All About Breastfeeding Podcast: Breastfeeding|mothering|parenting|pregnancy|postpartum|birth|expert Advice

In today's show, I am going to reminisce a bit and talk about my experiences as the host of this podcast and relive some memories that Ihave shared with guests.  I am also going to fill you in on what you can expect from Season 2 of All About Breastfeeding.  At the end of the show, I am going to explain to you how you can win some really cool prizes. read more

Morgann is a wife, a mother of an almost 2-year-old girl and a 1-month-old girl, and a birth doula in the Phoenix area.  Morgann enjoys walks in the evening before putting her girls to bed, spending quality time with good friends, and talking about all things related to pregnancy, birth and postpartum.    read more

  Morgann is a wife, a mother of an almost 2-year-old girl and a 1-month-old girl, and a birth doula in the Phoenix area.  Morgann enjoys walks in the evening before putting her girls to bed, spending quality time with good friends, and talking about all things related to pregnancy, birth and postpartum.  Read more

Because this is so long, myself and others have picked up a habit of calling ourselves LCs or lactation consultants. This was fine for a while, however in recent years there have been many weekend or week long courses that have cropped up and when a person graduates from that course, they can call themselves a LC  ( lactation consultant) or  or an LS ( lactation specialist)or BC (breastfeeding counselor)  or CBC  ( certified breastfeeding counselor) or CLC ( certified lactation consultant)  or any number of titles.   Read more 

Sarah was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.   When she was 5 years old,  her parents were divorced and she moved to California to a very small hippie town. Her mom and stepdad were hippies. She had an older sister and a younger brother and she was the middle child. She also had  a couple of step sisters and half brothers.  Sarah looks back fondly and says that she had a nice childhood.   She was homeschooled for 5 years.  Her family traveled from San Francisco, up and down the coastline in a sailboat for most of her childhood.  Her dad lived in Cincinnati and she  visited him for summers.  Her family spent their time on a  52 foot sailboat, mostly in the Bay area.  In the summers, her family sailed down to Santa Barbara and back up.  Homeschooling was year round.  Read more  

There was a big announcement made in the last few days. This affects many mothers and children.  I believe the decision I am going to talk about is in the best interest of mothers and children and yet there is controversy surrounding it.  I find that what is usually lying beneath controversy is FEAR.   So, let's get into it.  What was this announcement anyway   Have you heard of the WIC program.  It stands for Womans, Infants and Children. healthcare referrals for income-eligible women who are pregnant or post-partum, infants, and children up to age 5.   It  is a federal public health nutrition program administered by the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA),  The National WIC Association (NWA) is a non-profit membership association that advocates for WIC and provides education and training to WIC staff. NWA does not create WIC policy or have oversight of WIC. NWA recently had a Nutrition Education and Breastfeeding Promotion Conference here they made a pretty big announcement.

More great stuff with Ben the Homeopath

I like being able to share stories of the families that I work with. I also want to be sure that I respect everyone's privacy.  I have said this in previous shows, however, we are doing fabulous here at AAB and gaining many new listeners every week.  For the newest listeners, I want you to know that I share stories so that we may all learn from them.  When I share a story, I change and rearrange and leave out as much information as I possibly can, while still keeping the foundation of the story real.  I change so much that no one will ever guess who it is, even if you think it is you, it probably isn't.  I might say that I saw the mom this week and it could have been a few months ago.  Your boy is now  girl.  Your significant other may be a male or female, attended the consult or not,, and if it is not relevant to the story, I will change that up also. Again, the important parts are real and are what  happened.  

Ben was born in Persia, in Tehran, Iran. When he was about 8-9 years old, the climate started to change when an Islamic government took over Iran. Things have not been good there since that time. His friends and family members were being persecuted which forced him to leave Iran to come to the United States as a refugee with having obtained religious asylum.   Read More 

We continue on with this amazing interview with Maureen Minchin who is giving us a lot of information that you really won’t find in too  many other places.  She is really helping us understanding about infant formula and its relationship with long term health.  She is doing a great job of educating us without being overly concerned about upsetting anyone.  Maureen is very angry at what she was not told as a young mother and feeding her baby & she is on a mission, even if it upsets the apple cart, to educate parents about infant feeding.   She says that if educators had to worry about making parents feel guilty about many of the subjects, we would be missing out on very important information and that would be negligent. Take a listen.

Lori speaks with Maureen Minchin . Maureen is a mother of 3, who because of her personal experiences with feeding her baby,  has dedicated her life to educating the public about human milk and infant feeding and food allergies. Her work is radically different from most breastfeeding handbooks because it takes seriously the issues of infant formula feeding, exposing many realities about which even many health professionals remain ignorant. Milk Matters is her latest work, a massive tome with three different books under the one cover, which pulls together science, history and clinical practice.

This past week, the CDC, which is the center for disease control, released the 2016 Breastfeeding Report Card.  Looking through the statistics, I sighed.... just like I do every year. There are people who really get excited with these numbers.  Me?  I always say that I am greedy.  I want more.  I want better.  I want what parents want.  And what do parents want?  Well, the statistics tell us that  nationally 81 percent of parents want to breastfeed their babies.   Read Me

When Carly was born, I was in the throes of busy motherhood. With a 2.5 year old son Jesse and a just turned 5 year old Alisha, what a pregnancy I had. I remember being over the top tired when I was pregnant with my first Alisha. I just could not image being more tired every single day. My pregnancy with Jesse was great, however, I was so tired with him also.   Then along comes my third pregnancy.  I remember somewhere in January when I was just not feeling so great.  Perhaps too much sweets and too much food overall from the holiday time.  I dont know. I would have these fleeting thoughts for a couple of weeks, but honestly I was just so busy from sun up til way past sundown with an almost 2 year old and a 3 year old, my mind never sat quietly long enough for  me to think about why I just was not feeling so great.   Read more 

I first met Cassandra when she was 3 weeks postpartum with her first baby, a girl named Korina. Cassandra brought her mom with her to the consult and as they sat down, I noticed that Cassandra was moving quite purposefully. She took her time to slowly lower herself into the chair and as she sat I thought to myself,, either she is healing very slowly from her cesarean section or she has had a pretty significant 3rd or 4th degree tear from a vaginal birth that is slowly healing. For the uninitiated to vaginal tearing, a 1st degree tear is a thin tear of the perineal skin with no muscles involved. a 2nd degree includes skin and muscle, a 3rd degree is quite significant with the tear going through the perineal muscles and includes a layer of muscle surrounding the anal canal, and a 4th degree tear goes all the way into the canal or rectum. As one could imagine, this is quite painful and the healing can be several months.   Read more

Dr. Romie completed her medical training at the Medical University of South Carolina, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of Michigan where she won numerous teaching and research awards. She previous served as faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin. After surviving career burnout and undergoing life-saving surgery, she traveled the world learning various yoga and mindfulness techniques. Dr. Romie is a media expert analyst and regular contributor in national and local media outlets. She shared her journey in a TED Talk is “The Powerful Secret of Your Breath.” When not speaking around the country, she heals clients at the Center for Natural and Integrative Medicine in Orlando, Florida. Read more

I would like to introduce you to the 7 Founders of La Leche League International. Each of these women played a different part in the growth of LLL and each had different roles as the organization grew. Several were members of the same church, two were sister-in-laws. What they all had in common was they were moms breastfeeding their babies during a time period where only 20% of mothers were breastfeeding their babies.   Read More 

Background History: Hilary was born in the 50’s in Southern California. Her father was a scientist and her mother a poet. When she was 19 she moved to Switzerland to study music. First Breastfeeding experience: She says she was terrified of becoming a mother. When she was 27 years old she went to Israel with her fiancée and worked in the Baby House. This experience helped her work through any fears she had about motherhood. With this reassurance she began to look forward to having a baby and breastfeeding. La Leche League was popular in Switzerland. She read their book, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, Sheila Kitzinger and other childbirth and breastfeeding books to help prepare her for birth and breastfeeding.   Read more

This week, we are highlighting WBW= World Breastfeeding Week breastfeeding and our goal is to do whatever we can to support parents in their efforts to breastfeed their baby. We live in a world where there are many barriers, that tends to make the basic act of breastfeeding a baby, uncomfortable and cumbersome for some mothers.   Read More 

Grew up in Palo Alto, CA in 1973.  Her mom was a SAHM and a dad who worked in Silicon Valley.  Kate describes her mom as someone who had wonderlust and was always looking for adventure and frequently took Kate along for the ride.  This helped give Kate a wonderful role model and gave her a sense that anything is  possible.  Her mom did not play by the rules and while she is not as adventurous her mom,  but made her comfortable with taking the risks.    Read more 

It is important that you have patience with yourself, your baby and the process of learning how to breastfeed. It is common for most new mothers to feel like you don’t know what you are doing and to feel some degree of a lack of confidence. More than likely, you are not giving yourself enough credit as you are in the learning phase of some pretty important new skills that you have never had the opportunity to practice before. Looking at pictures, watching videos and practicing with dolls can only take you so far. The real learning comes when you have your real live breastfeeding partner, your baby with you. Now you can learn together.   Read More