Abby's story - inverted nipples and disappointing support

The advice and support that we receive in the early days of breastfeeding can have a profound impact on our journey. My guest today, Abby, had an experience with an unnamed IBCLC that really knocked her confidence, and could have had dire consequences, had she followed the incorrect advice she was given.

Abby discovered that she had inverted nipples while preparing for the arrival of her son, Yardley, but she managed to find some adaptations that worked for her and initially feeding was working for both of them. When she then started to feel some pain when nursing, she visited an IBCLC for advice. What she got was an alarming consultation in which her concerns were not listened to, her supply was inaccurately assessed, and she left feeling fearful and confused. Luckily, in this case, Abby was able to find other support from her sister and other practitioners that she follows online. 

Abby is sharing this story with me having just finished her training as a peer supporter. We both feel that these experiences should be shared to help those of us who work with nursing parents to understand what bad practice is, and to see the impacts it can have on parents.

My latest book, ‘Supporting the Transition from Breastfeeding: a Guide to Weaning for Professionals, Supporters and Parents’, is out now.

You can get 10% off the book at the Jessica Kingsley press website, that's uk.jkp.com using the code MMPE10 at checkout.

Follow me on Twitter @MakesMilk and on Instagram  @emmapickettibclc or find out more on my website www.emmapickettbreastfeedingsupport.com

Resources mentioned - 

https://www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/breastfeeding-the-dangerous-obsession-with-the-infant-feeding-interval/

This podcast is presented by Emma Pickett IBCLC, and produced by Emily Crosby Media.

Transcript

This transcript is AI generated.

[00:00:00] Emma Pickett: I'm Emma Pickett and I'm a Lactation Consultant from London. When I first started calling myself Makes Milk, that was my superpower at the time because I was breastfeeding my own two children. And now I'm helping families on their journey. I want your feeding journey to work for you from the very beginning to the very end.

And I'm big on making sure parents get support at the end too. Join me for conversations on how breastfeeding Breastfeeding is amazing and also sometimes really, really hard. We'll look honestly and openly at that process of making milk. And of course, breastfeeding and chest feeding are a lot more than just making milk.

Thank you very much for joining me for today's episode. I'm going to be talking to Abby Langalis, who is in Connecticut, USA. And we're going to be talking about her experience as a new breastfeeding mum. She is also a Lecture League peer supporter. She is also a breastfeeding nerd, um, but we're also talking today about her experience of her own breastfeeding journey.

And we will be talking about the concept of disappointing support. And we're not doing that with the intention of bashing individual practitioners. We're doing that because I think it's important for all of us to understand that when we are in a breastfeeding support role, we really do have a huge responsibility.

And if we act in a way that maybe isn't empathic or kind, we can have an enormous impact on someone's early parenting experience. So this is very much a learning experience for all of us, especially those of us in breastfeeding support. And I hope you're comfortable to come to it with that in mind.

Having said that, we will be talking about something that was quite distressing and quite hard. So if you were someone who had a very painful breastfeeding experience yourself, you might want to bear that in mind, but you may well find an ally in, in Abby's story today. Thank you very much for joining me today, Abby.

[00:01:53] Abby: Thank you, Emma. I'm very excited to be here talking to you. 

[00:01:56] Emma Pickett: So I would, I must declare first of all that I went to college in Connecticut. I did my junior year abroad at Trinity College in Hartford. Oh, you did? So I feel like Connecticut's almost my American home because I was there for a whole year. How far away are you from Hartford?

That's great. 

[00:02:11] Abby: I am in the southwestern corner of the state. Sort of closer to New York City. So about an hour and a half away. It's a pretty small state. So everything is relatively close by. 

[00:02:23] Emma Pickett: So you say it's a small state, but that's not actually small by UK standards. We're, we're not used to traveling big gyms.

[00:02:30] Abby: By US standards, it's, everything is. It's very nearby, um, but I, I grew up here and I have now been back living here with my husband and now my baby. So we're back home and near our family and Connecticut is very much our Our home state now. 

[00:02:51] Emma Pickett: Tell me about your family. So you have Yardley, am I saying his name correctly?

Yes, Yardley how old is he now? He is 17 months now. Okay, and what's day to day life for you like at the moment in terms of breastfeeding? 

[00:03:05] Abby: Day to day life, so I stopped working when I was about 8 and a half months pregnant and so I, my day to day is mostly I am home with him. Still feeding so much, um, still feeding on demand.

He loves to nurse. He nurses multiple times throughout the day. Um, so very much at night. And it is just still a really big part of our life. Um, and I have a husband, his name is Christian and, um, conveniently he actually works from home. So we don't see him too much during the day, but in the early days when I was home and needed support, you know, needed him for a few minutes, he was around, which was really nice.

[00:04:02] Emma Pickett: Okay. That's special. Yeah, that is, that is a really great opportunity to have that. So when you were describing Yardley's breastfeeding experience, you had a big smile on your face, which is such a nice relief for me because I'm so used to speaking to people who have A breastfeeding pattern that is stressful for them because as a lactation consultant, those are the people I'm often supporting and they're finding overwhelming and they're, you know, they're feeling touched out and, and you just described him feeding on demand at 17 months with a huge grin on your face, which is so lovely to see and so refreshing to see.

Tell me about a typical night. What's a typical night like for you at the moment? So, 

[00:04:36] Abby: we have a big king bed, and we all three sleep in it together. And, um, we, we tried out a bunch of different sleeping arrangements at the beginning. He was sleeping in a bassinet early on when he was young, and then probably about two and a half, three months old.

I was going through some sleep problems of my own, which we can talk about later, but, um, it just was sort of a natural solution for us to start bed sharing. And it started as part of the night and then just transitioned to the whole night. So the three of us just go to bed all together. We get in bed when it's.

Yardley's bedtime. We probably keep him up a little bit later than the average 17 month old. He probably wakes up a little bit later than the average 17 month old. And he nurses to sleep, and he is still very much waking during every single sleep cycle transition, and he has always Really needed to be nursing, needed the nipple to stay asleep.

He, he'll, he'll fall asleep. Um, I'll think he's sound asleep. I'll try to remove myself and it startles him and he needs it right back. So that is. It's something that can be very challenging, um, and some nights are a lot more frustrating for me. It also ebbs and flows. He's been getting his molars and I notice he's latched a lot more throughout the night, but we just have kind of been riding that wave and some nights are harder and some are easier, but it is very much still.

Very demanding throughout the night. 

[00:06:31] Emma Pickett: Yeah, and you're able to sleep when he's attached? Is that something Well, I'm guessing you probably wouldn't be alive if you weren't getting some sleep while he was attached. 

[00:06:40] Abby: I do. I think it was harder at the beginning. Um, and then I got used to it. And in the middle of the night I I think it also depends on where I am in my menstrual cycle.

Sometimes I'm more sensitive and I find it more uncomfortable during the night. And sometimes I don't notice it at all. Um, and I think there are some nights when he is, he is It's a little bit better and not needing it. Better isn't quite the word I was looking for, but some nights he doesn't need to be attached quite as much.

Um, okay. I'm glad you mentioned 

[00:07:18] Emma Pickett: your menstrual cycle. I think that's really useful to hear that. So quite often people find that, you know, sometimes they just are bothered more by the toddlers nursing patterns and they can't quite work out why and it's only when they sit down and actually look at a calendar that they work out that there are some days in the month where it feels tougher than at other times and the menstrual cycle is often a big part of that.

I hope you don't mind me asking a personal question, but some people be like, hang on, her menstrual cycle came back and she's feeding that frequently? It sounds like she hasn't even had a gap of three hours and 24 hours the whole time. How old were you when his, um, when your menstrual cycle came back?

How old was he when your menstrual cycle came back? 

[00:07:53] Abby: So shockingly, I got my period back while I was at my midwife for my six week postpartum appointment. She noticed it when she was examining me. And then I noticed it later that day. So I was six weeks postpartum and I was surprised. And I've had a fairly regular cycle since then.

I don't know, I have some theories because he was sleeping in a bassinet, he was sleeping with a swaddle most nights. And so we were getting some longer stretches when he was even three weeks old, maybe he was sleeping for five hours, six hours. Oh, 

[00:08:40] Emma Pickett: okay. Okay. And so that's kind of my theory. But even then, I mean, that's still early days, isn't it?

So I'm guessing that was a bit of a surprise. 

[00:08:48] Abby: It was very early and it was a 

[00:08:49] Emma Pickett: surprise. And do you notice that when you are, by the way, this is an episode just about menstrual cycles, just to flag it up, it's just really useful to talk to someone. So do you notice that you, so you've mentioned that you notice that you find, you know, more feeding a little bit tougher or you're a bit more sensitive.

Does he notice when, when it's your period? Do you feel there are any changes in his nursing patterns? 

[00:09:11] Abby: I have tried to see if I can tell a difference and I don't think that I do. I remember when I was there at my appointment, my midwife said, Well, just don't be anxious about it, but your milk supply could change a bit when you get your period.

And, I just, I have never known, I've never noticed, I'm not, um, I don't typically pump, I really have never pumped milk, so I don't really know what my supply is most of the time. And, in terms of his patterns, I can't say that I've noticed, uh, Okay. A specific change at that time. 

[00:09:50] Emma Pickett: Okay, so thank you for tolerating me grilling about your, your current breastfeeding pattern.

So from what you're saying, it doesn't sound as though you have any plans to put breastfeeding boundaries in place. You don't have a particular goal to get to a particular age. Someone who's trained as a literature league peer supporter is more likely, I think, to be someone who will practice child led weaning.

Is that, is that kind of the direction that you're in, ending in? It is. I 

[00:10:13] Abby: think originally my goal was a year, then it became 18 months, 18 months is coming, and I can't really imagine stopping anytime soon. I do think about having another child soon, and so I, when I think about weaning or think about boundaries, my guess is that that is going to be the catalyst for some changes.

I'm certainly open to nursing during pregnancy and tandem nursing, so I'm, I think, just open to see how that will affect him and, and what he, what he wants at that time. No, really no, no strong expectations. 

[00:10:59] Emma Pickett: Okay, that sounds great. Going with the flow, literally. Yeah. Literally and metaphorically. Let's talk about your beginning of your breastfeeding experience with Yardley and that's one of the things we'll be focusing on today.

Those early encounters you had with a particular lactation consultant that kind of let you down and I'm aware that Revisiting that may be tough for you, and I'm really grateful that you're willing to do that today Tell me about Yardley's birth and those first few days 

[00:11:25] Abby: So the beginning was I would say relatively smooth.

I had Um, I was working with a midwifery practice that's based in a hospital, which is not the most common model in the United States. I actually began with an OB practice and about halfway through my pregnancy switched to, um, this midwife practice at a different hospital. And I had hoped to have an unmedicated birth, which is what happened.

Um, and it, the birth itself was very smooth and I had done a lot of research about how to get early breastfeeding off to a good start and that was really a big goal of mine And I think one of the things that I was keeping in the back of my head as one of my reasons For trying to have few interventions during the birth.

So he fed Relatively easily right at the beginning. I wouldn't say it was during the golden hour, but it was in the first couple of hours Um Probably in the first two hours. And I had, during pregnancy, gone to see an IBCLC in my town because as I was preparing for breastfeeding, I was looking at all of these resources and videos of, um, antenatal hand expression and, um, latching on, and it Sort of hit me one day all of a sudden that I was looking at this woman in this video And I was looking at her nipples, and I just I just had this light bulb moment where I realized wow I do not look like that and I sort of panicked for a couple of days and I went down this rabbit hole of learning what inverted and flat nipples are and Discovering you know I had never Known this about myself.

I didn't really have any reason to, I guess, be examining pictures of many other women's breasts until now. And so I went to see an IBCLC because I wanted her thoughts on it. I, I wasn't sure how big of a problem it was going to be. And, um, she did confirm, she thought that I had inverted nipples. And she helped to prepare me for the challenges that I might experience at the beginning.

Um, so I, I learned how to, Sort of extract the nipple with suction. 

[00:14:11] Emma Pickett: So you do have the kind of nipple that can evert. You can, so obviously there are some, there are different types of inverted nipples. Some are very tethered and will not ever stick out, whatever happens. But yours were able to evert. 

[00:14:23] Abby: Yes, one of them more so than the other one.

And so I was prepared and, you know, I was pretty nervous that I didn't know how hard it was going to be in the beginning. Um, so the first couple of days, I did have a nipple shield. I didn't use it too much, um, I actually used in the beginning, well, one of my first nurses in the hospital showed me how to hand express colostrum and that was, looking back on it, I think the most important thing that I learned at the beginning, that was my first day, right when I got moved to my recovery room and I was having a hard time latching him on.

And so I was just hand expressing colostrum and honestly getting it up with my pinky finger and feeding him with my finger that way over and over again. And I would do that till I got, you know, maybe 15 drops on one side, 15 drops on the other side, and then I would stop. And that was how I fed him a lot for the first couple of days.

[00:15:28] Emma Pickett: Gosh, that's a heck of a lot of drops of fingers. So it's just interesting to hear about how You know, how the support differs in different places, and it doesn't sound as though you had a lot of information about antenatal expressing of colostrum, that wasn't something that you were necessarily encouraged to do, or was that a choice you made not to do?

[00:15:46] Abby: I did, um, the same IBCLC did recommend that I express some colostrum. I guess a different podcast maybe would be that I had gestational diabetes. Um, it was pretty, pretty well managed and he was actually a relatively small baby and his blood sugars were stable in the first couple of days after birth.

But because of that, um, I wanted to be prepared with some, um, and I tried many, many times for probably the last three weeks of my pregnancy. And I Was really not getting very much out. 

[00:16:25] Emma Pickett: Yeah, that's such a common experience I think that can be so disheartening especially if there's someone like you who is really really motivated to breastfeed So with your peer support hat on I'm sure you wouldn't mind me sharing that that is no reflection on future breastfeeding success It's no reflection on whether you'll get colostrum when baby's born if you can't hand express colostrum during pregnancy You're not alone.

There may be some tricks that help you get better at it But it's it's not necessarily something that is going to work for everybody Do you mind me asking, did anyone talk to you about any other sort of nipple preparations? Because it wasn't very long ago that people were being told to do certain things to their nipples antenatally and we now know that wasn't evidence based and doing things like Hoffman's exercises are not going to be helpful and wearing nipple, wearing breast shells and you know, bits of silicon in pregnancy are not going to be helpful.

Did anyone encourage you to do any of that stuff? 

[00:17:17] Abby: Yes. Yes, and I did. I ordered, um, product that was, you know, intended to be worn to create suction to draw the nipple out. Um, and I wore these probably an hour a day. It was pretty painful. I wore it about an hour a day for the last two, three weeks of pregnancy.

And that was also pretty disheartening because I thought that I was Or I was hoping that it was going to help prepare the nipples for feeding and, you know, I would see when the suction was on, they would come out, and really, as soon as you take them off, they'd go back in. 

[00:18:05] Emma Pickett: Okay. 

[00:18:05] Abby: And now, looking back in hindsight, the, the suction of a baby's mouth is so much stronger than those, um, and now that I've been breastfeeding for a year and a half, I, can see such a significant difference in that they do come out much easier, um, stay out for longer.

Um, it doesn't take much effort on his part. You know, one, one suck and they're out. So I think the attempts to sort of condition the body Body ahead of time seems so feeble in comparison to what the baby can do after birth At least that was my experience. 

[00:18:49] Emma Pickett: I think that's what evidence is pointing to I think we're finding out that actually doing stuff anti natally if anything as you say painful on very sensitive, you know Hormonally driven nipples, but also possibly undermining confidence as well because every single time you do it you're being you know You're having this message reinforced that your body is not working as it should or is not enough or breastfeeding will be a problem And it doesn't, it doesn't seem to be that you can actually permanently change nipple shape in pregnancy.

So it's not something we normally would be advising anyone to do. It's all about what happens when baby's here, getting the right support with positioning and attachment. And as you say, sometimes using a nipple shield. So you were using a shield for how long? So I would use a 

[00:19:28] Abby: shield for probably part of the feed.

For not even every feed, for maybe the first month. And I would, you know, maybe use it once a day. I would, it would sort of ebb and flow the difficulty of getting him to latch on. And one of the things that I actually found more helpful in a shield was just using suction. at the beginning of a feed to draw the nipple out to get him to latch on.

And so that's what I would do a lot more frequently, actually. And it was difficult, and it took a lot of persistence over and over and over again, and there were a lot of feeds in the middle of the night, especially, I remember. Just trying to get him to latch on over and over again. And so sometimes I would try suction and that would work right away.

Sometimes that wouldn't work, um, and if it didn't, then I would put on the nipple shield and that usually worked. And then maybe I would try to remove it partway through the feed, um, remove it after he fell asleep and then was still sucking. And I probably used that. Up until 

[00:20:35] Emma Pickett: four or five weeks. Okay. And what were you using for the suction?

Did you have any particular devices that you found helpful? 

[00:20:42] Abby: They were called supple cups, and that was the tool that the, um, lactation consultant had originally advised me to get to sort of condition the nipple, the nipple, and then I, I ended up just using them for this different purpose. Okay. But I do know that other things can be helpful.

I think some people find that a couple of seconds with a hand pump. I know some people with inverted nipples use that or the sort of blunt end of a syringe. I know, just through my La Leche League training, I know that those are some other things that people use. 

[00:21:21] Emma Pickett: Yeah. And there are also some, obviously some devices that you can buy on the market for that purpose as well.

But yeah, the adapted syringe is a handy one and a lot cheaper. Although that's not necessarily what the product was designed for you and you can find out if you just literally Google inverted nipples Adapted syringe you'll come across the article in the description how to do it Yes, a little advert just to say that you can buy my four books online You've got it in you a positive guide to breastfeeding is 99 P as an e book and that's aimed at expectant and new parents The breast book published by Pintrim Martin is a guide for 9 to 14 year olds and it's a puberty book that puts the emphasis on breasts, which I think is very much needed.

And my last two books are about supporting breastfeeding beyond six months and supporting the transition from breastfeeding. For a 10 percent discount on the last two, go to Jessica Kingsley Press, that's uk. jkp. com and use the code MMPE10. Makes milk. Pick it, Emma. 10. Thanks. Okay, so let's talk about how the next few weeks progressed and tell me the story of what happened when you went to get some extra support from a lactation consultant.

[00:22:34] Abby: Yes, so about, I would say, four or five weeks in, I started experiencing a lot of pain and I really, I experienced almost no discomfort in the first couple of weeks, first two, three weeks, which, I, I would expect would be the more, the more common time to have discomfort. And so I didn't really know what was going on.

I did have a clot at one point around that time that I was able to get out pretty quickly. Um, just by changing positions. You're talking about 

[00:23:10] Emma Pickett: a block, a block duck to some, uh, clog of milk or, okay. 

[00:23:15] Abby: Yes, on one side, I woke up one morning and felt a hard lump. Um, and I texted my sister, who's kind of my breastfeeding encyclopedia.

And, um, she, one of the first things that she recommended was just to switch positions. She said, are you always feeding in the same position? You know, turn them around. feet from a different position. And as soon as I did that, it, um, it came out. And a couple days after that, I just started feeling a lot of discomfort to the point where it was really hard to keep him on.

Um, he was nursing. As I said, he's always been nursing on demand. He's always enjoyed having a nipple in his mouth while he sleeps. So he was latched on for me for so So much of the day, um, at that time, again, around four or five weeks, and I can't really, I still to this day do not know what the pain was from.

Just felt like discomfort, rubbing. It felt like my nipple was almost raw at that point, but to the eye, it appeared fine. So I went to, back to the same. IBCLC, my husband came with me, and this was at five weeks, and we were brought in, and I didn't really know what to expect. We were told right away that we'd be doing a weighted feed, um, which I think was pretty much just the, the common.

thing to do. 

[00:24:59] Emma Pickett: Okay, so just for anyone who doesn't know, if anyone doesn't know, tell us what a weighted feed is. It's not common practice in the UK to do weighted feeds, so my UK audience particularly won't be familiar with them. What's a weighted feed? 

[00:25:09] Abby: So a weight at the beginning, probably with a clean diaper, and then a feed, and then a weight at the end of the feed, and then the difference in grams gets estimated to be the amount of milk that was transferred during the feed.

[00:25:26] Emma Pickett: Yeah, so a cubic centimetre of water weighs one gram, which is one millilitre, and the logic is that milk is going to weigh roughly about the same as water, so if a baby puts on 40 grams in between those two weigh ins, they maybe took 40, you know, millilitres of milk, and that's why you need to keep the diaper on, just so that that weight's not going to go anywhere.

But not something we would normally do for a new mum without good reason. And certainly not something we would normally do without having had quite a long conversation first about, um, history and what is going on and watching a feed. So that was the first thing that happened. That was the first thing that happened.

[00:26:06] Abby: Which was immediately, um, immediately caused a lot of stress. Because I Specifically was there because I just desperately wanted somebody to look at the latch. And I wanted her to, to watch, to see, you know, if she could figure out what was causing so much pain. I was at the point where I felt like I couldn't even finish a full feed without, you know, gritting my teeth.

And that was very stressful for me, and I just desperately wanted that to be the thing that was addressed immediately. 

[00:26:45] Emma Pickett: I'm so sorry. I mean, for anyone listening, we can already tell that there's, for whatever reason, this professional wasn't even listening to you at the very, very beginning. And one of the reasons we don't do weighted feeds is because we know that it's more likely to cause stress, which then suppresses the milk ejection reflex and may literally mean less milk getting into the baby than when it happened normally.

So if anyone does a weighted feed, it has to be with a huge pinch of salt and ideally, you know, several over a period of time in different circumstances. And one weighted feed is not necessarily in a very useful set of, set of data. How did that, that kind of conversation carry on? So you were feeling a bit disappointed.

She wasn't necessarily taking your history or listening to what your goals were for the session. What happened next? 

[00:27:29] Abby: Right, so, I was feeding him in the chair, and I remember he had fallen asleep very quickly during the feed. And part of that was, I remember when we arrived, it was actually, I actually didn't see her before the appointment began.

The, um, assistant or maybe nurse came in and he was, He began the process by weighing him and then we were waiting for her to come in and Yardley was getting really distressed, waiting to be nursed. We were probably waiting for 20 30 minutes, and he was crying, and I wasn't nursing him. And it was probably the longest that I've ever gone, not responding to him.

But I didn't want to begin until she was in the room, because I thought it would defeat the purpose of being there. So looking back, I think about it, and very early on into the feed, he fell asleep. Probably, possibly, from being so tired from crying for 20 30 minutes. And I put him on one side, she looked at the latch, she said she thought it looked great, um, which was confusing to me because I was convinced something was wrong.

We switched, we put him on the other side, he was still asleep, um, and I remember when his sucking became, uh, less active, she instructed me to take him off. And she said at this point I would take him off because he's, he's not doing anything. So I And I remember saying to her, you know, If we were at home, I would let him stay on longer.

Because I typically don't remove him at that point. If he was sucking, he was still staying on. Um, and so I said to her, you know, if we were at home, I'd leave him on. And she said, well, he's not actively sucking, so take him off and we'll weigh him. And so the approximation was that he'd transferred 1. 7 ounces.

And her response to that was, it is possible that you are not making enough milk because we would have hoped to see Two to five ounces. 

[00:29:52] Emma Pickett: Okay, deep breaths here, I'm going to try not to, not to, not to swear because my podcast currently has a clean rating. So Just remind us how many weeks old he is at this point.

He was five weeks old. Okay, so five ounces of milk transfer at five weeks. So for anyone who's not familiar with the imperial, a fluid ounce is about 30 milliliters of milk. So 30 times five is 150 milliliters. Help me out here, Abby. Maths was a long time ago. And to expect a five week old to transfer 150 milliliters of milk.

On in one breastfeed when she'd actually taken you off when you said you normally wouldn't have taken him off and babies can move into a non nutritive style and then start another milk ejection reflex and there can be more swallowing and that was all prevented. Not only did she say on that one feed, it looked like this is how much he transferred.

It would be great if you transferred a bit more. She actually then extrapolated that to mean that you are not making enough milk. and actually made a statement to imply that your production overall was not sufficient. How were you feeling in that moment? 

[00:30:59] Abby: That is the, it is probably one of the worst moments of my entire breastfeeding experience was that moment because as a new breastfeeding mother probably one of the biggest fears that we all have is that we are not going to make enough milk and there are so many messages that we get that suggest that we may not be able to make enough milk.

And so that was always, always, always in the back of my mind in the beginning, because I desperately wanted to be able to breastfeed successfully. It was doubly troubling because that wasn't why I was there at all. And I actually thought that things were going pretty well, despite the pain. I had been convincing myself.

that my supply was, you know, probably sufficient because his weight gain had been good. Though he was in, he has always been in a lower percentile for weight. The amount of weight that he was gaining per day at that time had been quite good. 

[00:32:12] Emma Pickett: And nappies, you were happy with nappies, translation diapers?

[00:32:15] Abby: The day before we had been to the pediatrician in the US, we have a month checkup and he had gained 24 ounces in 20 days. Which was a little more than an ounce a day, which I had been told was, which is more than we expect. Yeah. Was great. So, 

[00:32:33] Emma Pickett: so 30 grams a day, one ounce a day roughly is, um, you know, what we're aiming for.

Yes. And actually, um, I, my brain is slightly fizzing at trying to do imperial and metric conviction. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about that. You were allowed to be American Abby. It's okay. You're allowed to be American, but, but I mean, 24 ounce gain in 20 days should not have been a cause for concern. Yes.

Despite that data. Um, despite that data, um, and you know, you haven't raised any concerns around NAPI output. She was basing her assessment on that one feed, that, that one feed, that one weighted feed enough to make that, that statement for you. And I can imagine how devastating that must have been. 

[00:33:13] Abby: Right.

So on that, she was basing the, um, I guess, hypothesis on that feed as well as during the feed, I, we were talking about his nursing habits. And she asked me how much he was nursing throughout the day, and I responded essentially saying he was nursing constantly. And her response at the end of the feed was, she said based on the fact that he is, he transferred 1.

7 ounces of milk, that he's nursing around the clock. I remember that was the language she used. My hypothesis would be that he is, not getting enough. And so one of her concerns was not just the amount of milk, but the fact that he was nursing so frequently. That made her suspect that there might not be enough milk.

And when I mentioned the weight gain, her response was, it doesn't matter. That was what she said. It doesn't 

[00:34:22] Emma Pickett: matter. So that's the bit, when you mentioned your story to me and you used that phrase, that's the bit that kind of, my jaw dropped. So you literally said he's put on, you know, an ounce a day, which is about 28, 30 grams, which is absolutely what we expect.

He'd put on more than that. And she said that doesn't matter, that's not important. Because she, presumably Because he's nursing 

[00:34:43] Abby: around the clock. She'd 

[00:34:44] Emma Pickett: perceived that you, I mean, when you say around the clock, what Do you, do you remember roughly what we were talking about? What's the sort of round the clock in, in those terms for her?

[00:34:52] Abby: Well, I think I told her that she, that he was sleeping still at that point, sleeping pretty good chunks. I was going to say, cause you 

[00:35:00] Emma Pickett: just, you just told us earlier, he's in the bassinet. He's maybe sleeping, you know, four or five hours at night. 

[00:35:08] Abby: During the day it was really constant. And I attribute a lot of that to One, him just wanting to be nursing, but at that time, I really couldn't recognize what the difference was between actively sucking, swallowing, versus sucking in, in his sleep, and I didn't really know the difference between that, and so if he was sucking, maybe not getting a lot of milk, but he was getting comfort during his sleep, I would leave him on for that, and so he might be asleep for an hour, and my assumption at the time was this was just one very, very long feed, and so I couldn't really tell the difference between feeds and sleep at that point.

So I did share that we would be sitting in a chair for hours sometimes, sometimes three hours at a time. He would be latched on throughout the day and that was just how we would go about the day. 

[00:36:18] Emma Pickett: And that's not uncommon. I don't want you to think that, you know, you were missing some amazing piece of perception that, you know, other mothers have.

And actually, you know, we could have on a whole other hour talking about the value of breastfeeding beyond milk transfer. I mean, to be able to connect and sleep and snooze on the breast and breast sleeping as James McKenna calls it. I mean, that's all valuable too. And as long as. You were getting support and you were eating and you were drinking and you were resting that can work.

I mean, there, you know, throughout human history, babies have been in, in slings and carried and just fed constantly on, you know, on and off. We know we've got studies where babies were literally feeding every hour. You know, throughout the 24 hour cycle in normal, you know, cultures where we're not timing and we're not measuring.

So the idea that that in itself is a sign of insufficient milk supply is questionable. But I'm guessing at this stage you haven't done your Lech League training. You're just a new vulnerable mum. She's telling you, I don't think you've got enough milk. What, what, and, but also what's really key about this conversation is that she's not addressing you and being in pain.

I mean, you are in pain. That's the purpose of you going there. And you haven't said to me yet that she's done any work around that. She's just said the latch is okay. That's it. I mean, did she look at your nipples and see if there's any signs of any infection or what? I mean, what happened? Did she do anything around the sore 

[00:37:40] Abby: nipple?

She did examine them. She didn't think that there was an infection. She thought that on looking at them, she thought that they looked fine. She did prescribe a topical antibiotic, I believe. I don't know exactly what it was. I never picked it up from the pharmacy. As the story goes, I decided not to take Um, so I didn't end up picking it up at the pharmacy, but her concern was that if the skin did break, I could get an infection.

So she wanted me to use that, um, in case I did need it in the next couple of days. But apart from that, nothing else was really addressed about the pain. I do remember going home and probably in one of my many tearful conversations with my husband, I remember saying, I didn't even Get help with the thing that I really needed because I'm still in pain.

[00:38:38] Emma Pickett: Yeah. 

[00:38:38] Abby: And eventually it did go away, um, over probably the next week or so. The discomfort did go away, so I, I still don't really know what it was. I, I have one, one theory that I'm almost hesitant to say because I'm not sure that it is true. But about a week and a half, two weeks later was when I got my first period.

So I thought I don't think 

[00:39:03] Emma Pickett: that's unreasonable to think it might be related to that. Yeah, I thought it could be ovulation. Ovulation, yeah. I thought it could be 

[00:39:08] Abby: my first um, ovulation. So, um, but I didn't, I didn't think of that till many, many months later. 

[00:39:16] Emma Pickett: So taking you back to that moment then, you've just said, but hang on, what about his weight gain?

She says, that doesn't matter. She says, I don't think you're making enough milk. Did she then at least Leave you with a programmer to, to change that? I mean, what, what, how did that conversation go? Yes. She must have seen that you were visibly distressed and upset at that moment. How did she respond to that?

[00:39:36] Abby: So, I started crying in the office. Um, I was very upset. I was, I felt like my biggest fear had been realized. I'm so sorry. She was clear in saying that she wasn't, she wasn't saying that without a doubt. She thought I wasn't making enough milk. She had. some suggestions for how to officially diagnose it. So what she wanted me to do was the next morning she suggested that when we wake up before feeding him to What I had in the early morning.

I know I can see your face. I'm trying to hold it together. I'm trying to hold it together. I mean, okay Yeah, 

[00:40:23] Emma Pickett: I'm sorry. Please continue. I'm gonna stay professional 

[00:40:26] Abby: The next morning I wake up before feeding Yardley for the first time to pump and mind you I had never used my pump before and she said that if I didn't get out a total of Five ounces, again, sorry for the conversion, um, I guess that's a hundred and fifty.

So 

[00:40:50] Emma Pickett: slightly less than 150 because it's 28, um, milliliters per ounce. So, you know, let's say 140, roughly, 145 milliliters. 

[00:40:58] Abby: So let's say 145 milliliters. If I didn't get that much out, then there was a problem. 

[00:41:04] Emma Pickett: Okay, right. Now, I'm not going to stay professional here. So I think one thing I'm going to take away from this, and I think we all need to take away from this, And I say this with a great love of the IBCLC profession, being an IBCLC does not make somebody infallible.

It does not, it does not make somebody necessarily extremely experienced in all aspects of lactation. Some of us will specialize in one area, some of us will specialize in others. And it is possible sometimes to pass the exam without necessarily having had a lot of hands on experience working with breastfeeding mothers.

And that might seem a bit weird, that I'm essentially dissing my profession in this conversation. But I think it's really important that when people look for IBCLCs, they, they do a little bit of a deep dig. And ideally do get some word of mouth recommendations. Because this particular person you're talking about, who we are obviously not going to name, doesn't understand some really basic stuff about how pumping works and how our bodies respond to breast pumps.

And there are people I've worked with through the years who have whopping great overproduction and don't, don't pump anything. Um, they literally don't respond to a pump at all. And in your situation, Abby, you, I know I'm telling you what you already know, you're an anxious mum, you know, this is hours after you've been told something devastating, you're going to have adrenaline and cortisol flooding through your system, you are not going to be relaxed at the point of pumping in that moment, you are going to be incredibly tense.

I'm going to be amazed if you tell me you did pump 140 millilitres, because that would be quite a lot for anybody, um, particularly somebody five weeks in, particularly somebody whose baby feeds through the night. Um, you know, you probably, you just recently removed Yardley to even start pumping. And for her to say that that was a way to measure milk supply, and this is, you know, Yardley's not 10 years old.

We're not talking about someone in the, you know, year 2000 or 2010. We're talking about somebody 18 months ago telling you this. This is somebody who really doesn't understand some of the fundamentals of lactation. And I'm incredibly sorry that that was, she told you that was some sort of test. Because that was a test you were almost and certainly going to fail.

Um, and I'm guessing that you did. Tell us what happened. 

[00:43:07] Abby: Thank you. Well, I went home and I called my sister, who, um, she's currently feeding her second baby. She fed her first till he was about two and a half, maybe a little over two and a half. So she has been my greatest resource for breastfeeding information, for sort of pulling me back down to reality, for helping me to sort through.

All kinds of breastfeeding related concerns, and I called her and I was crying and I said I can't, I can't believe it. She, she, she thinks I don't have enough milk. I knew it. I knew all along I wasn't gonna have enough milk, and I don't. And my sister just said, she's wrong. You have enough milk. I know it.

Um, you feed him constantly, all the time. You're feeding him on demand. He's healthy. He's gaining weight. He is producing diapers. I am sure. And she said, You can do what you want. I would not pump. You are not going to get that. And when you don't get that, you are going to be even more panicked. You need to carry on doing what you've been doing.

And I thought, okay. Okay, maybe I'm not going to, maybe I'm not going to try it. And so I kind of started coming back down. And that day, I remember reaching out to a bunch of different resources, including a well known IBCLC in the UK. I, I, can I name names? As long as you're not telling us she's a bitch, absolutely.

No, the wonderful, the wonderful Lucy Webber. Oh my God, 

[00:44:57] Emma Pickett: Lucy Webber is the opposite of that. She's fantastic. I 

[00:44:59] Abby: had some email exchanges with her and I emailed her that day and I, I said that, you know, this recommends that I pump and her response was, you know, I wouldn't do it. Everything sounds like it's going great.

A pump is not a good measure of what you're able to make anyways. 

[00:45:16] Emma Pickett: Yeah, I am not remotely surprised. That's what Lucy said. That was very reassuring. Because that's what any, any experienced, qualified lactation consultant would say. And Lucy is also empathic and able to look at the big picture and is a fantastic lactation consultant.

So I'm really glad that you connected with her and got that information. 

[00:45:34] Abby: And then I went to, later that afternoon, I was trying to do everything that I could to get, to get different opinions. And later that afternoon, I joined a Zoom breastfeeding support group. With, um, a wonderful, uh, U. S., California based IBCLC, who I was also following on Instagram.

Her name is Natalie Johnson, and she has an online breastfeeding support group, and I spoke with her at that meeting, and, um, she was very reassuring as well. And I remember the language that she used. I replay it over and over in my head, and I did, especially at that time, that she said, you know, I'm sorry that someone has planted this seed of doubt.

In your head and I am here to rip out the roots of that tree that has been planted and, um, she was also very reassuring and told me not to pump. So I did not, um, and to this day I have never pumped. 

[00:46:38] Emma Pickett: So that, that is interesting, isn't it? I mean, that's something that, um, I mean, you may have chosen not to pump anyway.

If you don't mind me saying, it suggests to me that that maybe is a little bit of a trauma response that pumping has been contaminated by this event. I mean, would you say that's fair? Absolutely, 

[00:46:56] Abby: 100%. Yes, you hit the nail on the head. I did not want to see how much I've made. Definitely not that day. And in the following weeks, I just didn't want to know.

I thought that for someone who was already really anxious about Supply, I knew that watching how much I made every single day, watching dips would cause me a great deal of stress, and I didn't want to see it. And I just remember saying those words a lot to my husband, to my sister, and I don't want to know.

I don't want to see it. I don't want to know how much it is because if it's not as much as I think it's supposed to be, I'm going to fall back into this. into this hole. So that probably is the reason why I didn't pump in the beginning. And, um, now I, I think I have enough confidence that I would be able to handle it, but it's just not become a part of my routine and nursing from the breast is just something that is now just such a big part of what I do and it works for us.

And I don't know that in the future with other children, maybe I will, um, but at least for this relationship, it just, it hasn't been a part of it. 

[00:48:25] Emma Pickett: Yeah. So I mean, one thing that's coming from your story is, is that value of having that other support. I mean, thank goodness you were, you had your sister. It sounds like your husband was already on, you know, supporting you as well.

And thank goodness you were on the right Instagram accounts, you knew who to talk to. Yay for zoom calls that can happen same day because without that you really could have been spiraling and let's imagine you did pump and like almost all breastfeeding mums at that point you did not get, um, you know, five ounces or whatever nonsense she said.

Um, and if you'd gone back to her, she presumably would have ended your exclusive breastfeeding. She would have been talking about supplementing with formula. I'm guessing I don't know what she would have led you to next, but I'm extremely skeptical. It would have been valuable even if you had had a situation where, you know, you had issues with your milk production.

So, did you have further contact with this person? How, what happened next? 

[00:49:16] Abby: She was very kind to follow up with me the next day. Um, she had my personal phone number and she texted me. And it was probably around 10am. After we had agreed I would pump around 8 or 9. And she asked me how it went. And I never responded to her.

And that was it.

In hindsight, I wish I had said something. Um, it's kind of rude not to respond to somebody. I recognize that. You had every 

[00:49:47] Emma Pickett: right not to respond. I just thought 

[00:49:49] Abby: that if I engaged with her more, I would not be going down the right path. 

[00:49:54] Emma Pickett: Well, you'd have been swearing a lot. I was, yeah, 

[00:49:57] Abby: I was, I was sad. I don't know yet that I was quite mad.

I got mad later, um, when I, I got more confidence. I still, I have some anger looking back on the interaction with her. I thought about what I would want to say to her, or what I would want to write to her if I ever got in contact with her. But at that time, I was just too, I was really emotional, really stressed, really sleep deprived.

I didn't know what I would say to her. Um, I didn't really want to have to defend my choice, not to test it. Um, I didn't really want to waver in what I decided to do and just to carry on and so I, I didn't follow up with her. 

[00:50:47] Emma Pickett: So she texted, you didn't respond and she never contacted you again. That's right.

So even though she perceived there was a baby who was getting insufficient milk, she didn't feel she had a responsibility to follow up, um, or, I mean, on any page, there's so many issues going on here, isn't there? Even the, even the simple fact she kept you waiting for 20 to 30 minutes with a brand new baby.

Without coming in and apologizing for keeping you waiting. I mean, there's so many, so many gaps going on here. And I guess if you're trying to be kind and empathic, maybe she was having the worst day. But the worst day doesn't explain her misunderstanding of how pumping works. Having a bad day doesn't explain her ignoring his weight gain and his, you know, the strong evidence around his weight gain.

Oh, there's, I mean, do you, when you look back on that conversation with her, you say you got madder. Do you find yourself kind of visualizing talking to her and bumping into her in the street? I mean, she's presumably fairly local to you. I mean, do you ever think you might come across her again in a, in a sort of professional capacity or, or a supermarket capacity?

If you were to meet her, what do you think you would say now? It's possible. I think I once 

[00:51:54] Abby: wrote down what I would, what I would say to her. I think, you know, I wouldn't want to be angry because I want her to see and understand that, There are many ways to have a successful breastfeeding relationship, and I'd want her to see and know that I have had one.

I've had an amazing relationship with my son, nursing him the way that I have, and he is healthy, and I am so happy that we have the close, close relationship that we do, and that he's continued to gain weight all along the way. And I, I would want her to see that and understand that, that, you know, that nursing around the clock that she was concerned by.

The, um, you know, the, the different sleep patterns that she was concerned by. We discussed that as well in our, in our meeting. That, that can all be and is normal. 

[00:53:02] Emma Pickett: And, and your choice. Yes. And, and it was working for you. And that's not how we measure. We don't, we don't measure milk production by imposing a cultural view of what scheduled breastfeeding should look like.

And this is one of my particular passions of mine. I've written an article called the, you know, Dangerous Obsession with the Infant Feeding Interval, which very much focuses on this. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes. The idea that frequent feeding is a problem in itself. It's so condescending, and also simply misses the fact that we all have different storage capacities, you know, storage capacity varies enormously, some people will need to feed more frequently, and some people, like you did, would choose to breastfeed for sleep, for comfort, and it works, and that's not a problem, and I'm, I don't feel you have a responsibility to correct this woman, because your responsibility is to yourself, and your own mental health, and to Yardley, but I'm slightly mindful of the fact that she's out there, A bit like a sort of bomb.

Presumably doing versions of this to other families. And if this is her full time job, she could be doing this to other families multiple times a week. I mean, how do you feel about that? That's a bit scary. It doesn't feel good. 

[00:54:17] Abby: I am definitely aware of it. It doesn't feel good. From what I know about her, I think she's also very highly regarded and respected.

Um, among other IBCLCs in the Connecticut and New York area. And so that is kind of scary to me. And I, so I do think about that and I, I, I think about one day having the conversation with her or writing her a letter, um, and also wanting her to know how this affected me so significantly, um, in terms of, you know, my own anxiety, my own health, and this, I'm so grateful that it did not derail my breastfeeding relationship, but it derailed it.

Me for a long time and it caused a great deal of anxiety around breastfeeding for me for many months after that. And I am grateful that I have made it through the other side of that experience with much more confidence. But I also know, as you mentioned, there's an alternate reality where things did not go my way and I did follow her advice.

And had I not had someone like my sister or other friends. know of other people to reach out for, I would have followed her advice because she is the quote unquote expert in the field. And I just see that happening all the time with babies and infant feeding and when we do intervene, sometimes it's necessary.

So I'm not going to say that it, you know, interventions are not ever necessary. Sometimes they are, but so often When we take babies to feeding support and there is an intervention that maybe is not in our best interest, there is often a domino effect that then leads to something else going wrong and something else needing support and, um, And I, I just see that all the time and it's, it's very frustrating.

[00:56:24] Emma Pickett: I think one of the things, I mean we can imagine a, let's imagine a scenario that wasn't Yardley's story. Let's imagine that you went to have that consultation and yes, there were problems with milk transfer and the weight gain history indicated that perhaps he was struggling to get enough milk and he was nowhere near 24 ounces in 20 days.

If that was the story Her response to it should have still been very, very different. So, you know, you should have left that room feeling empowered, reassured that things could be done, that we could turn things around. The answer is certainly not to be pumping the next morning to measure output for a hundred, a hundred percent.

There are so many ways in which that conversation in that one scenario would have been very, very different. So not only was that untrue in your case. But you weren't even being given a set of, you know, a set of skills to help you turn things around or to improve things or change things. So it was, it was a failure in so many different ways and I am so incredibly sorry that you had that experience and I'm so relieved that you did come out the other side of it, but from what you're saying, you know, it wasn't just like the next day.

Your sister and Lucy and various people said don't be daft and you were like, oh fine and you weren't able to shake it off I'm not trying to do my Taylor Swift impression here You weren't you know, it stayed on you even though people you trusted told you not to pay attention to it That's that you know, that route wasn't completely taken out and and how did that stay with you for the for the next one?

[00:57:53] Abby: Well, it's kind of like when if you get a lot of compliments from people And then you get one, um, criticism, you think about the criticism over and over again, and you can't think about the compliments. So, even though I was getting a lot of reassurance, it was really, it required a very concerted effort to follow those voices.

Because her voice, the one voice that was telling me that maybe things were not okay, was It's definitely the loudest and the one that stayed with me the most. So it affected every single feed I had for months. I became obsessed with, um, watching him swallow, waiting for letdowns, watching letdowns. I would even count how many swallows he had.

wondering if he was getting enough milk. I would feel my breasts to see if they felt full, to see if they felt like they had a lot of milk in them, which, as I know now, that's not what you want to feel. You don't want to feel full breasts. Um, my biggest problem after this was I had a lot of trouble sleeping, um, very shortly after this meeting, um, because I became obsessed with not wanting to miss.

I was very much aware of the supply and demand relationship, and so I didn't want to miss any time he needed to feed, um, because I didn't want, I wanted my body to always be getting that cue. So that's what eventually led me to bed share, um, because I became very nervous in the middle of the night that if he was in the bassinet and he was, you know, swaddled up, I might miss, he needs to nurse.

So eventually he came into our bed, I fed him much, much more. overnight, starting from around three months. Um, that helped me to sleep better as well. Um, just having him there, knowing that I was feeding him. Um, I became very fixated on not wanting to delay feeds. So Um, anytime my husband and I would go anywhere, you know, I'd feed him right before we got in the car.

If we were going on a hike, we loved to hike. Um, I'd feed him right before we left. We'd drive the 20 minutes or whatever it was to get to where we were going. I would feed him in the car before we got out of the car. We would stop halfway through the hike for me to feed him. So, it really became as wonderful as it is to have that on demand relationship.

For me, it was, um, looking back on it. It, it was More than I needed to do. 

[01:00:44] Emma Pickett: And it doesn't sound like it was coming from a place of joy. It was coming from a place of trying to push away that negative voice. And, and, you know, even though his weight gain was absolutely fine all through this period, just that one conversation really, really sat with you.

And that really just emphasizes the power that people have when they're in those, you know, early consultations with parents. I'm, I'm going to guess that she's not the type of person who'd listen to this podcast because if she's not humble enough to have thought about her practice and done research and understand things like pumps don't measure milk production, she's not likely to be somebody that cares to listen to other lactation consultants or do much professional development beyond that.

Um, but I've got this fantasy that you kind of will create a QR code of this podcast episode and kind of spray paint it on her car or something and that's obviously that's destructive. We're not advocating that you're not in an angry place, which I respect. I think I'm probably more in more of an angry place than you are because you've done all this great work and and work through it.

And you look like you are in a healthy place today. Do you feel that you have now? unrooted that voice? 

[01:01:52] Abby: Yes, I have totally conquered it. Um, I, it took a few months. I really needed more reassurance that his weight gain was good. Um, I think it was around four months. I, we went back to the doctor and he, his weight had shot up.

And his percentile had gone up pretty significantly, which, um, that's not, that's not to say that that was necessary to see in order to be competent, but that did help me. And, um, I do remember texting my sister that day saying, I feel like I'm starting to finally be convinced after all this time. And I wish that I hadn't wasted so much time and effort worrying about this.

Um, so it was around then, um, that I started to. to feel like, okay, I've gotten through this and I feel good about it. 

[01:02:48] Emma Pickett: At what point did you train to be a peer supporter? 

[01:02:51] Abby: I started the process when he was about 10 months, I think. So about seven months ago, I started. And, um, I just, I finished training just a few weeks ago, so I'm, I'm still in the very early days of, of getting up and running.

Um, so that, that just happened right before the holidays. 

[01:03:16] Emma Pickett: Okay. Oh, well, congratulations on finishing your training. And, and I'm, I'm, I know that this experience, as awful as it was, will have really helped you to be an even better peer supporter. Because you will be really careful with the language you choose.

You'll be evidence based. You will look at the whole picture. You will listen to the flipping goals of the person that comes to talk to you rather than assuming you understand what they want to hear. I mean, that's the bit that shocks me. But is there anything we haven't mentioned that you really want to make sure we cover in this episode?

[01:03:48] Abby: Well, it's not anything new, but I do think that I just want to underscore what you said about finding the, not just finding support, but finding the right support. And the most helpful thing for me was having Somebody who's breastfeeding journey, I really admired and wanted to model mine after, though our, our journeys are not the same entirely, but just having someone who I really admired, like my sister and, and taking cues from them and asking them for advice is really helpful.

Um, and, and that can be. A big support, 

[01:04:30] Emma Pickett: um, for, for a new mom. Yeah, definitely. And if you walk out of a consultation and something doesn't feel right, trust your maternal instinct to get that second opinion. And, and, you know, you did absolutely the right thing to reach out to other people and get their views and, and crowdsource your information to then, you know, hopefully have a bit more power to contradict that one voice that was, was negative.

[01:04:55] Abby: Mm hmm. Yeah, you can get a second, second opinion. Everything feels very dire in the beginning, but it's okay to take time. Take a couple of hours, take a day, take two days to think about it and just to seek out. a second or third opinion. 

[01:05:11] Emma Pickett: Definitely. Thank you so much for your time today, Abby. I really, really appreciate it.

And if there's a lactation consultant listening to this thinking, hey, she was not very loyal to lactation consultants, I'm sorry, but in this one particular occasion, no, I wasn't. And I'm sure anyone who listens to this who is trained in breastfeeding support would absolutely be on the same page as me.

And I'm just hoping that the person that you were talking to either was having a horribly bad day, and this is not representative of their normal practice. Or, um, something's happened since, which has changed their views on how they should be supporting parents because it was not okay. And I'm really, really sorry.

I'd be that you had that experience, but I'm so glad that things turn things around and you're so happily breastfeeding Yardley now. And, and yeah, good luck with the rest of your journey with, with Yardley. Thank you. Thank you so much, Emma.

Thank you for joining me today. You can find me on Instagram at Emma Pickett Ibclc and on Twitter at Makes milk. It would be lovely if you subscribed because that helps other people to know I exist and leaving a review would be great. As well, get in touch if you would like to join me to share your feeding or weaning journey, or if you have any ideas for topics to include in the podcast.

This podcast is produced by the lovely Emily Crosby Media.