Selected Podcast
Breastfeeding Basics 101
Jessica Claire, IBCLC, Lactation Specialist at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, discusses the many benefits of breastfeeding for both mom and baby. She also helps with great advice for some of the most common breastfeeding questions new mothers may have.
Featured Speaker:
Jessica Claire
Jessica Claire is a Lactation Specialist. She started helping breastfeeding families as a volunteer and quickly realized how rewarding it was to assist in the transition to parenthood. After additional education and training, she passed the board exam for lactation consultants in 2011 and, as an IBCLC, subsequently started her private practice. She has breastfed two girls (now ages 9 and 12) and found the relationship built on breastfeeding to be immensely rewarding. She strives to help other parents meet their breastfeeding goals with compassionate, evidence-based care. Transcription:
Breastfeeding Basics 101
Melanie Cole (Host): When you breastfeed, you give your baby a healthy start that lasts a lifetime, but sometimes it can be difficult to adjust to going back to work, and here to tell us how to juggle that new mom experience is Jessica Claire. She’s a lactation specialist at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Jessica, let’s start with the health benefits of breastfeeding and colostrum and explain a little bit about it for us.
Jessica Claire (Guest): Great, thank you. So there are many, many benefits both for mother and for baby, and I’ll start with some of the maternal benefits since we often focus on how important the milk is for the baby. So some of the things that will be beneficial to a new mom breastfeeding is that her rates of ovarian and breast cancers later in life will be reduced. Also heart disease. If she has gestational diabetes during pregnancy, her chances of getting type II diabetes later in life is going to be reduced if she breastfeeds. Her return to pre pregnancy weight will be faster if she breastfeeds because she gained some of that weight in pregnancy in anticipation of breastfeeding her baby. For the baby side, many, many, many benefits. Lowered incidents of infections like GI infections of the gastrointestinal tract and upper respiratory tract and lower incidents of childhood and adulthood obesity. So those are just some. There are many, many more but just a little summary of some of the more popular ones.
Melanie: Jessica do you want new mothers and in pregnancy time to plan for breastfeeding and if they’re a working mother, what do you tell them about planning for that first six, eight, or twelve weeks they’re going to be off work and then planning that return to work?
Jessica: Yeah, absolutely it’s a great idea to get some education and knowledge during pregnancy before the baby’s here so we do offer a class, a breastfeeding class here at Henry Mayo that people can sign up for prenatally, and the best way to prepare yourself for going back to work and making plenty of milk for your baby when you are at work is to establish breastfeeding really well in the first six weeks after birth, and the way we typically do that is to really just focus on breastfeeding. A lot of moms think they need to start pumping right away after birth and if your baby’s doing a good job at the breast, they are going to do a much better job of setting up your milk supply for the long haul than any pump. So getting to – being in close proximity to the baby, making sure you’re not scheduling feedings, making sure the baby has free access to the breast both day and night in the first few weeks is going to be the best way to set the stage for a really plentiful milk supply going forward. Once mom – when she knows when she’s going back to work, we typically have her start pumping maybe a week or two before she goes back to work because you don’t need 3 million ounces of milk in your freezer when you go back to work because you will be pumping at work and bringing that milk to the care provider for the next day so you just need a little bit of a buffer, and I like to tell moms I’d rather you spend your maternity leave more with your baby and less with the equipment, right? The pump, but you do need to learn how to use it. Often times we will ask moms to, if they know they need their baby to take a bottle, to introduce that bottle around six weeks – four to six weeks after birth if breastfeeding is going well at that point, but you don’t need to do tons of bottle feeding before you go back to work. You can just practice with little bits of pumped milk a few times a week before – a lot of moms go back at three or four months, so you just keep that practice going rather than feeling like you have to pump tons and tons and give your baby many bottles a day while you’re still home with them. So those are some of the things we typically tell people.
Melanie: And as far as easing that transition and pumping at work, what do you want women to know about discussing this with their employers and making the time? And how do they know when to do it at work?
Jessica: That’s a great question. So first of all most companies do have a policy and it is in accordance – there is a law in California that provides women the right to be able to express milk at work in a non-bathroom space. So before she even comes back to work she wants to be discussing with HR or with her immediate supervisor like where am I going to pump if there’s not already a lactation room. It depends on the size of the business and how many other women have expressed milk while at work before a particular mom goes back to work. You don’t want to just show up at work and not have discussed any of this with anybody. If you have a private office, it’s usually pretty easy to do your pumping in there, but you may need to get creative with HR and office manager to find, where am I going to express my milk that’s not a bathroom. Bathrooms are dirty and nobody should be expressing their milk in a bathroom. There might be a conference room that can be locked and is a private space that that mom goes into for – you know it takes 15 to 20 minutes to do a pump at work and you want to be pumping approximately every three hours or as many times as your baby’s getting a bottle at daycare or with the care provider. So if the baby’s getting three bottles at daycare, mom should be trying to express her milk three times during her workday, and you know you want to space them out two to three hours apart.
Melanie: Jessica as we talk about new moms going back to work, what about things they can do for themselves. As we go back to work, it can be quite stressful leaving your baby for the first time, does stress affect the milk? And also what about eating healthy and exercising because at work there’s candy and bowls and it’s easy not to eat healthy at work; how does all of that affect your breastmilk?
Jessica: That’s a great question. So going back to the first part of your question, can stress affect milk supply? Yes and no. In the short term, if a mother is sitting there and she’s really stressed about something, it can be hard for her milk to really flow while she’s pumping, so for my moms where that’s an issue, and it is a short term issue, it’s not like forever her supply will be a problem – I often – we talk about what are some things you can do while you’re pumping. Have a cup of tea or do some deep breathing or look at a picture of your baby, have that be your little break time where you’re just focusing on relaxing your body so that you get good at letting milk flow while you’re pumping. And certainly exercise is safe for breastfeeding mothers. We encourage exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle, and in terms of diet, there is no perfect diet or food you have to eat or food you have to avoid to make plenty of milk for your baby. We do encourage our breastfeeding moms to eat plenty of calories and if they’re going to go on any kind of a diet they need to really be talking to their doctor, and you don’t want to reduce calories too much because you’re making all this extra food for your baby. You can eat candy and other “unhealthy foods” from time to time and it’s not going to ruin your milk or anything like that. But of course we encourage people to eat closer to nature, fruits, vegetables, protein sources, plenty of carbohydrates and those could be health carbohydrates like sweet potatoes and other vegetables because your milk is primarily made of carbohydrate. It’s very high in very healthy sugars for your baby, so you don’t want to go on a really low carb diet. We do see milk reduction supply sometimes when people go on something very strict, specialized diet. So you know eating a varied diet is really the best way to go about it, but yeah the candy at work – I have that challenge myself.
Melanie: Well it certainly is pretty common and for new mothers, it can be quite difficult to leave baby for the first time. In your summary Jessica, wrap it up for us for what you tell new mothers and fathers every day about going back to work, about the importance of breastfeeding, and how they can really cope with juggling this as their whole life changes with a baby.
Jessica: That’s right, I would say that my mothers who continue to breastfeed after they go back to work have a huge advantage in that they have this wonderful, not only nutritional and immunological gift that they’re giving their baby, but it is a bonding activity, so if mommy’s been away from her baby all day long, and then she comes home at night, it’s a wonderful way that breastfeeding, once they get reunited, to bond and have some really quality quiet time once she gets home from work and early in the morning, and if the baby’s still nursing in the middle of the night, it’s a way for them to connect, so that’s a huge benefit to continuing and also your baby is going to get sick less often so you will miss less work on average as compared to your formula feeding coworkers. So I would just encourage moms to come back for more support if they’re having trouble at work. We do have a support group that meets twice a month in the evenings at Henry Mayo Fitness and Health from 6:00 to 7:30 on the first and third Tuesday of every month, and that’s a great place for moms who are already back at work to come after work with their baby and get their questions answered; if they’re having trouble pumping enough or any other work/life balance issues, our social worker is there as well along with a lactation specialist. So it’s a great resource open to the entire community. You could have delivered your baby somewhere else and it is a free support group every two weeks in the month.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Jessica, for being with us today. What great information to help new parents deal with that exciting time of new baby and juggling the feeling and the knowledge that they are going back to work. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. You’re listening to It’s Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. For more information, please visit henrymayo.com, that’s henrymayo.com. This is Melanie Cole, thanks so much for tuning in.
Breastfeeding Basics 101
Melanie Cole (Host): When you breastfeed, you give your baby a healthy start that lasts a lifetime, but sometimes it can be difficult to adjust to going back to work, and here to tell us how to juggle that new mom experience is Jessica Claire. She’s a lactation specialist at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Jessica, let’s start with the health benefits of breastfeeding and colostrum and explain a little bit about it for us.
Jessica Claire (Guest): Great, thank you. So there are many, many benefits both for mother and for baby, and I’ll start with some of the maternal benefits since we often focus on how important the milk is for the baby. So some of the things that will be beneficial to a new mom breastfeeding is that her rates of ovarian and breast cancers later in life will be reduced. Also heart disease. If she has gestational diabetes during pregnancy, her chances of getting type II diabetes later in life is going to be reduced if she breastfeeds. Her return to pre pregnancy weight will be faster if she breastfeeds because she gained some of that weight in pregnancy in anticipation of breastfeeding her baby. For the baby side, many, many, many benefits. Lowered incidents of infections like GI infections of the gastrointestinal tract and upper respiratory tract and lower incidents of childhood and adulthood obesity. So those are just some. There are many, many more but just a little summary of some of the more popular ones.
Melanie: Jessica do you want new mothers and in pregnancy time to plan for breastfeeding and if they’re a working mother, what do you tell them about planning for that first six, eight, or twelve weeks they’re going to be off work and then planning that return to work?
Jessica: Yeah, absolutely it’s a great idea to get some education and knowledge during pregnancy before the baby’s here so we do offer a class, a breastfeeding class here at Henry Mayo that people can sign up for prenatally, and the best way to prepare yourself for going back to work and making plenty of milk for your baby when you are at work is to establish breastfeeding really well in the first six weeks after birth, and the way we typically do that is to really just focus on breastfeeding. A lot of moms think they need to start pumping right away after birth and if your baby’s doing a good job at the breast, they are going to do a much better job of setting up your milk supply for the long haul than any pump. So getting to – being in close proximity to the baby, making sure you’re not scheduling feedings, making sure the baby has free access to the breast both day and night in the first few weeks is going to be the best way to set the stage for a really plentiful milk supply going forward. Once mom – when she knows when she’s going back to work, we typically have her start pumping maybe a week or two before she goes back to work because you don’t need 3 million ounces of milk in your freezer when you go back to work because you will be pumping at work and bringing that milk to the care provider for the next day so you just need a little bit of a buffer, and I like to tell moms I’d rather you spend your maternity leave more with your baby and less with the equipment, right? The pump, but you do need to learn how to use it. Often times we will ask moms to, if they know they need their baby to take a bottle, to introduce that bottle around six weeks – four to six weeks after birth if breastfeeding is going well at that point, but you don’t need to do tons of bottle feeding before you go back to work. You can just practice with little bits of pumped milk a few times a week before – a lot of moms go back at three or four months, so you just keep that practice going rather than feeling like you have to pump tons and tons and give your baby many bottles a day while you’re still home with them. So those are some of the things we typically tell people.
Melanie: And as far as easing that transition and pumping at work, what do you want women to know about discussing this with their employers and making the time? And how do they know when to do it at work?
Jessica: That’s a great question. So first of all most companies do have a policy and it is in accordance – there is a law in California that provides women the right to be able to express milk at work in a non-bathroom space. So before she even comes back to work she wants to be discussing with HR or with her immediate supervisor like where am I going to pump if there’s not already a lactation room. It depends on the size of the business and how many other women have expressed milk while at work before a particular mom goes back to work. You don’t want to just show up at work and not have discussed any of this with anybody. If you have a private office, it’s usually pretty easy to do your pumping in there, but you may need to get creative with HR and office manager to find, where am I going to express my milk that’s not a bathroom. Bathrooms are dirty and nobody should be expressing their milk in a bathroom. There might be a conference room that can be locked and is a private space that that mom goes into for – you know it takes 15 to 20 minutes to do a pump at work and you want to be pumping approximately every three hours or as many times as your baby’s getting a bottle at daycare or with the care provider. So if the baby’s getting three bottles at daycare, mom should be trying to express her milk three times during her workday, and you know you want to space them out two to three hours apart.
Melanie: Jessica as we talk about new moms going back to work, what about things they can do for themselves. As we go back to work, it can be quite stressful leaving your baby for the first time, does stress affect the milk? And also what about eating healthy and exercising because at work there’s candy and bowls and it’s easy not to eat healthy at work; how does all of that affect your breastmilk?
Jessica: That’s a great question. So going back to the first part of your question, can stress affect milk supply? Yes and no. In the short term, if a mother is sitting there and she’s really stressed about something, it can be hard for her milk to really flow while she’s pumping, so for my moms where that’s an issue, and it is a short term issue, it’s not like forever her supply will be a problem – I often – we talk about what are some things you can do while you’re pumping. Have a cup of tea or do some deep breathing or look at a picture of your baby, have that be your little break time where you’re just focusing on relaxing your body so that you get good at letting milk flow while you’re pumping. And certainly exercise is safe for breastfeeding mothers. We encourage exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle, and in terms of diet, there is no perfect diet or food you have to eat or food you have to avoid to make plenty of milk for your baby. We do encourage our breastfeeding moms to eat plenty of calories and if they’re going to go on any kind of a diet they need to really be talking to their doctor, and you don’t want to reduce calories too much because you’re making all this extra food for your baby. You can eat candy and other “unhealthy foods” from time to time and it’s not going to ruin your milk or anything like that. But of course we encourage people to eat closer to nature, fruits, vegetables, protein sources, plenty of carbohydrates and those could be health carbohydrates like sweet potatoes and other vegetables because your milk is primarily made of carbohydrate. It’s very high in very healthy sugars for your baby, so you don’t want to go on a really low carb diet. We do see milk reduction supply sometimes when people go on something very strict, specialized diet. So you know eating a varied diet is really the best way to go about it, but yeah the candy at work – I have that challenge myself.
Melanie: Well it certainly is pretty common and for new mothers, it can be quite difficult to leave baby for the first time. In your summary Jessica, wrap it up for us for what you tell new mothers and fathers every day about going back to work, about the importance of breastfeeding, and how they can really cope with juggling this as their whole life changes with a baby.
Jessica: That’s right, I would say that my mothers who continue to breastfeed after they go back to work have a huge advantage in that they have this wonderful, not only nutritional and immunological gift that they’re giving their baby, but it is a bonding activity, so if mommy’s been away from her baby all day long, and then she comes home at night, it’s a wonderful way that breastfeeding, once they get reunited, to bond and have some really quality quiet time once she gets home from work and early in the morning, and if the baby’s still nursing in the middle of the night, it’s a way for them to connect, so that’s a huge benefit to continuing and also your baby is going to get sick less often so you will miss less work on average as compared to your formula feeding coworkers. So I would just encourage moms to come back for more support if they’re having trouble at work. We do have a support group that meets twice a month in the evenings at Henry Mayo Fitness and Health from 6:00 to 7:30 on the first and third Tuesday of every month, and that’s a great place for moms who are already back at work to come after work with their baby and get their questions answered; if they’re having trouble pumping enough or any other work/life balance issues, our social worker is there as well along with a lactation specialist. So it’s a great resource open to the entire community. You could have delivered your baby somewhere else and it is a free support group every two weeks in the month.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Jessica, for being with us today. What great information to help new parents deal with that exciting time of new baby and juggling the feeling and the knowledge that they are going back to work. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. You’re listening to It’s Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. For more information, please visit henrymayo.com, that’s henrymayo.com. This is Melanie Cole, thanks so much for tuning in.