Hi everyone, and welcome back to Airway First, the podcast from the Children's Airway First Foundation.
I'm your host, Rebecca St. James.
My guest today is Amy Fields, internationally board certified lactation consultant and labor and delivery nurse with over 25 years of experience helping moms and babies with breastfeeding.
Amy started working as a labor and delivery nurse in 1998, and in 2010 she was given the opportunity to run the community education department at the hospital she was working at.
She became LaMaze certified and began teaching childbirth and newborn care classes to expectant patients.
In addition to working as a labor nurse in the hospital setting, she has also assisted with home births and spent two years working at a freestanding birth center.
In 2011 she started a postpartum support group called Circle of Mothers.
You can find out more about Amy at azbrestfedbabies.com.
And now let's jump into my interview with today's guest, Amy Fields.
Perfect. Thanks so much for joining me this afternoon, Amy. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to do this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So before we kick things off, maybe we could tell our audience a little bit about you and the work that you do.
Yeah, so I own AZ Breastfed Babies and AZ Breastfed Babies is now a team of lactation consultants or IBCLCs that cover the area of Phoenix, Arizona, which is actually quite large as well as offering virtual consults for families around the world.
So there's currently 11 of us and the team is growing and it's been just amazing.
But I started out 25 years ago as a labor and delivery nurse. That was how I got into this world.
And in 2012 I sat for the boards to become an IBCLC or an internationally board certified lactation consultant.
I always loved breastfeeding. I was very passionate about helping new moms.
I breastfed my own free children. And the first like 10 years of being a labor and delivery nurse, I worked in hospitals that did not have lactation consultants.
The labor and postpartum nurses helped with that.
And there were just some nurses that I worked with that didn't have successful breastfeeding journeys with their own children and really struggled.
Or it just wasn't their thing. We all kind of had our thing that we would do.
There's some people that were better at starting IVs. I was like the person, the go-to, they were like, oh, that baby won't latch. Have Amy go in there. She'll get that baby to latch.
And so it just made sense to get the certification and to become an IBCLC. I didn't really know what I was going to do with it.
I figured out pretty quickly that I did not want to be a lactation consultant in the hospital.
And so I ended up leaving the hospital and going and working at a freestanding birth center. And I assisted as a nurse with both births in the birth center and actually some home births.
And then it just worked itself out to where I started doing breastfeeding consults for families in the community.
And it was like one person would tell another or somebody that I worked with would have a sister that had a baby and they're like, can you go to her house?
And then this business just grew. And so I ended up leaving the hospital in like 2017.
And so there was overlap. I was still working in the hospital as a labor nurse and had the business of AZ breastfed babies. And it just kept growing and growing and growing.
And so I had to make a choice. So it was just me driving all. I had a mini Cooper for a while, driving my mini Cooper all over the valley doing home visits.
And I mean, I love it. I love every minute of it, but getting stretched very thin. And, you know, it's hard when you have a business, when you do something to bring other people into your business, because your business is kind of like another baby.
But the first person I brought on my team is somebody that I actually, I knew her when she was a little girl. And then she grew up and became a labor nurse and then became an IBSLC.
So that first person was so easy to bring on. And then now here I am with, you know, other subcontractors, team members.
And so yeah, that's kind of a little bit about like, AZ breastfed babies and what we do and how it grew. And it's just been a really amazing journey.
Yeah.
And along with that, I know we're going to dig into it a little bit more. But when I first became an IBCLC, I thought like, oh, I'm just going to help mom's breastfeed and help them choose the best nipple cream and breastfeeding pillow.
And, and now here we are like talking about airway and jaw formation and sleep. And it all came to me pretty quickly, like how incredibly important this is.
Because in 2013, I went to the International Affiliation of Tongue Type Professional Conference in Florida.
And there's a pediatrician here in the Valley, Dr. Aguil that owns Agave Pediatrics and he's really big in the tongue type world.
And he told me like, you need to go to this. It's about tongue ties. And I was like, three days. It was actually four days. The fourth day was for, I think, members or something.
So the first three days of conferences, you know,
And you're thinking, what can they talk about for three days?
Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I'm like, I've been a nurse for a while. I did all my training to become an IBCLC. Like, I know that there's tongue ties, but like, what are they going to talk about for three days?
And I knew I needed to go because if I was questioning it, I was like, there must be a lot. I don't know.
And it was, you know, talking about tongue ties across the lifespan. And they had dentists, they had IBCLCs, they had OTs, PT's, SLPs, they had everybody there. And I was completely mind blown, like, absolutely mind blown.
And as I'm sitting there listening to some of the sessions, I'm thinking about these babies that I had done consults with recently that I like couldn't figure out why they were struggling and what was going on. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, that baby has a tongue tie.
Oh, my gosh, I bet that baby has a tongue tie. How did I miss? Oh, my gosh. And came back to Phoenix and called these families that I've been working with. I was like, come back in. I've learned something new.
So, you know, in a lot of ways, IBCLCs are first responders. We're in there early, early on, the very beginning. I mean, some of these babies were seen less than 24 hours of age.
And seeing some of these issues, it's not always a tongue tie, right? It's not always hormone restrictions that are causing the issues. But, you know, and, and our intake has changed to include questions.
About the parents' oral function in airway, orthodontic history, how they sleep.
So, I would have now we know, right? Never guessed that in the beginning.
It's crazy. It's just crazy.
So, as somebody that has had a couple of children and kind of two year point that first night with both of them, same hospital is a great hospital.
A nurse came in to help me. And I'll just, you know, put it all out there. It did not go well for me. So, you know, I apologize to my daughters all the time for this. They were not breastfed because it just, I never got the hang of it.
Yeah.
So, obviously, I now know I would have been a great person to call, you know, someone like you say, hey, I need some help. But what are some of the other, you know, signs or symptoms that tell a new mom, hey, I need some help.
And let's get lactation consultation going.
Yeah. So, the things that a lactation consultant can help with are just numerous. And the reasons why someone would call a lactation consultant isn't always because breastfeeding is hard, isn't always because the latch is painful.
But certainly those are reasons. But, you know, we tell people like even if breastfeeding is going well in the very beginning, but you just want to have somebody that's a specialist that's there to help you.
And that's going to help you maneuver through the different stages of breastfeeding as the baby gets older.
And I know you, one of the things that we were going to talk about is like, when should someone call a lactation consultant. And so I have an Instagram account. It's az breastfed babies.
And I do a lot of education on there.
At the beginning of the year, I declared 2024 as the year to do prenatal visits, the year of the prenatal consults.
If we can get in on the whole process before the baby is even born, it's going to be so much better. And, you know, to have an IBCLC on speed dial that you can ask questions of run things by, you know, get out to your house within the first week after the baby is born.
It just sets things up for success because a lot of what interferes with breastfeeding is just our own thoughts and worries and fears about it.
And so meeting with someone prenatally that can answer questions that can help you have good expectations and what breastfeeding looks like on day one looks different than day three looks different than day five because as your milk transitions from
your breast to milk, like your baby may breastfeed really well on day one or two. And then as your milk transitions and your breasts become full, it may be harder for the baby to latch on and that's right about the time that moms get discharged from the hospital.
That's where they get birth and then they're like, Oh my gosh, I don't have a colleague.
So the button for the nurse or the lactation consultant to come in, but you will have your lactation consultant out in the community on speed dial.
So we help with, you know, like I said, those prenatal visits all the way through breastfeeding in those first few days, first few weeks to pumping flange size fitting, which is like a big topic right now because all of the pump companies only send.
Certain size flanges and then there's a 90% chance they're not going to be the right size for each mom and you know which bottles would be best because there's a lot of marketing out there, a lot of marketing.
And I do tell people I'm like, you can work with the lactation consultant and they can help you save money because you're not going to buy like all the things.
You'll just get the right ones.
Yeah, let's get like, you know, some babies can drink out of any bottle and they do fine.
But if we're dealing with some oral dysfunction, there are certain bottles that can work better for that baby to help them along.
Yeah, we help with like, there's different stages of development, like a lot of people hear about that four months, distractible baby. And that's a whole different season of breastfeeding starting solids at around six months.
So a breastfeeding console isn't only valuable like in the very beginning to get a good, good latch. It's something that like as the baby grows. That is why I do that free postpartum support group.
I think you saw that.
Yeah, others.
Yeah.
I've been doing it for 12 years. I do it weekly. It's free. It's not only a breastfeeding support group. And anyone's welcome. Any mom and baby pre crawling.
It doesn't matter how you feed your baby, everybody is welcome, but it's such an important part of the whole journey as a new mom to have a support system.
But it does help me keep in touch with clients that I've been working with, you know, in between consults, like they can come to the group, they can weigh their baby, they can ask me questions and do troubleshooting.
It also keeps me in the know, because I hear from these moms, I know what's going on. I know kind of what the trends are. And my kids are older, my kids are my son's 20 and my girls are 23.
My oldest is going to be 25 on Sunday. It's crazy. So doing the group keeps me like, like it's in the know. So yeah.
Yeah.
Well, okay. So you mentioned a little bit about bottles. And before we really start to dig into things, I'll just kind of level set with our audience. I'm going to put a link to your website.
You've got some amazing resources there. So I don't want to give away everything, but I know there's, I'd like to just talk about kind of some high level tips and guidance as we work through here, but for moms that have to go back to work.
I know that it's more than just, you know, some babies can drink out of everything and certain ones will be, you know, make it less gassy, things like that. But really from the standpoint of we're really talking about jaw growth and development.
So if you have to go back to work, what are some good bottles or what are some things you should look for, you know, for the bottles that you would want to use?
The reason why those of us that are in this field that are working as IV CLC or speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, we're working with these babies and children is that we do see the whole progress of oral function and that it starts at birth, right?
So we know that the palate is the, it's the roof, it's the ceiling of the mouth, and it's the floor of the airway.
So if a baby has a really high palate, it's going to be pushing up on the airway and infringing on that.
Right.
And that's what this whole, everything you do is all about, right?
And so when we're talking about oral function and the baby's ability to latch well, the baby's ability to latch on the breast, it's the biological norm.
It's mother nature's way of really helping that jaw formation, that palate formation, because how baby latches at the breast progresses to how they're going to chew and eat solids, speech, airway, all of that.
It's all connected.
So I did say like, oh, some babies can take any bottle and they do just fine.
And I, you know, talked about a little bit about marketing.
There's the marketing of like, oh my gosh, this bottle looks just like the breast.
And those are the ones we typically say to stay far, far away from because we don't need it to look like the breast.
That's not, that's not what we're going for.
Yeah.
That's not what we're going for.
So there are certain bottles that we tend to recommend for different reasons.
So like in the very beginning, the first, I'm going to say like four to six weeks of life, I'm going to really focus on flow rates because I don't want a fast flow bottle.
Do you want me to tell what kind of bottles?
I'm happy to do that.
Sure. Yeah.
Whatever you feel comfortable sharing.
Yeah.
I have no like monetary affiliation with any of these companies.
Right. That's my disclaimer. I don't make any money from any of this, but typically most of us recommend the Dr. Brown's standard bottles because they have really good slow flow rates.
And that's no problem because putting your udon in and vousting out gets.
So we used to only see the ultra-premium preemie in the
NICUs for the preemie, micro-premie babies.
And I think a lot of lactation consultants out in the community
they were like, wait, we want that preemie nipple out here for
our full term babies that we're working on breastfeeding skills.
And so they sell them now you can find them even at Target,
you can find them on Amazon.
But I want a slow flow.
I want the baby to have to work a little bit at the bottle
because we're going back and forth between breast and bottle.
We do want them to have to work.
I see it all the time.
We switch to that kind of bottle.
They start to do better at the breast.
So there is that.
And then is it because it's more consistent?
It's it's definitely more consistent and it's just a slower flow.
Okay.
And Dr. Browns does have a wide mouth bottle that they do have
a preemie nipple, but I definitely think the standard with the
preemie or the newborn flow is good if a baby is getting a
bottle in those first four to six weeks.
Maybe mom has a low milk supply and she's doing some bottle
feeding and breastfeeding.
Maybe baby was being supplemented in the very beginning
because the pediatrician recommended that because of low
blood sugars or jaundice.
Like there could be different reasons why a baby gets a bottle
that early.
Okay.
But a lot of times, breastfeeding is going well and we're just
focusing on breastfeeding during that time.
So it just depends on that mom and baby.
And then we do recommend if mom is especially if she's going
to be going back to work or she just knows that she wants
her baby to take a bottle occasionally.
We will usually recommend doing a bottle intro at about for
that four to six week mark if the baby hasn't already had one.
At that point, I'm going to then really start to focus more
on the shape of the nipple because we do want to encourage
a wide gate.
We want baby's mouth to open really wide.
We want that tongue to extend and cup around the nipple.
So my go-to bottle is usually the even flow balance bottle
with the slow flow nipple.
They do have both a standard size and a wide size.
So I always start with the standard and sometimes as a baby
gets older, we'll switch to a wider nipple.
Those are generalizations.
I mean, when I'm working with someone one-on-one, I may make
different recommendations depending on what's going on.
There are other bottles like the Lansunoma, the Boone bottle.
There's a great company called Lactation Hub that is owned by
an IV CLC and she both carries all of the products that IV
CLCs love everything from those bottles and then also things
that we need.
We don't necessarily love them, but we need them within our
practice like nipple shields.
I mean, so they have so many products and so some of the
products she actually manufactures.
Yeah, so she has a bottle, a gentle flow bottle that has a
great nipple and it's a glass bottle, which a lot of families
really want glass rather than plastic.
Then plastic, yeah.
Yeah, so sometimes that might be a bottle that some of our
clients choose.
So who would have thought that choosing a bottle was going to
be so important?
Right.
And you know, like Baby List has those baby bottle boxes where
they send a box that has like eight different bottles in it.
And Dr. Browns is one that's in there.
It does have the level one nipple, but then it has like a
bunch of other ones.
So whenever I go to someone's house or they come in for a
visit and they have that box, they'll just bring it out to
me and they're like, which bottle?
And I'm like, not this one, not this one, not this one.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
And okay, okay, this one, but let's get different nipples.
So there is that.
And why does it matter?
Like why does it matter?
Because oral function matters and how the tongue moves matters.
Right.
You know, what's going on with the palate matters and what's
going on with the jaw matters.
And so some of those other bottles have really pointy nipples
that kind of look like straws.
And then we have a baby that's sucking more than they're
suckling.
So they're sucking, they're using their lips, their cheek
muscles to get the milk out instead of latching and using
and using their tongue and yeah.
So there's like a whole purpose behind why we recommend
certain things and yeah.
Well, and let me ask because in between my daughters, the, and
our house, we call them sucky suckies.
I know in Australia, they're dummies and column passes, right?
What they sent us home in the hospital to suit them was
different. So with my younger one or yeah, my younger one, it's
that green and it's to me, though, it's very similar to a
straw in the shape.
Is it not?
Yeah.
So I think that's the avent suity that you're talking about.
It's like the one you can look down in.
Yep.
Um, yes.
So it's funny.
My my kids never really used a pacifier.
We kind of tried in the very beginning thinking like, oh, babies
take pacifiers, you know, like we should probably get them
and then they just never did.
But I have four brothers, three of them are younger and I
remember them having pacifiers and my mom called it called them
plugs, which I think is so funny.
Like their mouth.
They're crying.
Plug them.
Plug it.
Um, and so that too is another whole subject about having so
many options of different types of pacifiers and, um, it's funny
because it's a favorite gift for people to give that baby showers.
Like, we got tons of them.
Yeah.
So it's almost like looked at in our culture as a necessity and
it's really not like it's okay to not ever give your baby a
pacifier.
There are times when I do find that it's therapeutically indicated.
It can help with certain things like especially if a baby, you
know, is swallowing a lot of air because we're working on oral
function.
Like not everything is a super fast fix, right?
Like some things take time.
And so a pacifier is something that we can use therapeutically.
But so you, I think you're talking about the AvanSudi, a lot of
the hospitals, I think have a contract with them and do use them.
There are certain things about those types of pacifiers that can
be good for encouraging, um, the baby, there's like a base around
it.
There's like a little lip or an edge and it can encourage those
lips to kind of blanch out a little bit more so than like some
of the man pacifiers or the pacifiers.
Yeah.
They're kind of like chewing and chomping again, like recruiting
the muscles around their lips and cheeks.
Um, but then when we have a baby that has a tongue tie, lip
tie, oral ties in general and maybe has a release done, um,
it's like, there's, there's going to be risks or benefits to
anything that we use like that.
Sure.
So that's when I tell parents like try to not use a pacifier
because a pacifier holds the tongue down and it's always open
mouth breathing.
When you have a pacifier in their mouth, their lips are not
closed, but if you're in the car and your baby is crying and
you're trying to get to the pediatrician visit, please,
you want to use a pacifier, please do like it's a comfort
measure.
Like there's a time and a place for it.
Um, but just don't keep popping it in for just, you know, unless
it's like you're just trying to buy a little bit of time to get
to where you're going in the car or, you know, mom is in the
shower and she just got in and got shampoo in her hair and
baby's losing it.
And then another family member, a partner, a dad, whomever is
going to use a clean finger or a pacifier for a minute.
Go for it.
Right.
There's no hard and fast nevers and nose in this world.
Um, there's a new pacifier that came out a couple of years ago
called the ninny co pacifier.
Are you familiar with that one?
I am not.
Yeah, it's called the ninny co and it's a silicone pacifier
and it's a super soft silicone.
It's so thin.
Um, that the pressure that it would put on the palate and the
tongue in general is so minimal compared to other pacifiers.
Okay.
I'll use it for suck training sometimes with babies to help get
like better extension.
So again, everything can be potentially a tool.
And then we have that conversation with our families that we
work with about how if you're using a pacifier and you can,
you know, wean from it at about that four to five month mark.
That would be ideal because, um, much longer than that, we're
getting into probably teeth coming in.
Right.
And also just a baby that's going to be more in tuned with a
habit and, and then it could be harder to take away from later,
but I have parents switch out the pacifier with certain types
of teethers that, um, like the myo munchie or something like
that.
Yeah.
The baby munchie is really good.
Um, and then there's other ones that just encourage like the
teether to get back a little further so that they can kind of
chew and chomp on it.
Um, and then it still gives them something they're, they're
going to put their fingers in their mouth.
Like it's all developmentally.
Sure.
Yeah.
Has a purpose.
Um, some sucking is a little different.
That's not my area of expertise, but, um, that's, that's something
a little bit different, but just in general, like babies putting
their fingers to their mouths can be very, uh, developmentally
appropriate.
It's a sensory thing and then giving them like these teethers
that they can chew and chomp on.
But yeah, I saw you, you did a podcast, um, on the myo munchie
and yeah, I have one actually have one right here.
Oh, look at that.
Yep.
Oh, I love it.
In my office, I do, I've taken the class.
I do have the baby munchie.
So, um, there are some babies that I'll definitely recommend
that for at about, you know, maybe four months, but definitely
by five or six months, it can be a good like tool for them.
It really helps with politics, expansion.
You're listening to airway first with today's guest, Amy Fields.
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and our mission to fix before six on our website at Children's
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contact your pediatric airway dentist or pediatrician.
And now let's jump back into my interview with today's guest,
Amy Fields.
So, whatever the baby is born with is what they've had
throughout gestation and how they've been moving their tongue.
They've been doing that since really early on, like as early
as even eight weeks.
And, you know, they've been moving their tongue in a certain
way.
They've been swallowing amniotic fluid.
And so when they're born, it's not like that's the starting
point.
They're special memories.
They've been doing it.
And every once in a while, there's a baby.
Like if they do have oral restrictions and the ties are
released, there are some babies that off they go, they do
great.
It's like parents are like, oh my gosh, from the very first
latch after that release, it felt different.
It felt better and it's beautiful.
You know, Michelle Chatham calls that the tether flow babies.
Have you read her article on that?
Yeah.
I'll put a link to that in here.
Yeah.
It's called the tether flow babies.
So she uses the analogy of like an iceberg and an ice flow.
Sometimes you see that ice on the surface and you don't know
what's underneath and sometimes it is just what's on the
surface and it's just floating around.
It's free spirit, right?
And sometimes you see some ice on the surface and what's
under the surface is bigger than what we see above.
Right.
And so the birth process can be a part of that.
Food allergies can be a part of that.
Moms milk supply. So there's all these variables that can make
breastfeeding difficult.
It's not just always oral ties and it's not just only oral
ties that you can cause.
Sure.
There's a lot more to play off that.
You know, we talked a little, you mentioned rather that one
of the biggest gifts.
And I think if you had a baby shower, we all got a gazillion
pacifiers, sucky suckies, whatever you want to call them.
Yeah.
So what are some other gifts that would be more appropriate
that we could bring to these baby showers that are going to
help moms with breastfeeding and babies with this whole jaw
development?
Okay.
Well, the first thing I'm going to say is a gift certificate
for a lactation consult.
Yes.
We are in that with most insurance plans.
Some IV CLCs are.
So depending on where you live, you could always check into
that, but a breastfeed, a good breastfeeding class, you know,
always, of course, ask what the mom wants.
We don't ever want to like push that on them.
But whether or not a mom is going to breastfeed, her milk
is going to come in.
So it to some extent.
So there is that.
But yeah, a gift certificate for a consult would be good.
And then as far as like things, I would say, the first thing
I'm going to say are meals, frozen meals, because if we can
set mom up for really good postpartum period where she's
healing, where she can just focus on her and the baby and
focus on breastfeeding, things are going to go so much better.
So, you know, pay for her house to get cleaned if, you know,
she's open to that.
Like I'm going to have a housekeeper come a couple of times
to clean everything for you so that you can just sit there
and enjoy your baby and just establish breastfeeding.
I'm going to bring meals over.
I'm going to hire someone to come pick up your dog poop in
the backyard so that you and your partner can just focus on
the baby.
Like those are the best gifts that I can think of.
And then as far as breastfeeding supplies, you know, like
there are good natural nipple creams that you can get.
I love the silver nipple cups like the silverettes or
lactation hub has their booby bliss silver nipple cups.
Um, those can be incredibly useful in the postpartum period.
If you go like on my Instagram, I have a link in the bio.
I do have a list of things that you can buy it on Amazon
that include even like one of those carts, you know, the
three tiered carts on wheels that they have.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
And so mom can bring that from room to room and it can have
her water hydro flask there, um, her snacks because it's so
important that mom is nourished.
Uh-huh.
And then, you know, the nipple cream, the breast pads, diapers
and wipes for babies can be on there so that, um, everything
is just in at a hands reach.
And I when I see new parents with like a brand brand new
baby in that first week, you know, there's definitely like a
therapeutic presence that we have with them.
And I always have Kleenex right next to where we're sitting in
my office because I'm not afraid of the tears that come with
being a new mom.
And I think it's really important to talk about that because
it's so hard and it's beautiful and it's, you know, exhausting
and it's magical all at the same time.
And to talk about how much you love this new baby and you're
so grateful, but also like how freaking hard it is.
How hard it is.
You might not even feel like super bond.
You love that baby and you're grateful.
But you're not connected yet.
You may not be connected right away, especially depending on
like what your birth look like.
Um, you're getting to know a new person.
Yeah.
And this person is very demanding.
Right.
I'll sometimes I'll say like, isn't it amazing how like much
work this baby is?
You know, before you have a baby, you think like, what do you
do?
It's not that hard.
Yeah, it's not that hard.
It's easy to do.
Um, and change their diaper and, and I was like, I bet you're
just like, where did the day go?
And they're like, oh my gosh, that's so true.
So, you know, I cannot stress enough that like we just as a
society need to do better.
Or our new moms and our new, you know, their partners too.
And I'll tell you, take the nap.
If you're a new mom and you're thinking we've made that
mistake with my first daughter, I thought, you know, not a
big deal.
She's taking a nap.
I'm going to go do this, this, this, this, this, this, this,
because I'm super mom and.
Yeah, I made it.
I made it a few weeks like that and then just broke down and
yeah.
Yeah.
For my next daughter, she took a nap.
Let's go.
Let's nap together.
Take the nap.
Yes.
A game changer.
Yeah.
And if you're in fire or flight and you're too wired and
you're just like, I can't, I can't lay down.
That's even more reason that like, okay, don't I tell moms
this all the time.
I don't care if you fall asleep.
I want you to lay down because it tells your body that
you're safe.
Yeah.
And it gets those cortisol levels down and it's little
tiny baby steps to start to regulate that nervous system.
And you know, I don't just put either put on some music or
listen to a meditation app or just put a funny show on put
on Shitts Creek or something.
Yeah.
And lay down and put your baby next to you.
And if you are afraid of falling asleep with your new
baby, then have another adult in the room that's going to
like supervise, you know, there's definitely safety measures
we want to take when we're laying in a bed with a baby,
but it's okay to do it during the day so that someone can
be supervising and babies don't know like I hear in Phoenix.
I'm like, your baby is confused.
Thanks.
This is France different time zone because they're like,
yeah, wake up at midnight and I'm like, yeah, you know,
basically a cat.
Yeah.
You just gave birth to a cat.
Enjoy that.
True.
They don't have a circadian rhythm.
They have no idea.
It's going to get better.
It is.
It's going to happen.
But in those first few weeks for sure, like you have to
treat the 24 hour period like that too.
Like it's not about staying awake and getting stuff done
all day because you're not going to be sleeping all night.
Nope.
You get sleep broken up.
But you also need to like you said, lay down.
I don't know if you fall asleep.
Like just lay down.
Lay down.
Yep.
Then I'll tell you as a postpartum mom too, which I'm so glad
this is in the conversation now of the world because it wasn't
when I went through it.
Didn't have it with my first one, but my second one.
I mean, hold on.
That being able just to lay beside my daughter and I couldn't
like you said, I couldn't always sleep, but I would just listen
to her breathe.
Yeah.
And I cannot tell you if you haven't had a child, you're going
to think I'm nuts, but just listening to her little breath
for however long she slept something in my body just relaxed.
And suddenly I started connecting with her more.
It was it really was magical.
Yeah.
We are instinctual beings.
We are at the end of the day.
We are instinctual beings and we sometimes we get so busy
that that gets kind of glossed over.
Yeah.
And those hormones are strong in that postpartum period and
it's like that mom radar is going off of like, I need to protect
this baby because if we're cave people and something's going
to come in and eat our baby, right?
And those right thoughts and the worries and all of that can
like just keep going.
But again, like if we can just very intentionally do things
to kind of tone that down.
And again, it could be like if someone's done like hypnoburthing
or anything like that, there's great.
You can just go on YouTube and look up like hypnoburthing
meditation and they have some for postpartum.
And even if you're someone that's never done anything like
that before, there are meditation apps that you can get because
it is in our brain.
Like it's back there somewhere and we can tap into whatever
it is that's going to help us get out of that like crazy
stressful high nervous system because birth is a lot.
It's dramatic for both of you.
Traumatic even if birth went well.
Like, you know, just the birth could be the best birth ever
and you feel super supported and you had a great team.
But that placenta goes away and with it goes some really great hormones
and then your body has to try to figure that out.
And so there's no way to like explain that to people that
if they haven't had a baby before.
Yeah, I know they hear us saying it, but they don't get it.
Yeah, you don't get it until you've gone through it.
It's hard to wrap your head around it.
But in other cultures, you know, they got right in India and a lot
of communities, the new mother goes to her mom's house or her
mother-in-law's house like they take her out of her home into
a place where she doesn't have to worry about cooking, cleaning
the other children and she has a doded on.
I mean, she supported.
Yes.
She's supported.
She's in bed.
And there are certain communities where mom and baby get a head
to toe massage every day.
I worked with a mom from Nepal and I was like talking to her
about like just certain like rhythmic movements with the baby
about how the movement is really relaxing.
Right?
That's how you get on the swing and you're just like, yeah.
And how you can do that with the baby and she goes, oh, yeah,
my mom has taught me all that and her mom still lived in Nepal.
So her mom kept telling her like, are you doing this or, you
know, you have to do this massage to help the baby with
digestion.
You have to do this.
They have it's just part of their culture.
And I go, are you doing it?
And she goes, no.
And I go, I had to take all these classes and do it all this
money to learn how to teach you to do it and your mom already
taught you and you just laughed and she's like, okay, I'll do
it and it made sense to her.
But, um, oh, sorry.
Let me.
That's right.
And I'm glad you mentioned it.
Oh, that's fine.
I'm glad you mentioned that because the, the, the massage
aspect of it, um, again, it's not something unless you've
gone through it, um, but a massage, you're a baby.
It's just, it's life changing.
Yeah.
It's just so life changing.
When you know, you know, you can take your baby in my particular
case, it was her grandma.
So she's safe and, you know, it was, it was done for me by my
mother-in-law and I thought, I don't need this.
I'm fine.
No, because you just, it, yeah, it's amazing.
That's, I'm so glad that you got that.
I know everybody that's listening is probably from different
parts of the United States or different parts of the world.
So what their resources are very different here in Phoenix,
we have some like massage therapists that specifically
cater to new, to like prenatal and postpartum moms and do
postpartum massages and the therapeutic breast massages.
Um, I got certified in that from.
What is that by the way?
Yeah.
It is also something that is, um, like done in other cultures.
I've learned it from a couple of different places.
So Maya Bowman is a nurse and then I be still see very well
known in the lactation community and she's Russian and she
teaches a therapeutic breast massage.
I've also taken a class and gotten certified from a licensed
massage therapist.
Um, but is it to stimulate milk or is it to relax the mom or it
can help with engorgement.
It can help with milk supply in both, it both low milk supply
and oversupply. Um, there's a certain amount of lymphatic
drainage that is encouraged in the types of breast massages
that I'm talking about.
Um, so, you know, it used to be when moms were engorged, we
would tell them get in the hot shower and then just like.
Yeah.
Unduct or dig that.
Engorgement out.
And now we know that that was causing more inflammation.
And so now there's more of like this therapeutic, um,
lymphatic drainage of the breast massage that we that we do.
Again, like in Russia, in Japan, in certain parts of India,
it's just a normal part of the postpartum period.
I was reading up on it a little bit and in certain communities
and even like Africa, Nigeria.
Um, it is normal to go get a massage specifically a breast
massage.
Not only in the postpartum period, but like at any point in
time, it's just to help with the congestion.
Um, for healthier breast tissue, you know, a lot of women
have fibroids and done sprouts and yeah.
Um, so, you know, if you go get a massage here in the United
States, they're not going to touch that area.
That's kind of like, um, but there are some massage therapists
that will do that, especially for women that have breast
cancer, um, maybe have had a mastectomy or, you know, had a
lumpectomy or something.
A lot of the oncologists will refer to specific massage
therapists that they'll do therapeutic breast massage for
them.
So there's definitely medical indications for it.
And a lot of lactation consultants are learning more about
this and offering, um, therapeutic breast massage in
the postpartum period.
So yeah.
Yeah.
So at the end of every episode, I always turn it back to
our guests for the final thoughts for our parents because
you are the experts.
So any final thoughts you'd like to leave our parent audience
with?
Yeah.
Um, my gosh.
Let me think of what we, I would just say that as we're
learning more and you know, there's more of a community and
the positive part of social media is really learning about
what resources are out there.
And you know, with lactation consultants specifically, I would
say do research prenatally during your pregnancy of who is
in your community, um, what kind of consults they do, check
your insurance benefits with, with them and do a prenatal
visit.
Like I said earlier, um, 2024 needs to be the year of the
prenatal visits because we can help you pick which pump is
going to be the best for you.
We can help you with flange sizing.
We can help you with your registry list.
We can help you with planning for that postpartum period and
to have those expectations of what that might look like so
that you can just not feel like you're surviving in that
postpartum period.
Like you may not feel like you're thriving and that's okay.
But you could heal.
We won't be in survival mode and yeah, I think I'm so glad
that we talked about this.
Um, and you know, in talking about the airway because isn't
the nervous system just such a huge part of that like we're
not working correctly.
Yes.
And as I'm going to be regulated, but there's so many other
parts and pieces of it and I just am so happy that I got to
do this podcast with you and to talk about breastfeeding and
what breastfeeding support can look like beyond beyond the
latch.
It's not just about the latch.
No, it's not.
It is.
Thank you so much.
Oh yeah, it's my pleasure.
Thanks again to today's guest Amy Fields for sharing her
medical insight into each of you for listening to today's
episode.
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