Episode
(How to Spot) Fake Lactation Support
- Podcast
- The Evolve Lactation Podcast
- Published
- Aug 10, 2024
- Duration seconds
- 811
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Summary
Closing the Gap: Ensuring Breastfeeding Support for All - this is the theme of World Breastfeeding Week this year. Evolve Lactation is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. I recently wrote a book that captures the essence of how to ensure this support in the critical first week of breastfeeding. When mothers don’t get the support they need right from the start, it dramatically decreases the chances that they will continue breastfeeding, ESPECIALLY in developed countries. That’s the key part - accessibility of breast pumps and infant formula in developed countries, while they can be life-saving, also makes it easier to forego providing ACTUAL lactation support, and many hospitals and so-called breastfeeding “supporters” find it easier to simply encourage pumping or formula use when what mothers SAY they wish to do is to feed their babies at the breast. The mismatch of support is confusing and unfair, and the concept of informed choice is all but forgotten when people tell mothers that all these options are essentially equal. I’ve hesitated to call this out because there’s nuance to it and I want to be sure that I can be clear. Recommending the use of a breast pump or formula CAN absolutely be part of a totally appropriate plan that has been constructed by a skilled lactation care provider who has performed an assessment and created the plan in collaboration with the family. What is inappropriate is using pumping or formula feeding as a way to avoid having to provide actual lactation support. While it might look like lactation support from the outside, it is most decidedly not. This happens so frequently in the first 100 hours of a baby’s life, and it’s crucial that we examine this so that…