Breastfeeding with Confidence: Advocacy, Support, and Trusting Your Intuition | 143

She's actually an IBCLC, which I told her before we started that who in the world decided all of those letters because it's too confusing. But say hello to Jamie. She's going to introduce yourself and just tell who you are.

Jaimie: Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for having me here. Trish. I'm super excited to do this because, my name is Jamie and I am a nurse, a lactation consultant, birth doula, homeschooling mama five, like working with moms is what I live and breathe.

Like motherhood is, My jam, right? And when I had my first son, I had a really rough start to breastfeeding and I can tell you more about that later. I knew that something had to change and that wasn't going to just happen. I wanted to see that change. I needed to be part of it. So I have dedicated the last, he's almost nine.

So having the skills to. Navigate that confidently and advocate for yourself is so critical to becoming a mom because that carries on throughout the rest of your motherhood journey. And it's like that first introduction that you're getting to advocating for you and your baby and making decisions that you feel confident in.

And the world keeps trying to tell us that our decisions are wrong. Our intuition is wrong. It shouldn't be important. And so I'm here to really help moms prevent and overcome those challenges so they can enjoy those first steps. A few days with their baby without having to suffer unnecessarily.

I just got off of a hangout on zoom with my mamas and we were our focus was on embracing that intuition and that inner queen inside of us in our journey because I think a lot of messaging, well, I know a lot of messaging is you don't know you, you can't listen to your body. Like it's not always right.

And I think there's a good, healthy combination of education, but also intuition and listening.

Jaimie: Absolutely. And that's what I always tell parents is like, you have to make your decisions from a place of information. And intuition, you cannot rely solely on either because I mean, your instincts are going to guide you very well, but if you just don't know something, you don't know it.

It's about a decision that you feel good about.

Trish: And it's best for you.

Jaimie: Exactly.

Trish: Yeah, and I love, Jamie's a bit of a rebel. So I like that because you guys know I'm a bit of a rebel. So I would love for you to tell everyone, you kind of hinted at your first Tell us how that has become your why for why you're on this mission.

Jaimie: Yeah, of course. So I'm going to try not to cry. I usually, it's been a while, so I can usually tell it without crying, but every now and then I get a little choked up. When I had my first baby, I really wanted that all natural birth. I wanted to have that amazing breastfeeding experience. And I was like, I'm a nurse.

It's a breastfeeding friendly pediatrician's office like They're gonna have my back, right? And I quickly found that, like, all of that was wrong. I ended up having a scheduled C section for breach, which I still, to this day, tell people. I wish, at the very least, I would have let myself go into labor naturally to see if he would have had a chance to turn, because he was 39 weeks when he went breach, and I just, I didn't trust my intuition then.

That was the first time I didn't trust my intuition.

He stabilized almost immediately when they got him to the NICU, and they still kept him in there for about four to five hours and just left me. not knowing what was five hours? Four to five hours. It was to the point they transferred me to postpartum and my nurse was like, this is no longer acceptable.

Like she was mad and she was going to find my baby because she's like, he's been stabilized. There's no reason. That's

not

acceptable. No. So, thankfully my husband is amazing and we worked a lot on advocacy ahead of time. And so when she, she went out of the room, she went marching out of the room to go find my baby.

And my husband carried him around the corner. He told them she needs to start breastfeeding this baby. There's no reason she can't be breastfeeding this baby. I'm taking him to her and

Trish: Oh, I'm sure they threw a fit on that one

Everything was fine. So we actually had a really great start. The first latch was amazing. First couple of days was great. And then we got home and that's when the wheels kind of just fell off. And it was, at first it was, he wasn't gaining weight. Right. And so we're like, okay, I'm trying at the pediatrician, go ahead.

And let's start trying to use a nipple shield to get him to gain weight. And that's a common go to, And it worked enough that he wasn't still losing weight. He had maintained his weight over the weekend. So they were like, okay, you can keep breastfeeding. I'm like, well, thank you for that permission.

Trish: And that's all based on research you were doing? This

Jaimie: was all based on research I was doing, I actually, I had a tongue tie when I was a kid, so I had some familiarity with that, and then just connecting with other moms, other, like, really connecting with the wisdom of other moms telling me, like, this is what's normal, this is what's not, like, look into this, look into that, and the pieces were just all coming together, and so I kept asking and asking, and it got to the point where the lactation consultant said, look, I think you're just sensitive because you're a redhead.

And I don't know what else to tell you. The pediatrician's response was, yeah, I don't know why you're trying so hard to breastfeed. Like, just give up already. Like, go to formula. No mention of exclusive pumping. Nothing. And the kicker, He couldn't drink from a bottle. No matter who tried to feed him a bottle, he couldn't get the milk out of the bottle.

Trish: That doesn't sound

fun.

Jaimie: And they're just like, oh, well, his latch looks great, so it's fine. I don't know, why don't you just quit?

Well, he's not drinking from a bottle either, so I don't really know what to tell you. And it got to the point, I, this used to be really hard to admit, but he, we've talked to him about it. He knows why this is so important and why I do this work, so he knows that I got to the point where I genuinely considered dropping him off at one of those fire stations and And convincing everybody that he was kidnapped, because That's how unsupported I was.

Trish: And exhausted.

Jaimie: Exhausted. I was in pain. I was trying to feed him with a bottle. He wouldn't take the bottle. He had to eat. Like, I felt like I had no option. And

Trish: you felt like you were not doing your job. I

Jaimie: was, I was not. I, I felt, no, you know, I felt like I was doing my job. I was advocating as well as I knew how.

Trish: Yeah

Jaimie: So, how did you

Trish: finally get help?

Jaimie: Yeah, so I always tell people, my breastfeeding relationship was saved by a plane crash, which is not it sounds really silly my husband It's in the Air Force and they had a plane crash and he had to go clean it up and he was terrified to leave me home by myself. So he called my mom. Because he knew

Trish: you were on the brink of taking the baby to the fire station.

He knew

Trish: Hmm.

I wonder who inherited that.

Jaimie: She was like, like what is going on? Like why this shouldn't be this bad. This shouldn't be this hard. And I'm like, okay, well, that helped to know that it shouldn't be hard because a lot of voices were telling me, well, sometimes it just is, suck it up, you're not on top of that.

It's hard, yeah, you're going to be

Trish: in pain.

Jaimie: Yeah, exactly. And then she was like, well, did you talk to Casey? I think it was, which is my son's godmother. And I was like, a little bit, and this is what she said, and she looked at me and she's like, well, what did she do about it? And I told her, and she was like, Where's that doctor?

And we were talking about a frenectomy and everything. And she's like, well, where's that doctor? And I was like, well, back home. Cause I was living, so I was living out of state, like eight hours away. And she's like, so if the doctors here aren't helping, why haven't you just gone to doctors that'll help?

She lives there and this and that. And they were like, we'll get you on the calendar tomorrow. And I'm like, what? Somebody cares? Like what? And then that doctor called me the night before I went in for my checkup. And he was like, just kind of wanted to hear the story of everything going on. And he's like, this is the classic textbook, like.

This is textbook. This was not even like, oh, like easy to miss. Like, this is textbook. I

Trish: don't even, it's so maddening to me that you had to fight so hard.

Jaimie: Yeah, it was, I think, six weeks, I think, before we had like a good breastfeeding session. And that's why I tell moms, I'm like, you have to be prepared ahead of time.

That's not good. That's not good for you. It's not good for your baby. It's not good for anybody. And that's not how we're supposed to spend those first weeks of our baby's life. I can't remember his first month. All I remember is being miserable. Like, I can't remember. Um, but with my other kids who also had tongue ties, I can remember those days because I knew exactly how to handle it.

I knew what to look for. I knew what, I knew what was normal. I knew when it was outside of the realm of normal and then how to navigate that. And I had support that I knew cared and could actually support. And that's what I want moms to know is do not wing breastfeeding. Like, yeah, it might work out. And yeah, there's a lot of people who say they fight through it and get through it.

Because we're mammals. There's no mammal on earth that is designed to suffer through breastfeeding their baby. Like, we wouldn't have survived as a species. before the invention of formula. If we didn't have support systems and ways to make breastfeeding work. Now that's a whole other conversation for another day.

But the point is there's information that we need to have that we have been starved of for the last 200 years. And there is support that we need. And most people can't give that support because we've been starved of that information for 200 years. So it's really finding a community of Women that can share wisdom, that can share information, that can teach you how to trust your intuition.

I handed him my authority and we as mothers, we're really called to be the authority over our children. Step into

Trish: that energy. Yeah,

Jaimie: exactly. Exactly. It's like, I know you're Christian and there's like the Christian structure of the family is having like the parents are authority over the children. God has authority over the parents, right?

So God gave us intuition and we're supposed to use that to take care of our children. We're not supposed to hand it to other people to make those decisions for us. And I'm just looking back, I'm like, why? Why did I just hand it over so easily?

Trish: But I think you nailed it. It's because here you are, like, you've gone through this huge hormonal change.

You're going to feel really confused and overwhelmed and it's the same thing with Breastfeeding and and newborn care in general parenting decisions like prepare while you're pregnant And I know that most moms That have already had a baby will tell you in both cases, like if they didn't have the birth experience I wanted, they're like, man, I wish I would have just done more preparation and the same with breastfeeding, because here's the truth for you guys listening.

Jaimie: Exactly, exactly.

And it's something that is always an interesting conversation to me when I meet women who are like in their 50s or 60s or even 70s and they start talking about their adult children and like, oh, I wanted so badly to breastfeed, but I wish they, I wish we had lactation consultants back then because.

It was just too hard and they, I started formula cause that's what they told me to do and I'm like so heartbroken when I hear that because their internal desire, like their innate desire was to use their body to feed their baby the way they were designed and they were just shut down, shut down, shut down and had the perception that something was wrong with them.

And I've sat there and talked with some women about it and we like break it down and they're like shocked by the end of the conversation because it's like, oh my gosh, maybe nothing was wrong with me at all. Why did I, why did I hand over that power? And I'm like, because that's what we've been trained to do.

Trish: Yeah.

They preach patient centered care, but they don't always put the patients first. And. Patients who are not in the medical field, I feel like, really need to hear that and understand that. Like, even if you have the best doctor, they do not answer to you. They answer to their employer at the end of the day.

Trish: And to insurance billing and all that stuff. Exactly.

If you are in the medical field and you are a nurse, like I work with so many nurses, I've worked with doctors who are like, I actually didn't know anything. Like, nobody ever taught me this. It's like whatever you have been taught in school, like please remember, like

it was like teaching you the alphabet. They didn't teach you how to read until you got on the floor, right? If you're not a labor and delivery nurse, you probably don't know nearly as much about breastfeeding as you think you do.

Trish: Well, even as a labor and delivery nurse. Yeah,

Jaimie: I was gonna say, and even if you are, like, that's a whole other conversation, but even a lot of labor and delivery nurses do not have the training and the experience.

Like there's things that they are really good at. And there's things that. They should probably just acknowledge where they're not as good at, and that's okay, because we're human, and we can't all be good at everything.

Trish: Yeah. No, I, I 100 percent agree. So tell us, like, tell everyone, what are you doing now to support moms?

Because I feel like it's so important. that a lot of us in this line, whether it, you know, it's in perinatal care in some sense, a lot of us who have dedicated our lives to that are because of our own experiences. Same for me.

Jaimie: Yeah, no, I agree a hundred percent. And I love that. I love that women have an experience and they're like, you know what, this is not okay.

It teaches you basics and basics are important. You have to learn the basics, but you also have to learn the nuance because you can't advocate for yourself if you don't understand nuance. You can't advocate for yourself if you haven't Learned to tap into that intuition. And in order to do that, you need ongoing support.

I always tell moms like breastfeeding does not have to be perfect to be positive. I think I know you've had a very interesting breastfeeding story yourself and I think you can probably stand by that like it does not have to be perfect. It might be really hard but there are ways you can make it positive because and this is a whole other part of it that I dive into so deep in my classes but Breastfeeding is not just about calories.

Trish: Oh, I had that with Grayson, you know that so I had to use a supplemental system But it is it's so much more and it's designed so perfectly that when you've had a baby And you're forced to sit down to study to feed.

If you look at it as this moments of rest and moments of rejuvenation and moments of your body is flooding you with these beautiful hormones during that period. It's also shrinking your uterus. So there's so much more.

Jaimie: It is. It is. It's so perfectly designed. It's so perfectly just, it's. It's such a miracle, honestly.

So you're not just getting, you know, the workshop on how to latch your baby, but you're getting the workshop on how to get back to work, how to navigate starting solid, like how to do all these different things that after the first couple weeks, everybody just kind of throws their hands up and you're forgotten about.

Yeah. We don't forget about you.

Trish: Or you get those, like, four visits with a lactation consultant that you're, you're If you're lucky. Yeah. If you're lucky. Yeah.

Jaimie: But we don't forget about you in the Confident Momma Bear Society. We're, we're there and we see you and we want you to be there and share your wins and share your struggles and walk through it together.

Jaimie: it is

Because that, those feelings, and you know, those feelings of like, why is this not working? It's supposed to work.

Jaimie: It's, it's overwhelming and it's so You know, like, birth and becoming a mother is kind of like going into the military where you get completely broken down and rebuilt, right? And if you're being completely broken down into, I can't do this, I'm broken, what foundation are you rebuilding?

And how does that impact your children? Later on and that's not to say that having breastfeeding challenges means you're going to destroy your family by any means but like if you're just

Trish: but what we tell ourselves matters

We have to fix and change that system. And it, it starts one mom at a time. I always tell people, I'm like, as broken as the system is, we can't legislate this getting better. Like that's not going to work. It, we have to do it one mom at a time. And it's getting. One individual mom to realize like I can do this.

I just need to take action now So I'm not suffering later and when she builds that really amazing breastfeeding story, she's gonna tell other moms

Trish: And her daughters. And

Jaimie: she, exactly. She's going to tell other moms. She's going to tell her daughters. She's going to tell her sons. Her sons are going to see that.

My son tells everybody about breastfeeding. He was on a plane with my mom and saw a mom with a baby and she was, he literally just went, my mom's a lactation consultant if you need some help.

And my son goes, My mom is all about vaginas. I was like, let's reframe that really quick.

Jaimie: But you know what? Yeah. As ridiculous as it sounds, our sons being so, having birth and breastfeeding so normalized, like they're going to be awesome husbands and dads.

Trish: Yeah. And that's going to make it better

Jaimie: for the next generation, the next generation.

We'll undo all this damage that has happened over the last 200 years.

Trish: Right. And like you said, what we're told by the older generation of women is born from their own pain and their own lack of support and think normalizing this difficulty. And so the same for labor nurse mama, our, our mantra is our, our, Company motto is changing the birth culture one birth at a time.

Jaimie: It will have no choice.

Absolutely. We live in a consumerist, consumer driven society. Right? Like a consumer driven economy. And as sickening as it is, healthcare is a business. And the consumers should No, it's one of the biggest

Trish: businesses in the world. It is. It is. It's a business.

Jaimie: And the consumers should be driving that business like every other business.

But they're not. Profits are driving. I mean, obviously we can get into that. Profits drive every business, but really demand drives business, right? Demand drives supply. If the demand is just. Powering and saying, okay, you can do whatever you want. Fine. But they're going to do whatever they want. They're going to have the power.

And it's not intended to. And we as individuals are the only ones who can change that by standing up. And it starts, it starts with motherhood. It starts with women. It starts with mothers. And I'm excited and looking forward to shaking up the entire system. Trish. I love it. Shaking up the entire system.

Yes, united. Getting mothers to understand, like, You can do this. It's really that simple. Like

Trish: agreed.

Jaimie: It's complicated. And it's just making a choice to take this.

Jaimie: Yes, you can find me at little bear lactation on Instagram. My website is little bear lactation. com. And I do have the confident mama bear society there where you can sign up for a month or You can sign up monthly.

And so you just kind of pay as you go as you need that support, or you can get lifetime access or one fee and have support and access forever and ever. So I want to make sure that it's accessible for moms.

Trish: I love that so much. Well, thank you so much for coming today, Jamie. I loved it.

Jaimie: Thanks for having me, Trish.

We say yes and no based on knowledge and intuition. Okay, you guys have a great day. I'll see you again next Friday. Bye for now.