Emily's story - being a vet and breastfeeding

This week I’m talking to the brilliant Emily, a farm vet from Bath, about her breastfeeding journey. Emily, who returned to work when her son Arty was six months old, shares the challenges and strategies she used to manage breastfeeding while on call and working with farm animals.  We discuss the logistics of expressing milk, handling emergencies, and the adaptability of both mother and child. Emily also talks about her initial breastfeeding difficulties, and the support from her husband and family in continuing her career during Arty’s early years.

My picture book on how breastfeeding journeys end, The Story of Jessie’s Milkies, is available from Amazon here -  The Story of Jessie's Milkies. In the UK, you can also buy it from The Children’s Bookshop in Muswell Hill, London. Other book shops and libraries can source a copy from Ingram Spark publishing.

You can also get 10% off my books on supporting breastfeeding beyond six months and supporting the transition from breastfeeding at the Jessica Kingsley press website, that's uk.jkp.com using the code MMPE10 at checkout.

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

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 am 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 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 am very excited to be talking to Emily today. Emily is from Bath or the bath area, and she is the mother of the lovely Arty. And has a very useful husband who's just been doing incredibly useful tech things before we got on the, got on the call.

And we're gonna be talking about Emily's breastfeeding journey. Not least the fact that she's a vet, she's a farm vet who went back to work when Arty was only six months old, which I think is a really good perspective to talk about. Thank you very much for joining me today. Emily. Tell me a little bit about Arty.

How old is he? What is he doing right now? 

[00:01:23] Emily: Hi, er, thanks for having me. Um, Arty turned two in October, so he is just over two. Um, he's currently napping upstairs, so I've got one, one ear open to listen out for him waking up. But, um, hopefully we've got a, a clear bit of time to chat and yeah, he's, he's your average 2-year-old with all the trials and tribulations, but he has a massive personality and just.

God, A 2-year-old is wild, isn't it? The good and the bad. They're, they're amazing. That is very true. Amazing. Yeah. For context, we were in a and e last night 'cause he had croup. Oh no. He went to bed absolutely fine. And in the middle of the night, all hell broke loose and we were on the phone to one one one and we spent a couple of hours in a e.

So, oh gosh. You quite know what gonna happen next. I'm sorry, I didn't realize that. 

[00:02:13] Emma Pickett: Are you sure you're okay to do this? I, I say that as a vet, you're probably used to not having a full night's sleep anyway, but are you sure? You sure you're up for this? 

[00:02:20] Emily: That is part of the conversation. And I thought this morning, do I cancel?

And then I, I thought, I've been looking forward to having this conversation and this is real life, isn't it? And these conversations that I've enjoyed listening to you having with other people, the fact that you get a real. Sense of people's real lives is what I enjoy about it so much. So I thought, Nope, let's sleep deprivation.

Let's just, let's crack, let's go for it. Well, the sentences 

[00:02:45] Emma Pickett: are forming. So you seem to be functioning. And, and I really appreciate that. Thank you very much for joining me. For anyone who doesn't know about croup, someone who's listened to that thinking, what, what, what group, what, tell me what was going on with him?

What were his symptoms? 

[00:02:57] Emily: Um, I learned a lot about creep in the last 24 hours. 'cause I didn't know much about it either. But he had a normal day at nursery and went to bed absolutely fine. Not a sniff, not a cough, nothing. And he woke up at midnight and he quite often wakes up once in the night. Um, and we could hear him crying, but it was very quiet.

And normally he, you know, he calls for us and my husband went up and immediately came back down and said, something's not right. He's breathing. He's, he's trying to go back to sleep, but his breathing is really labored. And there's this really, I mean, I was calling it a whe but, um, I've learned that it's, it's strider, so it's the sound of that upper respiratory restriction, but it sounds awful.

It's terrifying. Um, and we spoke to 1 1 1 and went to a e and he had a dose of steroids. And honestly, within a few hours was like a different child. The rapid onset and the rapid recovery is kind of gobsmacking. I just didn't know it worked like that. But that apparently is very common with croup. 

[00:03:53] Emma Pickett: So you've got that labored breathing and if, and if they're not wearing a top, their ribs are kind of sucking in because they're really struggling to breathe and, and as you say, coming on super quickly.

So virus coming on and going away again. What, what do people think causes it? Um, I think 

[00:04:09] Emily: it can be all kinds of things. So he's had the normal coughs and colds, um, that you get with nurseries at this time of year, but he's been well for the last week. Um, so it's possibly post postviral. Um, I think sometimes they don't find any other symptoms associated.

So no other infection or Sabine un well, no fever or anything like that. It's just a, like a very in acute inflammation that makes the airways really restricted very suddenly. Okay. So I think it can actually be caused by a few different things. 

[00:04:39] Emma Pickett: So you drove to hospital yourself? Yeah. We luckily live very close to the hospital.

Okay. And then, and you presumably didn't have to wait 'cause when a two year old's got croup, people don't mess around. So you didn't have to hang around. You just went straight in to see somebody. 

[00:04:53] Emily: Yeah. They were fantastic. They saw us very quickly and the only reason we were there for a couple of hours really was kind of observation and they were, um, rechecking him after he'd had the medication.

[00:05:02] Emma Pickett: Okay. So my son, who is now very much not to had croup many, many, many years ago, and a similar thing happened to us that we went straight to hospital and he had a high temperature as well, and they wanted him to take something to bring his temperature down. And my most vivid memory of this is being in the waiting room at the pediatric a e.

Bribing him with chocolate to try and get him to take this medication orally. And, and the nurse saying, oh, I, I really don't think that's a good idea. I went, listen, this is gonna work. Um, and it did work. And she was like, oh, okay. That does seem to work. Um, so I want to know how did he take his steroid? Was it injected or was it, was it oral?

[00:05:42] Emily: It was oral out of just a syringe light You'd give cow pole. And again, the nurse kind of came towards us with this syringe and I just thought, I've got no idea how we're gonna manage this. And I quite often give cow pole while breastfeeding down, down the side of a boob. 'cause that works really well for us.

He just kind of latched onto calp and carries on feeding. And I thought if I have to do this in the waiting room, I'm, that's gonna be my tactic. But I dunno if it was 'cause he was so tired, he just opened his mouth and we squared it in and everyone kind of looked at each other like, Ooh, that that was easy.

[00:06:13] Emma Pickett: And, and he is now back to himself today. He's this morning he was okay. 

[00:06:16] Emily: Yeah. Apart from being a bit tired, he seems completely fine. His breathing is completely normal. Almost like it feels like I dreamt what happened last night 'cause he went to bed fine. And he is fine today. It is the most bizarre thing to go through as a parent when you haven't experienced it before.

[00:06:33] Emma Pickett: Yeah. It is scary, isn't it? It's, it's one of those things along with sort of febrile convulsions. It's one of the Yeah. Scariest things that can happen, I think when you've got a little person that you're, you're parenting and, um, yeah, three cheers for super quick medical attention and absolutely his response as well.

So. Well, thank you for joining us after, after that last night. So, okay. On a, in a normal 24 hours, um, what, what's a typical night like Ferrari 

[00:07:00] Emily: variable, but, but generally pretty good. He either sleeps through or wakes up once, um, if he's unwell, possibly a couple of times, or he might come into the bed with us.

But, um. Generally, and I'm touching the wooden desk as I'm saying it 'cause it's not always been, it's not always been great, but, but generally he's sleeping through or wakes up once. 

[00:07:20] Emma Pickett: Okay. And he's in a cot, he's in his own bed. Where, where is he? Yeah. 

[00:07:24] Emily: Yeah, he's in um, a cot in his own room upstairs. Okay.

[00:07:28] Emma Pickett: When you say he wakes, are you, you're going up and you're breastfeeding him or, or not needed at night? What's the sort of typical feeding at night situation? 

[00:07:35] Emily: Well, we have this really great kind of flexibility at the moment and it has been like that for a long time. So, and this is kind of relevant to the conversation we're having about work is both mine and my husband's jobs mean we're sometimes here at night and sometimes not.

And he will breastfeed back to sleep or he'll have a cuddle and a story from daddy or he will be staying at my parents' house and they'll give him a bottle of milk. Like we have all these various scenarios okay. Of things that could happen when he wakes at night. And he's not always instantly going back to sleep, but, you know, within 15, 20 minutes normally.

He's back to sleep, whoever it is that's kind of gone to see him, which to be honest, I didn't know was possible. Um, and that's partly a product of our setup and how we've done things from early days. 

[00:08:27] Emma Pickett: And that's his normal. His normal is, but that for him is different. Adults do different things and that's the way the cookie crumbles and he's adaptable to that, which is a great testament to how adaptable little people can be.

How often is he with your parents? 

[00:08:40] Emily: It is variable. He was doing one day a week there from when I went back to work. So he'd be there for one or two naps a day at that age. Um, now he stays overnight sometimes if I'm on call or my husband is working abroad, so as often as once or twice a month he's there overnight.

And then quite often in the daytime they're putting him down for naps. So again, that has to have this incredible amount of flexibility in terms of how he goes to sleep with different people in different settings. Um, he's also at nursery three days a week and they have a completely different way, again, of doing things.

And that's something that has completely taken me by surprise. How, how it is possible to have all these different ways of, of settling a little one. And this is, you know, not since he's been a toddler, we've had this since he's been six months old. Yeah. That degree of flexibility. 

[00:09:34] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Okay. Let's imagine a typical day when the two of you're together.

So it's a, a non-working day. I won't even say weekend 'cause I'm sure you work weekends, A non-working day. What, what would he like to do in terms of breastfeeding? What's the sort of typical breastfeeding day for him? 

[00:09:49] Emily: Um, he loves to breastfeed, so, um, if I'm here in the morning when he wakes up, he will always climb in our bed.

Um, we have a cup of tea. If me and Alex both at home, we have a cup of tea, he breastfeeds. He's thrilled about that. He'll have stories, he'll come back for a bit more like he's. He'll just do that for an hour if we'll let him. And then kind of once we're up and about, I tend to not feed him again until we're back home and he's going to go down for a nap.

But again, that could be me, that could be my husband putting him down. So on a day when the two of us are at home, it could be as little as morning and evening. Or if it's a rainy day and we're all cozied up on the sofa, we've got the fire on and everyone's like, he'll ask to feed just because we're hanging out.

So it could be as many or as four or five times a day if there's not loads going on, and if we're busy and out and about, but we're together all day, maybe just twice. 

[00:10:46] Emma Pickett: Okay. So he's very adaptable and I'm, I'm actually thinking your breasts are pretty adaptable as well. Yeah. I'm just wondering. Yeah, because you're talking about sometimes you're working nights, sometimes you're not.

You went back to work when he was six months. I mean, I'll ask you in a minute about what it was like going back to work when he was six months. But with this kind of level of variation, do you get engorgement at the moment? Are you, do you ever have problems with like full blocked ducts or anything? 

[00:11:08] Emily: No. I mean, this is my opportunity to just stay out.

I think breasts are just amazing. Are, they're unbelievable. I, I came into parenting from a background of being a, a farm vet, Lac lactation and milk production is, I'm a dairy farm vet. It's my world. And I had no idea how amazing human breasts were. It's made me appreciate milk production on a completely different scale.

And yeah, that flexibility. I, I had some problem with block ducks early days, and we had quite a tricky start. But from going back to work and. All the, the complications of pumping and the variation of feeding and not feeding at various times of day. I really just kind of tuned into how my breasts have felt and been really aware of when I need to pump and how I need to kind of manage them.

And I think that's because the early days was so tricky. I, I really had to think about it and learn a lot about breastfeeding, but also my own body. And that's made a massive difference to how confident I feel now, you know, from, from going back to work at that kind of early stage when I, he was exclusively breastfeeding to managing it.

Now when, you know, last months, I, I went away to a conference and I was away for four nights and I just, I felt confident because I kind of knew my body and we've been doing it for two years. Um, so it really isn't a problem. Okay. It might be for someone else. I, my production's never been massive. 

[00:12:43] Emma Pickett: So something about could be your storage capacity.

Could be, who knows, something to do with your breast anatomy just means that you're not that way inclined, which I'm glad about. 'cause you don't need that on top of everything else. When you were away at the conference for four nights, did you express 

[00:12:56] Emily: Yeah, I just pumped once a day. And that could be very flexible time-wise because I'd quite a busy schedule while I was doing a lot of socializing in the evenings as well.

So I just, I, I was just kind of very aware of my body, but it was, it was very easy to manage, to be honest. And that's the first time I've pumped and poured it down the sink. Um, which is a really, if anyone else is pumping a lot and pumping early days to try and, um, get your supply going, that is such a mind shift because it's, it's, every drop is so precious in those early days.

Yeah. And I was kind of tipping a bottle down the sink at this. In hotel room a conference and I was like, ah, this feels so wrong. Oh. Um, but I also wasn't gonna cart it around and fly it home. Go and find a cat. I dunno. Something. Yeah, I know, I know. They probably in the bath. I dunno if you were there 

[00:13:44] Emma Pickett: for a long time.

I'm sure some local milk sharing, um, website would've been happy to take it, but yeah, you could like make your own face cream. I dunno. But I hear what you're saying about pouring it down the sink. But that's, 

[00:13:53] Emily: it's pretty small volumes at that point, but just that, that moment of tipping it, I was like, go.

You have to, you have to tip it. 

[00:14:01] Emma Pickett: Okay. Let's take a little time machine journey back to the very beginning, uh, before you even had Arty. So you were working as a vet obviously before you had him. Just a little disclaimer. My dad was a dairy farmer when I was little. Oh cool. So, um, so this is not an alien world to you then?

Well, it, it kind of almost is. 'cause he stopped when I was super young. So he was a dairy farmer until I was about eight. Um, so he was a pig farmer first and then became a dairy farmer. So he was a dairy farmer between the age of about three and eight. Hmm. And then he became a writer and his first books were about being a dairy farmer and being a pig farmer.

Oh, wow. So he wrote this book called Any Fool Can Be a Pig Farmer, and then Any Fool can be a dairy farmer. 

[00:14:44] Emily: Oh, I need to read that. That sounds 

[00:14:45] Emma Pickett: excellent. It was a, there were a long time ago. I mean, there were talking like probably, you know, fifth, 40 odd years old. Um, but he, so he started writing books and then after those two just kept going.

So he never went back to farming after that. But because his first two books were about the farming community, we, we definitely stayed in touch with the farming community and, um Oh, interesting. He did lots of talks and, you know, hung out with farmers. But I definitely remember, you know, the world of dairy farming.

And I remember going down to visit him in the, um, you know, in the actual building where he plugged up all the cows. The technology's probably completely changed. I mean, when I was, you know, 40 odd years ago, he was putting on the suction things and standing underneath and big old tanker arrived and it's not changed that much.

Okay. There's still some farms that that'll be exactly the same, but I do remember, um. My local primary school teacher was the girlfriend of the vet. So I remember when the vet used to have to come and visit the next day, she would tell me, oh, we were at your farm last night and my boyfriend was at your farm last night.

So I remember vets being very cool. Vets were the people that came along when we needed them. They were like superheroes. They arrived when we couldn't cope and saved the day. Um, so thank you for being a superhero in the world of farming. Thanks for calling me a superhero. No, but you are. That's the first time I've heard that you're, you'd like fly in on your cape when things were getting dire and, and my dad couldn't work it out himself.

Um, and he probably often couldn't 'cause he didn't come from a farming background. Um, anyway, that's a separate story. Um, but tell me about, um, first of all, tell me about when you train as a vet, what do you learn about lactation? Because my gut feelings, it's probably a lot more than a human doctor learns about lactation.

What, what was covered in your, in your modules? Did you, so you knew you were gonna be doing a dairy specialism early on or how does it work? 

[00:16:32] Emily: Yeah, so when, when you qualify as a vet, you qualify to work with all species. So I knew I wanted to work as a farm vet from quite early on and I really took a lot of interest, um, spent more time doing placements with, on farms and with farm vets, but we still covered the same material for our exams and lactation was covered quite heavily because it's such a big part of production animal medicine and in terms of does farm vets that work in other parts of the country that do a lot more beef and sheep, but we have fewer clients, but we see a lot more of them.

So my job, I'm seeing the same farmers week in, week out, you know, I'm very much part of the business and those animals kind of through their reproductive and lactation cycles, which is why a, a big part of why I enjoy the job. But it's fascinating that our training would involve weeks of information about production animals and, and, and lactating cows and all kinds of things around that drug choices and how that works with, with saleable milk.

And I mean, it's a completely different conversation to human medicine, but there's a massive amount of overlap there. And I can't believe how little doctors learn about lactation when it's such a massive part of us bringing up our children. It it, yeah, it's mind boggling to me, to be honest. It's mind boggling, 

[00:17:56] Emma Pickett: but I think you've identified the difference.

It's about. The commercial aspect, isn't it? I mean it's, you know, you are helping farmers with, with their livelihoods. They are making money. This is a commercial business, this is an industry. Mm-hmm. And therefore there is the money to support it. And people are, you know, making sure that you are fully trained because you are supporting an industry and women feeding their babies.

Who gives a hoot about that? Nobody, um, or, you know, not as many people do because there's not that big motivation there. So you are helping farmers to maximize income. I mean, obviously a lot of what you do is about caring for animals as well, but we can't deny that there's a big industrial side of it too.

[00:18:33] Emily: It is, yeah. But they, you know, they're running businesses and they're, um, their income is, is is milk production. So we're maximizing yield. You know, it's funny, I talk about milk yield every single day. I use the word mastitis every single day. And the irony is not lost on me. When I had Arty and I suddenly, I was the person creating milk with a.

Yeah. And 

[00:18:58] Emma Pickett: yeah, 

[00:18:58] Emily: I had mastitis, you know, I just, that irony is not lost on me and yet hadn't kind of thought about the interplay of that professional side of my life and the kind of overwhelming personal side when Arty was born. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's, it was really interesting. Was delighted for sure. Yeah.

[00:19:17] Emma Pickett: Let me just ask you a couple of really nerdy questions from, with, with your vet hat on. So, dairy cows obviously get mastitis sometimes. Mm-hmm. Which is an inflammation of the cells in, I'm gonna say breast, but it's not a breast. Utter, utter, let's say utter. So we're a moment with human medicine. We're trying not to give antibiotics immediately because anti uh, antibiotics won't help if it's a non bacterial mastitis for a start.

But also there are side effects to that. Mm-hmm. Obviously, there are farmers who want to reduce use of antibiotics or organic farming, presumably wants to be a bit more careful about that. Does that mean that we don't rush to use antibiotics with cows? What happens when a cow has mastitis? 

[00:19:56] Emily: Yeah, I, I mean, it's a really good question and we could get lost in this for an hour if you're not careful with me.

'cause this is, this is my whole professional world. I do a lot of work with farmers on reducing antibiotic usage 'cause there's a massive push in our, um, in the industry for doing that and responsible use of antibiotics 'cause of exactly what you've just said. So that is something that really has changed in the last 10 years.

A lot of farmers will treat cows with anti-inflammatories first, and we'll take a milk sample so that we can see what bacteria is, is causing, um, the mastitis and whether that would actually respond to antibiotics. So that massively reduces just throwing antibiotics as at the problem first line. And then again, a massive amount of what vets do is preventing mastitis in the first place.

So having an idea on a particular form about what are the. The bugs of the bacteria that are causing mastitis and massively reducing that risk so that the, rather than treating the cases as they come up, we're preventing them happening in the first place. Okay. So we're talking herd, herd level, 

[00:21:02] Emma Pickett: mastitis control.

Okay. So is that things like cleaning equipment, is that, I mean, I'm just trying to work out what would cause mastitis. 'cause obviously we're not talking about positioning and attachment when it comes to, um, the dairy industry. Oh, we're, but we're because things, so, so with the, with the kit, you mean if the kit's the wrong size or someone's using it incorrectly, that's what would cause it.

Yeah. 

[00:21:20] Emily: And, and things about the amount of suction and how long it's on for, I mean, the crossover with pumping is, is it honestly, is fascinating. I've, I've really never thought about it in such a way. Um, when I'm using a breast pump myself. Okay. I've never thought about cows. 

[00:21:38] Emma Pickett: I 

[00:21:38] Emily: in that way. I mean, we wouldn't have the 

[00:21:39] Emma Pickett: modern breast pumps if it wasn't for the dairy industry because that, that fluctuation of negative and positive pressure, you know, which some would argue is not, hasn't really come on very far in the last kind of 40 years or so.

But you know that that's the same technology that's being used in, in dairy farming. 

[00:21:54] Emily: Mm-hmm. 

[00:21:55] Emma Pickett: So when a cow's being milked, they're having these suction things that kind of look a bit like toothpaste, tubes, suction things popped on their udders, and then the, the farmer can control how long that's on for.

And does it have to be individualized? Can you use a computer to tell you this particular cow only needs it for this length of the time? How, how sophisticated does 

[00:22:16] Emily: it 

[00:22:16] Emma Pickett: get? 

[00:22:16] Emily: Yeah. So in, in new parlors they've been put in, in robotic parlors. There's an incredible level of sophistication because a robot is identifying a particular cow coming in and.

Um, and milking her based on her requirements. So not all farms are at that level. So her 

[00:22:34] Emma Pickett: previous yield, for example, what she had yesterday, they'll expect roughly the same amount they would sort of thing. Yeah. There'll be a, 

[00:22:40] Emily: there'll, there'll be calculations done on expected yield and loads of other health parameters.

So one of the things, just going back to the question before about, um, what causes a cow to have MACIs or predisposes her to it, is other, other factors affecting her health. Things about the environment that she's in, how much stress she's under. And there's an incredible amount of information that we can get from the cow, but also from the milk quality and the milk volume that she gives and how fast she gives it.

And what her let down is like, just on, on the robotic side now, there's a huge amount of data and as you say, the money, the money is there to push this technology forward because. Higher yields, healthier animals using less antibiotics, having longer healthier lives equals pro profit in production animals.

Yeah. Um, so that's part of the role as a vet is having a, a healthy, productive animal that is, that is making money for a farm by producing a lot of milk in a healthy way. 

[00:23:41] Emma Pickett: Yeah. It's interesting what you're saying about stress levels. So in cows too, a high stress environment would mean effect on milk yield and, and mast risk.

[00:23:50] Emily: Yeah, for sure. 

[00:23:51] Emma Pickett: Okay. Well, I promise we won't talk about your job the entire time. I want to ask you one more question, little disclaimer. I have a vegan in my household. Um, I'm not quite vegan myself. Um, but we're, we're, we're getting there and obviously all the things that we've been talking about, there are ethical issues around this and, um, of course that could be a whole nother hour, but I am hearing of some farms who are keeping calves with mums mm-hmm.

And still selling some of that milk. Mm-hmm. Which makes no commercial sense in a, in a way because like milk yield is gonna be teeny tiny. Mm-hmm. But it does make commercial sense because there are people who really would prefer calves to stay with cows. Mm-hmm. Tell me a little bit more about that. Do you, have you ever come across a farm that's doing that?

Is that something Yeah, 

[00:24:35] Emily: we, we have a couple of farms that we look after, um, that have that setup. And I think because of the, the consumer interest then there is a market for it. And I think the answer to that is if we pay more for our milk as we should, it's not a product that should be cheaper than, than a bottle of water off the shelf.

Unfortunately, milk price is pushed by supermarkets wanting it to be a really cheap thing that people pop in for and then they spend money on other products and that pushes a milk price down well below what it is costing to produce. It puts an enormous amount of pressure on farmers. You know, we could have setups where cows are feeding their own calves and.

Being milked, much smaller volumes are being sold for a higher price. Yeah. But it's all the, the pressure is coming from the, the consumer price and from the supermarket level. Yeah. So if we all bought from our local farm vending machines and paid more for our milk, those kind of farms would be, they'd be everywhere because farmers would love to farm like that.

[00:25:38] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, farmers, despite what everyone might think, there is a, you know, that they care about animals. No one wants to see an animal suffer. Um, they absolutely do. And, and keeping a carve with a cow, we know that means less distress for everybody. And maybe that means a different kind of milk and a different quality and who knows what, what's out there in the future.

But I guess you say it's about consumers and it's about supermarkets and it's about, um, the demand end of things. It's not just a farmer choice. Um, it's got to be us at the consumer end making those decisions as well.

I had love to tell you about my four most recent books. So we've got the story of Jesse's Milky, which is a picture book from two to six year olds that really tells the story of little Jesse and how his breastfeeding journey may come to an end in one of three different ways. Maybe there'll be a new baby sister, maybe his mom will need to practice parenthood weaning.

Maybe he will have a self weaning ending. It's a book that helps your little people understand that there are lots of different ways breastfeeding journeys might end, that we are there to support them through all of them. And also we sometimes have needs to also on endings, we have supporting the transition from breastfeeding, which is a guide to weaning that really talks through how to bring breastfeeding to a close in a way that protects your emotional connection with your child.

There are also chapters on different individual situations like weaning an older child when there's still a baby, feeding, weaning in an emergency, weaning in a special needs situation. Then we have supporting breastfeeding past the first six months and beyond. That's really a companion to sit alongside you as you carry on breastfeeding through babyhood and beyond.

What are the common challenges and how can we overcome them? And let's hear some stories about other people who've had a natural term breastfeeding journey. Then we have the breast book, which is a puberty guide for nine to 14 year olds. It talks about how breasts grow. It answers common questions. It talks about what breastfeeding is.

I talk about bras. I really want to leave a little person feeling confident and well-informed as breasts enter their lives. So if you want to buy any of those books, I am eternally grateful. If you want to buy one of the supporting books, you can go to the Jessica Kingsley Press website. That's uk.jkp.com.

Use the code mm PE 10. To get 10% off. And if you have read one of those books and you can take a moment to do an online review, I would be incredibly grateful. It really, really makes a difference. And as you can tell from the fact I'm making this advert, I have no publicity budget. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for answering all those questions about lactation.

Let's now think about you going back to work. So you had to go back to work when Arty was six months old. Tell me a little bit about that decision. Is that something you always knew was gonna be the case? 

[00:28:33] Emily: Yeah, um, we had to have quite a planned timing of everything because we have two quite complex jobs, me and my husband, in terms of, um, we needed to have a baby when he was gonna be at home for a bit and I was always gonna have a fairly short maternity leave, partly a financial decision.

Um, in all honesty and partly. Because my career is important to me and I, I kind of wanted to bring that up on this podcast because I have struggled sometimes with the balance of a career and being a parent and, you know, it's, it's okay to not wanna put your career completely on the back bench while you start a family.

Yeah. Um, I was in the situation, if I stepped back for too long, I would take a big step back in my kind of responsibilities and the farms that I was looking after on a regular basis, they would be passed to someone else. So that was part of the decision making as well. 

[00:29:34] Emma Pickett: So when you do school maternity leave, somebody covers for you temporarily.

How many farms do you do You cover 

[00:29:41] Emily: about 80, but not all of those would be dairy farms. Um, me, me personally, there's kind of five or 10 farms I'm going to on a very regular basis. Okay. Um, kind of weekly or fortnightly. 

[00:29:55] Emma Pickett: So you get someone else to cover those farms for you when you're on maternity leave on the understanding it's temporary and other, other points in someone else's life you might be covering for somebody else.

But it, but as you say, if you step away for too long, they permanently will have to go to someone else. And I'm also imagining in your line of work, there must be so much information you have to have at your fingertips all the time. New medications, you know, new practices, you know, taking a year out of that.

There's a heck of a lot of updating that you'll have to do when you come back in. That must be pretty overwhelming as well. 

[00:30:24] Emily: Yeah. Um, that's part of it. We have to do continuous, um, CPD, prote Professional Development, which a lot of medical professionals have to do, but some people, if they have a full year of maternity leave as a vet, they would take a year off the register so they wouldn't be paying their fees and they wouldn't be keeping up with that CPD.

There's all these kind of things which come into it as, as, and you know, the, the financial side of things is a big part as well as, as well as the kind of the time of year. So me planning a pregnancy at a time of year that, um, I would be around sheep laming and all of these other kind of risk aspects of the pregnancy.

[00:31:03] Emma Pickett: Of course what you mean because of like infection stuff? 

[00:31:06] Emily: Yeah. 

[00:31:06] Emma Pickett: So being pregnant 

[00:31:07] Emily: whilst being a farm 

[00:31:08] Emma Pickett: vet is, well, totally forgot that side of things. I, of course when we go, when we go and visit farms, we said, don't go near the lambs, but if you're a flipping vet, what are you gonna be doing in that situation?

So what, what 

[00:31:19] Emily: did you do while you're pregnant? Again, we could talk for a whole hour about logistics of being a farm vet whilst pregnant, but, um, a lot of complicated backing up of on calls and risk assessing situations and wearing PPE and deciding what I was and wasn't prepared to do. But there's no guidelines really on that.

If you look on the NHS website, it says pregnant women shouldn't go near farm animals. And you're like, okay, that's my whole life. 

[00:31:46] Emma Pickett: Yeah. A little bit tricky to do that when you're in your situation. So, yeah. So when you say PPE, what really serious gloves and masks and washing like crazy and, and, and testing and 

[00:31:57] Emily: Yeah.

Full outer layer of clothing that goes into the wash and is kind of treated as potentially infectious 

[00:32:04] Emma Pickett: and the risk is a particular bacteria. Tell us what, what the risk might be and why people are careful going to, you know, city farms, for example. 

[00:32:11] Emily: Yeah. So the main one that people worry about with sheep, especially when they're lambing, is the, um, the actual like fluids and materials.

So the placenta after the lamb is born, there's, um, potentially infectious risks with, um, toxoplasma is the one that everyone worries about. Um, and erotic abortion, which is clam dola, which, um, is a. Is a bacterial infection that can cause abortion in sheep, but also in, in, in humans. So we call it a zoonotic infection if it can cross from animals to humans.

So the potential infections that would cause fertility issues in, in the patients that I'm seeing, which is my job, would also potentially cause fertility issues or, or abortions, um, in, in humans. Um, and that's post-mortems. And, and, and investigating these kind of things is a big part of my job. 

[00:33:02] Emma Pickett: That's super scary.

So you are working with a lamb that has been, you know, the pregnancy has ended and you've got to investigate why, and there's a very high chance that that nasty bacteria is around while you're doing that investigation. That is, that's pretty scary. Um, sorry, scary is not a very professional word, but that's the word I'm gonna stick with.

Um, okay. So you got through all that and obviously Arty is happily upstairs recovering from last night, but other than that, very healthy. So things worked out. Um. You went back at six months, what did a typical working week look like when he was six months old? 

[00:33:33] Emily: Yeah, so I, um, I actually, I used my kit days from when he was four months old, so assuming people listen to this are in the uk and this is the same.

I think you get 10, 10 kit days while you're on maternity leave. Um, so I basically worked one day a week through months four and five, and then went back to my, my new job, which was gonna be four days a week, but kind of 85% of my original job, um, with the out of hours included. So my, um, kind of transitioned back to work and thinking about pumping and milk and all that side of things started when he was four months old because he was, we were spending a whole day apart as I did one day a week from that age.

And looking back now, I mean, four months old is a tiny baby. He's really little at that 

[00:34:22] Emma Pickett: point and, and taking a lot of milk. Um, and so I'm just wondering how on earth you drive around from farm to farm with your pump, with your milk storage. Yeah. Tell me what you're doing logistically. What, what does that day look like?

[00:34:36] Emily: So this is the really interesting bit that I, I would've loved to hear a podcast about someone doing this when I was working out how to do this. Because you can't just Google this and look it up. It's not something that people particularly talk about how they're managing it. And obviously other people are in this situation.

I'm not super unusual, um, that I've made this work, but I had a combination of a wearable pump and a handheld electric pump. One was better than the other that I would use in various scenarios, depending on where I was and my demand for pumping in the day. I have an office base, but I'm ambulatory, so I'm driving between farm and farm all day.

So I would have a. Um, a setup at the fridge in the, in the office where I had a, a Tupperware box that was just like a dark color. So you, it was in the fridge, but you kind of couldn't see what was in it with, um, a setup of bottles, which would either be clean and ready to swap over or would have pumped breast milk in.

And then in my car, I had a, what looked like a lunchbox basically, but an insulated lunch bag with a freezer pack that I would change in and out when I was back in the office and my bottles and my pump, that I would put all in that bag to keep cool during the day. And then I would basically pump whilst driving was the majority of how I was managing it.

And pull into a lay by, put the wearable pump on, drive to next place. Make calls on the way, take it out, empty my milk into a bottle, into the cool bag. Get outta the car, carve a cow, you know what, whatever. Um, and had this kind of constant flow of how long has this milk been at temperature? How long has that bottle been in the fridge?

Do I need to drop that off with at my mom and dad's house where Arty is? And just had a constant cycle of pumping and dropping off milk and moving bottles around. Yeah. Which actually I have thermometers in the car for keeping my drugs at controlled temperature. I just chucked that in the bag and knew what temperature things were at.

And, um, it's just, it's just logistics basically. 

[00:36:51] Emma Pickett: Yeah. And you must be a pretty organized person to manage all the caseloads you are anyway. So that natural organization would've benefited you. I'm just thinking about the moments when you are, you know, let's say you're lambing and there's your block of time when there's sheep coming at your left, right, and center.

And you, and its six hours have gone by and you've not pumped, did you have to step away and say to a farmer, I'm so sorry, I just need 10 minutes? Or do, were you never in that situation? 

[00:37:15] Emily: I'm quite, I'm very rarely on farm for a massive block of time. So the kind of one time that might happen is TB testing where I might be on a farm all day, essentially.

Um, and in that scenario, I'm a person that suffers from Hanger. So at the point that I would've needed to eat in that day, I would've just excused myself to go and have my sandwich in the car and I would've pumped at that point. Okay. But that wasn't happening regularly. Most of the time I had 20, 30 minutes of driving multiple times a day, and I would just pick which of those was the right time to pump.

And occasionally I'd be in the office. So sometimes. I'd be back kind of at the base doing paperwork and I would just nip into the cupboard, pop my wearable pump in and sit back down at my desk. 

[00:38:03] Emma Pickett: You are an advert for wearable pumps, aren't we? We, we need the wearable pump companies to understand the advertising opportunity of an, of an Emily endorsement.

'cause you, I mean, if there hadn't been wearable pumps, you know, if you'd been doing this 30 years ago, I guess you'd have pulled over in the lab. I would've pulled over, yeah. Pump for 10 minutes. But it would've been harder to manage. 

[00:38:21] Emily: It would've put a lot more pressure on my day. But just because of not being able to do two things at the same time.

There was one day actually that I remember I was in the office and there was just me and I worked with a lot of men. That's the nature of the job. There was just me and one colleague in the office, and it was incredibly quiet. And the, the wearable pumps are very quiet, but we were sat opposite each other at our desks.

And I was, I was wearing my pump and we wear a lot of like layers and outdoor clothing, so it's not obvious at all. I'm not wearing like a fitted shirt or anything. And um, his head just kind of popped up over his computer and he said. What's that weird noise? And I like let it sit there for a second. I went, that's my breast pump.

And his face, just like his eyes widened and his head just popped down below his computer again. He just disappeared. So yeah, I'd have thought a fellow vet would've been like, Hey Greg, what's your yield? Let's talk about, yeah, let's chat about it. I think he just hadn't crossed his, I'd been back at work for months at this point and it hadn't crossed his mind.

You know, we didn't talk about it. It hadn't crossed his mind that I'd be doing that. And I think in that moment he was just like mind blown, like not expecting, can't compute. And you know, that's the only time I think anyone even noticed I was pumping at work. It just was so quiet in the office. There was that tidy background noise and otherwise I, like in a busy office, people are in and out.

Unless you opened that Tupperware in the fridge and found bottles of milk and thought, well what, you know, where, where's this come from? You honestly wouldn't have known. It was subtle enough. 

[00:39:46] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Did you ever think about getting a a, a fridge for your car? 'cause you can get plugin actual fridges, do they, is your medication stored in anything like that or just not needed freezer blocks did the job?

[00:39:57] Emily: Yeah, so, um, it depends what drugs you're carrying. I actually don't have a fridge in the car, but a lot of vets would. And that actually could have made it easier and, and I could have easily had that as a setup. But I, the kind of fre the frequency of being able to change over the freezer blocks and dropping things in and out.

Um, I just found that was the easiest solution because everything was kind of in that cool bag, which looked like a lunchbox. So when I kind of jumped out the car, ran into the office to pick something up and swap the bottles over, it was just like so subtle. It looked like I was just carrying a lunchbox around all the time.

So I just found it easier that everything was in there and I just had a, a little temperature probe in there, so I kind of was aware. How, how cold it was. I just felt that was easier to manage. But a, a fridge in the car would've, would've worked as well. 

[00:40:44] Emma Pickett: And obviously Arty was taking this milk so you didn't have any problems with him taking a bottle.

That was all pretty straightforward. 

[00:40:49] Emily: Yeah, that was straightforward. Partly because he had had a bottle from quite early days, um, because we had had a, a tricky start with breastfeeding and he had, we had triple fed for a while at the start, so he'd had a bottle from day three, at least one bottle a day.

And because I knew I was gonna go back to work and I was gonna have all of these logistics, we made sure we had a bottle every single day. And, and the majority of the time that became pumped breast milk and my husband would give him a bottle in the evening. Um, and that gave me a little bit of time to sleep or have a shower or whatever.

But it became like a really important part of our routine because like he needed to take a bottle when I went back to work, that was really important to me. So from day three, he just always. He always had one, whether it was formula or express breast milk. And I know some people really struggle, even, even if they are giving bottles very regularly with bottle refusal.

Um, and I, and I did worry about that. Um, but luckily that that was never a problem. 

[00:41:52] Emma Pickett: Okay. And what, at this point, you're going back to work at six months, you obviously don't quite know how it's gonna feel. What were you, what were you thinking in terms of your breastfeeding goals? Where, what were you planning on doing in the future?

[00:42:03] Emily: It's so interesting because very early days, I just wanted to get through the next week. And I, I've heard a lot of people say that because you just have, it's a whole world of unknown, isn't it? And I remember thinking, if I can breastfeed till six months, 'cause I knew I was going back to work, then, then like goals, goals have been met.

I would be thrilled to get to that point. Um, that felt like such a. An uphill battle in the, in the kind of early, early weeks. At the point that I went back to work, I had absolutely no intention of stopping it, just breastfeeding gave me this kind of magic return connection to Arty, the laziest way to be kind of back with him and meeting his needs and also kind of flopping on the sofa.

Um, there was just not a doubt in my mind at that point that we were gonna stop because everything felt positive about it. And then I had a wobble again when he came up to a year old. And I actually, that was when I found your podcast. That was when I really learned an awful lot about breastfeeding and, um, and actually had a bit of advice from yourself about what kind of direction to take at that point.

And I, at that point, had no idea I'd still be feeding him now at two years. And it's funny, the, you know, now there's, it's completely open-ended. I would feed him as long as he wants to feed. With how I feel about it now. 

[00:43:30] Emma Pickett: Yeah, 

[00:43:30] Emily: that's a great place to be. If you're told Emily who was feeding two week old Arty that I just would never have believed 

[00:43:37] Emma Pickett: it.

Not in a million years. I remember that when we spoke you weren't sure what you wanted to do. Do you remember thinking back to that time, why you weren't sure? What was running through your mind? 

[00:43:47] Emily: Yeah, I think about that conversation so much because I didn't feel like I had options at that point. I was tired.

I was, um, I had a, had a 1-year-old and I was working a really demanding job and, um, I dunno, it, it had been suggested to me that stopping breastfeeding was the answer to a lot of problems and I didn't know any better. And I just listened to the people around me who care about me and have had their own children.

And, and I, I didn't know any differently and I felt like weaning was the thing that was gonna make my life easier. Then I found your podcast and we talked, and honestly, it was like a light bulb went on and it just completely changed my whole attitude towards what breastfeeding even meant for us. And things were tricky about parenting a 1-year-old and working a tricky job.

And it, it wasn't breastfeeding or not, that was just gonna be a hard point in my life. Um, I'm so glad that that conversation saved, saved our, our breastfeeding journey because I think I would've been one of those people that weaned and then had big regrets about it. And I was very, very close to doing that.

[00:45:05] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Well, I'm honored to have played a little part. It was, it was you that realized, you know, you'd obviously, I su the fact you'd already reached out the fact you'd been listening to a podcast. I suspect you knew what you actually wanted to do. You just needed someone to sort of help you think it through.

Um, and now here you are. For breastfeeding for as long as it might work, which is a, a great place to be. I'd love to take you back to those first few months back at work when you started to do nights. So were you doing nights from the very beginning and how did that work and how did those first few nights go?

So I'm guessing Alex was the one who was looking after, after overnight, or maybe it was your parents straight away. What were those early nights like? 

[00:45:44] Emily: Yeah, so the way my nights work is that I'm on call, so I'm at home until I get called to an emergency. So I'm not working a shift like a, like a doctor might do, where they're, they're physically gone to work overnight.

So I would be at work in the daytime as normal, and then I would do my on-call shift overnight. And the, the kind of interesting thing about how that plays into, to breastfeeding and, and how we chose to manage things with Arty is that at any given moment, I might be there or not be there. So it is completely, you know, in a, in a 48 hour period.

There's set times that I know I'm gonna be at work and then there's the on-call periods where I dunno if I'm gonna be there or not. So from right at the beginning, when I went back at six months, I was straight back into covering my share of on-calls. I did a full share on the on-call rotor, and basically if Arty woke up and I was there, I would go to him.

I would feed him. If Arty woke up and I was out on a call, then Alex would go to him. If Alex was on the other side of the world taking photographs of mountains, we would do all of that at my mom and dad's house. And if he woke up whilst I was out on a call, my mom or my dad would go to him. They would offer him a bottle of milk.

Sometimes in the very early days he wouldn't reset and they would sit up with him until I came home from the call I was doing and then I would, I would breastfeed him back to sleep. But to be honest, I can. I can remember two times that that was a problem and it was very early days. Um, so either we were lucky on the timings or he would resettle for another, you know, close family member.

It was always grandparents or, um, or Alex, my husband, 

[00:47:27] Emma Pickett: just to say Alex is a landscape photographer in case anyone wonders why he is taking a mountain photograph and this other world. Can I, can I say good on your parents? 'cause not all parents, absolutely not all parents will be up for that. That is, uh, absolutely.

Some parents will be like, listen, like, well, can babysit love, but really can we not do this? Um, that's, that, that really is lovely to hear that they, they supported you like that. Was there ever a scenario where you were up with Arty in the middle of the night and you would get that on call right in the middle of a breastfeed?

Did that ever happen? 

[00:47:54] Emily: Um, not actually Whilst feeding him, I definitely, it's happened whilst he's been awake. Um, so I've either swapped with Alex or. I put him down, but he was still awake and hadn't gone back to sleep. So like, and I've had to go and wake up somebody else. Yeah. I've not physically had the phone ring whilst I have it bedtime, but not in the middle of the night.

[00:48:21] Emma Pickett: And when the phone does ring, that's, that's an emergency. That's Yeah, we need you quick. This animal may not make it if you're not here with a certain amount of time. 

[00:48:29] Emily: It's normally those calls in the night is normally animals giving birth. Okay. So we're going fast to save two lives normally 

[00:48:36] Emma Pickett: in that scenario.

Okay. And really dumb question, but a cow giving birth doesn't always have a vet there. So an experienced farmer may manage a birth by themselves if they're asking for a vet to come. Mm-hmm. Something's not going well. Something's not right. They're struggling. 

[00:48:51] Emily: Absolutely. I mean, the majority of of healthy animals are giving birth on their own and farmers will be checking them throughout the night or checking them in the morning and great.

And you know, and you calf, a new llamas arrived. You know, the ones that need assistance, farmers. You know, more and more are very experienced and very competent at assisting themselves. Um, so by the time the vet gets called, normally it's last resort, we're seeing the really complicated cases where, um, potentially performing a cesarean section, um, because that's the only way that animal can be born.

[00:49:23] Emma Pickett: And when there is a c-section, do they, do they have skin to skin? Do do cows have skin to skin? Do, do they have a first feed? What happens? Is there, is there a golden now 

[00:49:32] Emily: for a cow? Yeah, we would pull the calf out the side door, as we call it, if it's cesarean. And normally that calf would get taken straight round to, um, to the, the cow.

And they would sniff and lick them. That would the, we want 'em to do that. 'cause the oxytocin gets released, the uterus starts contracting and I just stitch away and it helps that oxytocin release helps me on the surgical side. So that would be really normal. And then that calf would be left to feed.

Straight away. I mean, we would do a cesan on a cow standing under local anesthetic. So sometimes I have the calf up on its feet butting around my legs trying to feed whilst I'm frantically finishing stitching. Wow. And I love it when that happens. 'cause that's a calf that's gonna be absolutely fine. And you know, it's on and getting colostrum whilst I'm packing up 

[00:50:17] Emma Pickett: crikeys.

That's good night. That's a bit of a surgical strand. I'm trying to imagine Doing surgery, you know, all the layers and stitching all these layers, being butted with a flipping calf, that's that's quite impressive. I'm also thinking how amazing it is to be able for you, for Arty to understand what you do, because your job must be so concrete for someone of his age.

You know, most of us have jobs where you say to your 2-year-old, you know, I'm a management consultant and I'm helping these people with this, you know, closing this it deal, and whew, it goes right over their heads. But Arty from a really young age, must have got, mommy helps animals. And when animals aren't, well, mommy helps animals.

And now when you're on call and you have to say, oh no, mommy has to help a cow. He must get that in a really concrete way that, that's kind of cool. Does he have con do, do you talk about his job? Your job with him? 

[00:51:05] Emily: Yeah, we actually, we cover the work for long Lead Safari Park as well, so, oh my God, that's so cool.

That's so cool. Him, I said to him on Saturday, I've gotta go. I'm going to see a rhino. And Arty just went, rhino. Bye, mummy. Oh 

[00:51:20] Emma Pickett: my goodness. That's so cool. So they, they've got a whole proper zoo, haven't they? At long lead? That's 

[00:51:24] Emily: everything. That's all species. Yeah. 

[00:51:26] Emma Pickett: Wow. What were you doing for the Rhino? Are you allowed to say, or is that client confidentiality?

It was, it 

[00:51:30] Emily: was just checking a wound. It wasn't that exciting. But, um, he, you know, he knows Rhino. They're in his story books, you know, he knows the animals that are in Deer Zoo. You know, it's, um, there's a, he does understand that I'm going to see animals that he, that, you know, they're in his, in his books and he's got stickers off and that kind of thing.

[00:51:50] Emma Pickett: I'm trying to think about Rhino Udders, Emily, help me picture a rhino udder. I don't see, I don't, can't picture them there all the time. Do they just pop out in lactation or they're there all the time. You must have seen some rhino Ud. I, 

[00:52:01] Emily: I, I've, I've never looked at a rhino's, I've got to say. Um, I don't know if there's been Rhino Calves born at long lead.

I dunno, 

[00:52:10] Emma Pickett: because they must be pretty tough. Interesting. Okay, I'll try not to go back into that in too much detail. Have you ever worked with another vet that's been lactating or another vet that's on maternity leave? How many, are there any, you talked about living, working with a lot of blokes. Do you, yeah.

Presume at the conference you've bumped into a few female vets. What's the sort of Yeah. Situation with everybody else? Is your situation unusual or pe Are people out there making it work? 

[00:52:33] Emily: I'm sure it's not unusual, I just don't think it's talked about very much. Um, I remember listening to a podcast when I was pregnant about two farm bets, talking to each other about being pregnant whilst being a farm bet.

And I, that was the only media that I could look, look at, listen to, that would kind of give me an insight. And I, to be honest, I found it quite difficult because they were talking about managing their pregnancies really easily. And this is, you know, it's all quite straightforward. And I, and I had a really hard time.

I was really sick. I had HG and I had an awful time, and I kind of kept thinking back to that podcast and I was like, this is not what they sold to me, kind of thing. And it's just, there's not much out there to read or to listen to. But PE people are definitely doing it. There's a very good, um, Facebook group called Vet Mums, which is an amazing place.

I mean, you know what these Facebook groups can be like. Um, and people talk about all kinds of stuff on their advice about all kinds of things in life. Um, but there's, there's certainly vets on there that are breastfeeding, um, farm vets. We are in the minority in terms of numbers. There'll be a lot more vets in a small animal practice setting, which is a lot more structured.

And, you know, they're more likely to have breaks where they can go to another room and, and, and pump and, you know, even just use an actual toilet, you know, to have some privacy, that kind of thing. So they, they're definitely out there. But as I say, I would've, I would've just loved to hear a conversation like this when I was.

Thinking about logistics and, and if not farm betting, some other kind of ambulatory job where you drive from place to place and, um, you are not sticking to a schedule that, you know, things can happen at any moment. And yeah. Um, you have to have a, a huge amount of flexibility just to hear that it's possible to do that and to con continue to breastfeed throughout.

Um, I would've found re really reassuring. 

[00:54:29] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Ha. Having hg while you are pregnant as a vet must have been really tough. I mean, I, you know, you're doing the fluids and smells and farm yards and not easy, but you can be sick 

[00:54:40] Emily: everywhere and no one cares. That is true. Yeah. I guess that 

[00:54:42] Emma Pickett: is true. 

[00:54:44] Emily: All my clients knew I was pregnant really early doors.

'cause I was, I was so sick. Um, they were really good about it. A lot of my clients really looked after me, but there's no getting away from it. Ah, I won't go into too much detail, but the smell that the smells that I deal with on farm were not the problem, the smell. Opening a clean dishwasher still, I have to hold my breath.

I'm I, after two years, I still can't do it. You know, HG is a, is a funny, a funny mental place to be because it's the kind of clean chemically smells, the smell of your own toothpaste. It's that kind of stuff. Okay. Which is really vomit inducing the smell of cow muck. I could take that all day long. Didn't bother me at all.

[00:55:24] Emma Pickett: I guess that's your being your wallpaper for a long time, so it feels normal. Okay. So if anyone is listening to this, if someone is listening to this and they're thinking, okay, I am pregnant. I'm gonna have a baby, I'm a vet, what would you want to say to them? 

[00:55:37] Emily: I guess the main message is there is flexibility.

I think looking back at it when I was pregnant and thinking about breastfeeding, but also kind of the whole wider picture of managing parenting with this kind of job, there's just so much more scope for flexibility than I ever believed possible and. Children are amazing at being flexible. Breasts are amazing, like our bodies are just something else.

Even though I had a horrible time being pregnant, I had an emergency C-section and I had a difficult time starting breastfeeding, like I am just constantly in awe of my own body. It's just what amazing things. You know, with so intuitive, our bodies know what to do. We just have to switch our minds back and let you know, trust our instincts.

We're mammals and as a vet we, we do understand that we've literally been trained, but we are used to looking after ma mammalian patients and then we, we ourselves have so much of that behavior inbuilt. It's so instinctive and, um, you tap into it, I guess is my, is my best advice. 

[00:56:48] Emma Pickett: Yeah, the little calf headbutting you while you're doing your C-section.

Those instincts are in us too. Those instincts are in our children too. Um, yeah, that's a, that's a lovely thing to say. There's so many things we could have talked about, Emily, and we're coming to the end of the hour. We haven't even talked about the fact that you were very much out and about and camping in the Highlands when Arty was three months old.

And all these things that we haven't talked about of the things that we have missed, what was, is there anything you really thought we should have covered? 

[00:57:12] Emily: I haven't really talked about the kind of tricky start that I had, but it is, it's nothing that hasn't been covered by other people's stories. Um, I guess just to hear that again from someone else that when you're in the thick of that, and if I'd found your podcast in those early weeks, oh God, I would've found it so reassuring.

So if people are listening and they're in those early days, um, so you were triple feeding. 

[00:57:36] Emma Pickett: Tell us what was happening. 

[00:57:38] Emily: We had a tricky start. We, um, my milk didn't come in after I had an emergency C-section and in hindsight we did all kinds of things based on the advice we had at the time. That was less than ideal.

Um, and I just really struggled to get. My volume up to where Arty needed it. And he, he struggled with, um, putting weight on in those early days. And, and by the time we kind of realized we were really on a back foot, and it took a long time to get to the point that I was able to exclusively breastfeed.

But we had this big target in mind of going up to Scotland and being in this really remote part of the Highlands where 

[00:58:15] Emma Pickett: there weren't a lot of supermarkets. So you needed 

[00:58:18] Emily: to No. Have your own milk 

[00:58:19] Emma Pickett: essentially. 

[00:58:20] Emily: Yeah. And I wanted, I wanted to be able to climb a mountain and breastfeed 'em at the top. And I know, oh, 

[00:58:25] Emma Pickett: fantastic.

There's 

[00:58:25] Emily: more important things in life. I don't see why I don't see what you're talking about. That sounds pretty important to me. And you can carry a bottle and, you know, I have so much respect for people that are, are formula feeding and making that work. 'cause it, it's, it's not easy, it's complicated, but I had this absolute dogged stubbornness about I will exclusively breastfeed him.

I want to be able to get stuck in the car, in the snow. I am everything that he needs, like all we need is each other. Like I can meet all of his needs, whether we're here for 24 hours, stuck in the snow, or we're camping in a bothy overnight in the Highlands in the winter. Like it just became such a massive kind of personal goal to get to the point that, that I could feed him, that I could meet his nutritional needs and it, it was so motivating.

Did you literally climb a mountain 

[00:59:21] Emma Pickett: with him? 

[00:59:21] Emily: A a small one. A small one. Sweet. Okay. A mountain is a mountain, 

[00:59:24] Emma Pickett: Emily, come on. And, and did you breastfeed at the top of your small mountain? Yeah, I've 

[00:59:28] Emily: got a photo 

[00:59:29] Emma Pickett: that I'm really proud of. Aw, that's nothing like a metaphor is there, Emily? Come on. After all those challenges at the beginning, getting to the top of the mountain, feeding him.

That's fantastic. So you had a really cool baby carrier, I'm guessing, to be able to do that unless you had a adaptable pram with very wide wheels. 

[00:59:45] Emily: Yeah, no, to be honest, I was a big fan of just the stretchy, the stretchy, stretchy fabric slings, um, spent a massive amount of time using those. I actually traveled by train all the way down from the northwest highlands on the, um, sleeper train and all the way across London on the tube and back to bath because I couldn't bear putting my newborn in the car unhappy for any longer.

So we did the whole thing by train in a stretchy sling and breastfeeding and being lulled by the train rocking. Like I, I love breastfeeding. It has fixed so many. Parenting problems for me through all of these stages, and I believe it will continue to do so for a while yet. Um, yeah. But you just, yeah, just a stretchy sling.

When they're tiny, they don't weigh very much. They just wanna be really close to you and your body warmth, you know, you really aware of their temperature. So I was a big fan of one of those. 

[01:00:37] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Fabulous. So you mentioned at the beginning about letting Arty kind of decide what he wants to do with breastfeeding.

Is that where you're at the moment? Just see how things play? 

[01:00:46] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. To be honest, I have no intention of doing any parent led anything at the moment, but saying that, you know, the nature of the flexibility that we have to have, he doesn't just get to breastfeed, whatever he wants to because I'm not always there.

So, you know, we are, it's completely open-ended in terms of it not having an end date, um, but all the way along it's kind of had to fit around my job and that, and that has not taken priority, but it's been right up in the forefront of how we've chosen to do things. So, yeah. In that sense, there has been some parent led restriction around how often he feeds and when he does and when he doesn't.

Um, but yeah, the moment I have no plans to to change anything. It, it's, um, 

[01:01:32] Emma Pickett: it's working. 

[01:01:33] Emily: Yeah. 

[01:01:34] Emma Pickett: Yeah. I mean, to be honest, I think everybody has some parent led restriction because we have to go to the toilet sometimes. We have, we leave the house. We, you know, even if you don't go back to work full time, I'm not sure there's such a thing as a completely child led situation, which is something I often say.

Okay. I'm gonna let you go back to Arty and I'm really honored to have heard your story today, Emily, and thank you so much for sharing your journey and how cool it is to be a vet and how cool it is to be a vet that's making breastfeeding work. And yeah, I mean, I'm impressed with your, with your logistics and your organizational skills and, and the lovely support of your family as well.

And you've done such an amazing job, I hope you're really proud of, of where you are. 

[01:02:13] Emily: Thank you.

[01:02:18] Emma Pickett: 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.