a lack of food? Are there chemicals? You know, and when we eat a brand-new food, like the first time I had kimchi, my brain was like, hold up, what’s going on here? Your gut microbes were like woo party.
They were, I don’t know if it was the kind of party where you have a hangover. Yeah, my gut was like calculating calculating. Okay. This feels different. It feels like a lot. We’re not, we, we don’t necessarily have the right bacteria to deal with this now, but if I kept eating my gut would adjust accordingly.
Welcome new bacteria. Let’s make room for you. We’re in this subdivision here. Yeah. And my brain would no longer be controlling, like inflammatory processes to try to eliminate that. It would just be like, oh, I guess this is what we’re doing now. So our guts are meant to be able to change based on our environments.
And if you don’t allow that process to happen, you’re limiting the breadth of experience that your gut can have. And you have to give your baby’s gut a chance to live a little. Yeah. And like, yes. Then sometimes even beyond that, we see issues where we want to eliminate foods. But one time of saying I ate broccoli or a new one I heard recently was watermelon.
And then baby cried all night and it was definitely that. And they never ate again. That, that is not even like correlation, right. That’s like, not even enough for us to say anything. But we can, what we can do is we can write that down, put it away. Next time we eat that food, if the same thing happens, write it down again.
You know, if we see that three or more times, and the reaction is not getting better, then we can consider eliminating that food. Right. And this is really just getting to know your body and your baby’s body. And then re-introducing later. Yeah. This isn’t like when your kid is 30 years old and they go to put a watermelon in their mouth as their mother.
You’re not like, you know, you can’t eat watermelon. Right. Right. So, you know, this is really why I hate this the most and why you hate this the most is because there’s a lot of shame. Right. A lot of people from a different generation where this was a widely accepted fact, rather than a myth. No, it was an answer, right?
It was an answer to normal discomforts of being a baby and turning it into a problem that you caused them. Right. But then we see that those people were shamed by their healthcare providers and now those people are then shaming parents now. Being like, well, I told you not to have garlic because my doctor told me not to have garlic when I had you.
And now you’re just hurting your baby. And so it’s like, you made a bad choice that hurts your baby, shame on you. Fuck that. We’re done. How about this. When these types of things happen and providers who don’t know anything about breastfeeding recommend formula, and you begin formula with your baby, their gut has the same kind of process that it has to go through to accommodate this new type of food.
And so then you call the pediatrician and you say, my infant, who just started formula this week, like three days ago, is experiencing constipation and gas and fussiness. And you know what they tell you to do? Stick it out for at least oh week before changing formulas so like, why can’t we stick watermelon out for a week and see what happens?
Yeah. Like it’s okay to do that with formula, but not broccoli. Sorry. Anyway, we’re here to say screw that. That doesn’t make any sense. If you’re curious, about like more of the clinical aspect of that and kind of the steps, The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine has a protocol on managing allergens while breastfeeding.
So you can look that up and just understand what a complicated process it really is. We can put that one in the show notes actually for your ease of access. All right, let me see number two. Okay. Oh I know number two. Oh, what is that? Number two is that bigger boobs make more milk and smaller boobs make less milk.
You know what the difference is in the size y’all? Fat. Fat. Yep. And fat doesn’t make milk. No fat cells don’t make milk. They do make something to hold onto. Yeah. It turns out our glandular tissue is like, not that big. It’s like, even when you see people who would have considered themselves, flat-chested, you know before breastfeeding, like they, they’re probably going to see a little bit of an increase in their size.
But like, oh my gosh, maybe they have A cups then, you know, or like B cups or these like still sizes that I just feel like are really small because I’m like moving out of normal cup sizes these days. And I work with clients who are like, oh honey, an F is nothing. I’m an I or whatever. And I’m like, I don’t, I didn’t know we made that.
I, I, sorry. Sorry. It’s so hard to find. Yes. That’s how that goes. You know, so like somebody who has essentially like barely any visible, like gland, you know, like breasts, I’m going to take this one because I had double A’s my whole life. You’re the itty-bitty titty committee. I used to be called Skittle tits. God, that’s an awful one.
Yes. In the middle school, Sam Koalick I’m going to give a shout out to that guy because what did he do? He called me Skittle tits all the time. I hope your wife is listening. Yeah, I hope so, too. Yeah, that was horrible. I was also kind of like a wafer you know, I was like real tall and skinny and the boobs kind of matched.
But then as I got older and then I had my first son, I did see breast changes, but it wasn’t the shape I always wanted, you know? And I was like, what the heck? And I still had no faith in them at all, because I’d spent so much time hating my small chest that I was like, what the heck? Of course it’s probably not going to be able to feed a baby.
So then, like the minute I even had a hint of a supply issue, I was like, it’s because they’re small. But really I fed him very successfully for 10 months. Yeah, through challenges, through a nipple shield, through all kinds of stress and nursing school and blah, blah, blah. And I did it not because I had these big delicious squeezable boobies. It’s because I had enough glandular tissue with milk making cells in them to actually make the milk. Period, that’s it.
Yeah. And you know, I’m sitting next to you here, Heather and our natural breast size is probably differs by like an entire pound of tissue or two or three. I mean, like it’s, it’s really different. And yet, you know yeah. Like I also produced enough milk for my son. Just enough though. Just enough to keep him just on his growth curve, you know, no extra.
And I’m here with these big honking tits. You know, it didn’t mean that I was just fountaining pouring milk everywhere. Right? The milk supply is a multitude of factors. So it’s not just glandular tissue. It’s the kind of support you have for the type of breasts that you have. Maybe you have an IBCLC who has never really figured out how to work with large chests.
I know, and I see that all the time. Yeah. Where they just don’t. So really you end up with a lack of support, no pun intended and, and. That was a good pun though. Thank you. And you end up with a by-product of a low supply. You know, or because like, it could have very easily for me been my, my perception of low supply because of how I felt about my small chest that led me to quitting sooner than I normally would have.
So let us just alleviate those fears for you. You are still enough. Your chest is perfect just the way it is. And if you don’t have the help you need for your specific chest, go find someone else. And it’s not just our experience that supports this. Large sets of data support this, that there’s no correlation between breast size and the amount of milk made.
So, yep. So there, so there. Stick that between your boobs. All right. Let me give you number three. Okay, so myth number three is that you can’t breastfeed if you have mastitis or if you’re sick, like you have a stomach bug. Yeah, we’re calling BS on that one. Yeah. What do you think they did on the Prairie guys? I mean for some of you, you’re probably like, duh, this is common sense.
Antibodies and immune factors in breast milk. We know all about it, but really like at least once a week, we both get this question of like, oh, I just got meds from my doctor for mastitis, but I forgot to ask if I could still breastfeed. Or I just went to Urgent Care because it’s Sunday night or whatever you know, and I’m getting the antibiotics now, but they said to pump and dump. Oh, but then when you pump there’s blood in it, and so then everyone around you goes, oh my God, you can’t give that to baby. There’s blood in it. Yeah. So here’s the thing. Let’s start with mastitis. Yes. There is a bacterial infection in your breast.
But we are not taking that and like injecting it into baby’s bloodstream. They’re putting it into their gut, which is really good at killing bacteria that shouldn’t be there. Yeah. It’s designed that way. Yeah. And, and so, and we also then on top of that, have it suspended in this menstruum, in this milk that has immune factors that are actively fighting it.
So we’re like, I mean, we’re kind of sending in this like liquid battle into the gut, you know, which is fine. And then the stomach acid in your infant is just going to like, finish it off. Yeah, that’s called the secretory IGA. So it’s a form of passive immunity. So the fact that you’re ill while breastfeeding your baby, like you’re sick if you have mastitis.
Or if you just have a cold, you are literally inoculating them to a point with passive immunity and you want that to happen. That is nature’s way of keeping you guys together and keeping baby safe. Right. And this actually is particularly true for pathogens that affect the gut.
So like a GI issue, like when you’re having vomiting or diarrhea, that secretory IGA works particularly well for pathogens that want to attack your gut. Right? So especially if you have a stomach bug, keep breastfeeding. Also hydrate more and try to get some vitamins in, you know, cause it’s hard on your body.
Right. I mean, and if you have like a viral illness, like the flu or something, and your body is severely compromised and you need to take 12 hours off and you just need to pump, you don’t have to throw that milk away. But this is really the reason you might want to pump is just because A. You’re not feeling it right now. And you can’t even be around another human being and especially a tiny one that needs things from you or. B you’re limiting the exposure of the viral pathogen from your respiratory tract to their respiratory tract. You know, like you definitely don’t want to sneeze directly into your baby’s eyes. So just like they’re going to do to you in two years.
Exactly. And they’re going to give you an eye cold because they sneeze into your eyeball, you know, so you can limit exposure that way, but we don’t ever recommend not breastfeeding. It just means like, maybe don’t kiss them on the mouth right after you breastfeed them. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Right. Same thing that we say with the COVID protocols.
So if you’re COVID positive, we say, please continue breastfeeding. Just try to limit exposure as much as possible, respiratory wise. So wear a mask and try not to kiss them on the face and do lots of good hand washing and all of that. But please keep breastfeeding. And I do want to mention, cause I had this conversation with someone a couple of weeks ago and I was like, wow, I never thought to say that.
Okay. Somebody came to me freaking out because they were told they could breastfeed with mastitis, but then they pumped and it was pus. And I was like, I’m sorry, what? What was it? Pus? Really? So sometimes when you’re sick, the color of your milk changes and in that instance for that person, their milk basically looked more like colostrum.
It was thicker and it was pretty yellow. Still milk, not pus, still safe to feed baby. Sometimes it gets bluish, greenish, pinkish, like we said, from blood. Also, those are all safe to feed. So unless you literally have like an open oozing sore, like next to your nipple and that’s what’s going on then for, in that case, I would say, consult your doctor.
Otherwise keep feeding your baby. Yeah. And the only reason we would know about these color changes anyway is because we’re pumping. So if your baby was directly breastfeeding a hundred percent of the time, you would never know what it looks like. You would just be feeding your baby. And let me also mention the part of the pathology of mastitis is that there’s something stuck in there and blocking the way for the milk to come out and the infection develops behind it.
And your baby is a much better pump than the pump itself. So actually you want baby to be feeding on that breast, do not avoid that breast at all. Right. Please feed on that breast. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, I even tell people to initiate every feed on the effective breast. If they have that one side of mastitis, if it’s not on both, just to get that extra pull so we can pull out a clog if there is one.
Right. Okay. Glad we got that out of there. Okay. So we are at myth four. This one is a funny one. I thought we’d have a little laugh. You have to drink milk to make milk. Oh my gosh. I heard this one during a consult a couple months ago and it was awkward because it was like the mother, or it was her mother or mother-in-law was there in the room.
And she said, I told her if she just drank more milk, she’d make more milk. And I’m like, and I was like, oh, I’ve never had this scenario where they’re in the room before. And I’ve had to correct a person who’s older than me. I’ve had to do that. How did you handle it that time? So I said, you know, that’s a really, that’s a really common thought.
So I, I acknowledged that I was like, that is a really common thought, but luckily for us, we’ve actually shown recently, I let her off the hook saying it was recent. We’ve actually shown recently through research that it actually doesn’t matter if they drink milk or not, and they will still make it, which is excellent.
And that’s exactly what we want to see. Yeah, smooth that over. I try to take that same route too. Cause it’s pretty often when I’ve just done a birth at somebody’s mom or mother-in-law’s there and spat out something like that, that they absolutely believe is true with the best intentions. And it is absolutely not helpful and it’s stupid.
So yeah, I try to be like, you know, like since you had babies, you know, we, we found out that that just, it’s not what we’re recommending anymore. It’s not true. And you know, I know that was the recommendation for you when you had your daughter. But we don’t recommend it anymore. It’s just, times have changed.
I’ve also gone the route a couple of times of being like, oh my gosh, wouldn’t that just be the magic fix? If we could all drink more milk, we’d make more. And I said, one time, I was like, man, I wish that were true. Yeah. I said, I wouldn’t have a job if it was. That’s pretty funny. And then they just kind of look at me and I was like, Yeah. I, if the milk, if drinking milk was the answer to making more milk, I wouldn’t be sitting here under the stairs right now, talking to you guys.
I’d be off chugging milk with people trying to get them to lactate more. Let me just state that the normal, the norm for adult humans is lactose intolerance. Okay. So wait, wait, I just had this vision of feeding a bunch of dairy cows, human milk to get them to make more milk.
Just to turn it around and just see how that feels.
Okay, awkward, super awkward. We have a new comic strip coming out. Oh man. I’ll have to really try to make time to make that one. Farm animal lactation advice by Heather and Maureen. So anyway. Same goes with the steak though, I guess. Yeah, really though. Like a cow is talking to another cow. You know, if you’d eat more human, you’d make more milk.
And the cows, like, we just don’t actually recommend that anymore since you had your cows. Oh my God. But yeah, you don’t have to do that. You know? There’s a really cool episode about lactose intolerance from this podcast will kill you if you want to know more about it, but most adult human are lactose intolerant to an extent simply because for most of human history, like we haven’t milked other animals because we haven’t had food preservation techniques that make that safe.
And for most mammals in general, we stopped drinking milk at a certain point in childhood. Yeah, we’re not designed for this. Like baby coyotes don’t go up to mama rabbits and milk them. You know, I mean, just like that, that doesn’t happen. Humans are, as far as I’m aware of the only mammal that milks another mammal to drink their milk or make cheese out of it or whatever.
So, yeah. That’s not a thing. You don’t have to drink milk to make milk. I will say there is some woo weird shady stuff happening with the dairy industry historically in this country as to why, like we love cow milk so much. Or why it’s like assumed that every child needs to drink like gallons of milk a week or whatever.
So anyway, check out that food pyramid, see who it’s sponsored by. Have fun digging into that. And this is like wars and subsidies and all kinds of stuff happened. We’re going to leave it lie right there. Have fun rabbit hole go. But anyway yeah, it is an easy way to pack in some certain nutrients. And especially the way milk is now.
There’s like added DHA and omega threes and vitamin D. Okay, great. Whatever. You can get all of that somewhere else and it’s probably easier to absorb. Truth. Yeah, definitely. I was just thinking like, not if all you eat is Doritos and ramen. If all you eat is Doritos and ramen. Okay. Have some milk, please have some.
You know, if you do not have a varied diet for whatever reason, and that is the choice that you’re making, fine. And maybe you would want to drink some milk that’s got some extra stuff in it and that would be easy. Or if you’re on WIC and like, all they give you money for is fricking three gallons of milk a week.
No, they also give you beans. I had so many beans when I was on WIC when I had Theo. I got beans and cheese and milk, cereal and cereal. And veggies. I did have certain amounts of veggie. Anyway. I don’t mean to talk shit on WIC, but I do have some problems with the available food to that program. It wasn’t that great, but I did stock up on dry beans cause I was like, my God, I could have these until he was in first grade. Forever.
Yeah. Anyway pro tip, if you’re on WIC, by the dry beans. Yeah. And dry rice. Pro tip, get them used to beans super early on. Yeah. But anyway, so yeah, you don’t have to drink milk to make milk. That’s just not a thing. Perfect. You think we busted that one enough? I think so. Okay. Well we’re on to our last one. Oh yes.
Myth number five. Some people make skim milk. Hmm. I’m just going to say first that’s like impossible because skimmed milk is mechanically skimmed. Yes. Just, just so you know what you’re saying. Yes. If a provider has told you to try to eat more fat to increase the fat in your milk, doesn’t work that way. No.
That’s not how it works. How many times have we said this? As far as we know, from pretty large sets of data, we know that human milk is like about two to five percent like dietary fat. And then there’s some other kinds of fats that do different things. Like cholesterol. There’s a lot of that sometimes. And then there’s mostly sugar and water and bunch of other immuno stuff happening.
The recipe at the macronutrient level is basically the same. You know, at any given time of day, like it varies person to person to a point, but really it’s the same recipe, you know? Like we’ve all had different types of banana bread. And if you put walnuts in your banana bread, I’m going to be pissed because that should not be in there.
It dries it out. Don’t do it. I’m glad we agree on this. Finally, we agree on something. I’m kidding. I do like chocolate chips, in my banana bread. It makes it more moist. Anyways. It’s all still banana bread. Okay. Except if you put walnuts. I mean, it’s still banana bread. I don’t know Heather, but no one’s going to, yeah. Anyway.
It’s going to be the last thing on the table at the potluck. You’re going to be shamed out of that potluck season. Anyhow. So the whole point is if you would like to take a deeper dive into this, we have an episode called The Cream Line Myth because this comes from people pumping and then taking pictures of their fat, their quote, unquote fat content, the cream that rises to the top and sharing it on social media and saying, look how fatty this is after I ate this or got this vaccine or whatever.
You know. Yeah. I ate Ben and Jerry’s no, no, no, no. It’s more like, I whole box a little Debbie oatmeal cream and I drink two gallons of water, drink two gallons of water and look at how fatty my milk is! Isn’t this amazing? And everyone’s like, oh my God, I need to eat little Debbie. And I’m like, no.
Oh my God. Yeah, it’s that or it’s when well-meaning, but uneducated healthcare providers look at growth charts and they’re like, eh, baby’s growth isn’t where you want it. You must not have enough fat in your milk. So I don’t know, eat some more nuts or just use formula, right. Eat some more nuts or eat some more steak is what I hear a lot of the time.
So the cream, we’re going to give a brief synopsis, so we don’t leave you hanging here, but please go listen to that full episode so you can feel a lot better about it if this is you, but that cream is mostly cholesterol and that varies widely person to person. It’s not all fat. Cholesterol is a type of fat, but it’s not used in the way that we think of when we think of dietary fat.
So, right. And it also depends on how long that milk has been sitting and how much time it’s had to separate. So it really means absolutely nothing. And you cannot identify the amount of fat with your eyes, right? So that’s episode 58 in case you wanted to listen to that. So we’ll link that episode 58 in the show notes, but you do not make skim milk.
And even if you did, which you don’t, you cannot, it’s fine. And you cannot change it with your diet. Yeah. That’s not how it works. It’s really the exception that we would see a parent producing milk that is inadequate for their baby. It’s pretty rare. Most of the time, if we have weight gain issues or whatever, it’s because baby’s just not getting enough milk for whatever reason.
Whether, you know, it’s usually just a milk transfer issue. We talk about it a lot. We’ll have a whole, we’re going to talk more about it another time. Yeah. But here’s my problem. Yeah. So somebody goes into the office, quote, unquote, whatever, wherever they are, and maybe their baby does have a weight gain issue, and there is an actual problem going on, but it’s going to take an hour to get to the bottom of it.
I have never in my life done a lactation visit in less than an hour, yeah. Yep. I cannot. And I will not because there is that much going on. One time I did a consult over the phone, it was 11 minutes long. It was not a full problem-solving thing, though. It was the parent called me. They knew exactly what the problem was and they just wanted me to tell them, yes, that’s the problem.
Go see your doctor. Yeah. That’s totally different. But just so you know, Doctors, most providers in a clinic setting do not have an hour and they do not have this specific training, although they should, in breastfeeding. And it’s so much easier to tell you to go try to eat more fat, to make more fat in your milk and hope that that placebo in your brain works.
I mean, this. I just have so much to say about this. I can’t even start cause we’re at the end of our episode, right? Oh, shucks. Well, if you have any myths that you would like us to bust email us at MilkMinutePodcast@gmail.com. We love these myth-busting episodes. There’s so much bad information out there. Not just misinformation, just flat out bad, bad information.
Cancel little Debbie. Wrong. Okay. Let’s do an award, Heather. Let’s end on a high note. I have a good one.
Heather, did you know I have an Etsy shop? Yes, I creep on there regularly. Well, listeners, if you didn’t know out there, I have an Etsy shop with my personal artwork on there. I have stickers, posters, t-shirts, but my favorite items are my surprise mugs. I have a couple of color changing mugs featuring my little illustrations of vulvas and breasts.
And boy, are they a surprise, especially when you give it to your boss that you do not like, and they pour hot coffee in it and labia’s a bound. I like to give them to like my mom or dad, when they visit. Pour them a cup of tea and watch their face. And really, I think everybody needs these in their home. So if you would like one for yourself or anything else that I make, you can visit etsy.com/shop/thewanderingWOM6.
That’s etsy.com/shop/thewanderingWOM6, but with the six instead of a B. And of course that link will be in the show notes. Thanks.
Okay. Okay. Are you ready? So this award goes to one of our patrons, Caitlin H. And Caitlin said a few days ago while visiting friends who recently had their first baby, I was talking to the proud mom about her breastfeeding experience so far. And from the other room, I heard my husband telling his friend how crazy our bodies are and all these different facts about breast milk.
I had no idea he paid attention when I listened to the podcast and cook dinner or wash the dishes, but it definitely gave me all the warm, fuzzy feelings. Oh my gosh, Caitlin. Can you send us a picture of him please? So I’m going to give like him and you an award kind of together as a team, I was thinking like eavesdropping excellence. Eavesdropping excellence award goes to Caitlin’s husband.
This is amazing. I really hope that your partners are soaking this up via, you know, active listening or osmosis. I’ll take it. If they’re just kind of collecting little bits over time. That’s awesome. And they’re talking about it! That’s the, that’s the part I liked the most. And I like, like, I have a very supportive partner guys.
Who’s listening right now. He listens to every episode and all the time I’m like, did you, did you talk to your friend just had a baby? Did you tell them that? He’s like just let it be, I talk to my friends in my own way. You know, it’s funny. My husband supports in a different way. He’s never listened to an episode.
Ever. Funny. Maybe he’s afraid, but also fine, also fine, but he does actually almost aggressively recommend the podcast to anyone in public who is breastfeeding or has a small child to the point where he almost comes off more of a zealot than I. Not that I am. I’m not like a breast is best, like, you know, whatever. Cash is, but he said that he saw this mom at the park breastfeeding and he went over like, beelined it for her to like, tell her about the podcast.
And her name is Christina. And she goes I actually already listen. She had to like tell him to tell him to like, oh my gosh. I was like, honey, you can’t be aggressive about that. Oh, whatever. Let him be. It’s fine. My God. I was like, you’re going to make people feel uncomfortable, but that’s all right. He was like, they need to know.
Yes, they do, Cash. Thank you. Thank you. Who’s not listening right now. I can say whatever I want. He doesn’t listen. Well, Ivan likes to listen when he’s at work and he says he misses me which is very sweet. That’s nice. And then every, every time we release one and I kind of like, wait in silence for him to be like I listened today.
And here’s what I thought about it. And he’s a very good critic. Oh, in a helpful way. Yeah. That’s nice. Yeah. That’s why I keep you around, honestly, cause my husband isn’t that for me, but it’s good to have a partner that challenges you. And you are my partner in podcasting and it’s really good to have somebody who’s like, actually let’s try this, let’s push it this way.
Let’s swing it this way. And not that either one of us would do a bad job on our own. No, but it’s like, we have some balance and sometimes I say things or you say things and only our audio editor hears us be like, no, we’re going to back that off and try that again a different way cause that wasn’t the way, or I don’t think you meant it this way, but this is how you sound.
So get that person in your life, you guys. And if my husband beelines it for you in the park, just run the other way.
Flash your Milk Minute sticker and just keep running. He will not stop. Oh, well, thank you everybody for listening to another episode of the Milk Minute Podcast. The way we change this big system that is not set up for lactating parents is by educating ourselves and our children and all of our friends around us.
If you want to support the podcast, you can join us over at Patreon.com/MilkMinutePodcast and becoming a supporter gives you access to all kinds of cool behind the scenes stuff and little perks. Yep. And don’t forget all that sweet merch. All right. See you next time. Bye-bye!
