The Nest

20/07/2025

Tomorrow 10-12! ☕️ 💙

12/06/2025

The natural term for us humans to breastfeed is anywhere between 2 and 7+ years. Some babies stop earlier, some children carry on for longer. It’s thought that the eruption of the permanent set of teeth (losing your milk teeth) influences this timescale.

Many cultures around the world breastfeed until natural term, including many women in the Western world. This age range is only surprising in cultures that interrupt breastfeeding, often without realising it or knowing which norms are biological and which are cultural.

The concentration of fats and proteins increase as the baby grows into a toddler, along with increased levels of antibacterial and antiviral components such as lysozyme, which is an anti-inflammatory, and destroys bacteria.

Lysozyme increases in concentration from about 6 months old, when babies become more independently mobile and everything (toys, sand, twigs, the cats biscuits?) goes straight in the mouth, and keeps increasing after the first year.

The concentration of Lactoferrin also increases over time. Lactoferrin inhibits the growth of some cancerous cells. It also helps our babies to absorb their own iron stores, whilst binding to the iron in our baby’s body which prevents it from being available to harmful microorganisms that need iron to survive. Lactoferrin also kills the bacteria strep mutans, which causes tooth decay and cavities.

Our body’s immune system takes around 6 years to become fully mature, so the support of the protective factors in human milk until our immune system can fully function on its own seems play a part in the timescale of natural term weaning too.

Longer term breastfeeding is also associated with reduced risk of diseases for the mother, including breast cancer.

We acknowledge that many mothers find it difficult to establish breastfeeding in the first place, that breastfeeding is a multi-layered investment on the part of a mother and that natural term feeding might not feel like - or be - a possibility for many.

Or you might simply not want to. We're not here to tell anyone what to do.

We also acknowledge that lack of information about our biology contributes to the lack of support for mothers when they want to establish - or continue - breastfeeding, but cannot find the help they need from people who understand why it matters so much, or what is normal.

Let's continue to turn that around.

More information and references about how remarkable you are at https://human-milk.com/pages/science-of-breastmilk

11/06/2025

👇🏻

03/06/2025

So much of this 👇🏻 having your own experience isn’t enough ….

‘My own baby had a tongue-tie so I am passionate about becoming a tongue-tie practitioner.’

So what is involved? Firstly you need to be a registered healthcare professional (midwife, nurse, doctor or dentist) to train to do division. Secondly, given that division alone is rarely going to resolve the feeding difficulty and there can be many other factors that impact feeding negatively that need to be identified and addressed, anyone taking scissors to a baby’s mouth needs to either have advanced lactation and infant feeding assessment and support skills or be working with someone who does.

Every week I see families who have received inadequate care in relation to tongue-tie and the feeding difficulties they are experiencing. I see families who have been told their baby doesn’t have a tongue-tie when they do or doesn’t need division because they are ‘compensating’. I see families whose babies have had divisions but feeding has remained problematic because other issues have not been addressed. For example sub- optimal positioning and attachment, milk supply issues, or structural issues within the oral cavity, neck, jaw and cranium. I see babies who have had divisions which have actually made feeding worse which raises the issue of whether these divisions were appropriate. Were other developmental issues or physical abnormalities taken into consideration? Follow up support needs to be offered and often isn’t. I see mums left on triple feeding plans with no exit strategy.

So having your own experience and being passionate about division is not enough. You need to be passionate about supporting babies to feed better. You need to be passionate about getting the necessary education and experience you need and that will require a significant, and long term investment of time and money. You need to be prepared to stick with families when division doesn’t provide the instant, complete fix everyone hopes for because it rarely does. This job is tough and if you plan to work in private practice be warned, like any business, it requires a 7 days per week commitment.

02/06/2025

10-12
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☕️ 💙 🤱🏻
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Tea, cake, chat & help with breastfeeding should you need it
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Chantal will see you there today ☺️

10/05/2025

Monday at Iggy’s with Painty Pots 💜

09/05/2025

👇🏻

Lactose free milk is not a treatment for cows milk protein allergy and excluding cows milk from your diet will not irradicate lactose form your breastmilk.

Lactose is a carbohydrate and cows milk protein is of course a protein. They are different substances. Lactose intolerance in babies is rare. The most common cause is gastrointestinal infection (tummy bugs) which temporarily damages the gut lining and causes reduced production of lactase, the enzyme which digests lactose. The lactose intolerance in these cases is temporary and gradually resolves within a couple of months of infection. Premature babies may also have temporary lactase deficient which gets better as they get a bit older. A few babies may be born with a congenital lactase deficiency but this is extremely rare and makes these babies very unwell within a few days of birth. These babies have to stop breastfeeding and go on to lactose free formula as you cannot remove lactose from breastmilk via dietary changes.

The symptoms of lactose intolerance and cows milk protein allergy are often confused by healthcare professionals as well as parents so please seek specialist advice if you are worried your baby is reacting to something in the milk you are giving to them.

04/05/2025

Ahead of international day of the midwife 2025, I was reminded of a post I wrote in 2020, as I neared the end of my training. To all the student midwives who will be at the same point currently … and who might be feeling some of the same …. we are all waiting to welcome you into this incredible profession 💕
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‘The system ... and the student midwife’ - Lexi Hart
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Feeling smaller than the system lately ... feeling beaten by it ... wondering if I have the courage to push back, question it or refuse to accept it when it feels like the right thing to do ...
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What is ‘the system’ anyway? I’ve been thinking about this for most of the past two and a bit months
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Is it people? Is it rules? ..... perhaps it’s policies? Is it a set of things we’ve always done? Is it protection? Is it efficiency? Is it the norm? Is it right? Is it wrong? It’s it compassionate or is it intransigent? Is it there to be beaten or is it there to be feared?
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Or is the system a bit of all these things?
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“Be an advocate” “question” “be a voice”; “be bold” “have courage” ... they said
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But also “don’t say it too loudly” “follow the rules” “protect yourself” “watch your back” “it’s too risky” “say it ... but say it quietly so no one hears” .... they say
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People who are birthing mostly do so in the system ... and students walk with them as they learn their craft and hone their skills ... it’s hard to be that student sometimes ... it’s sometimes hard to be friends with the system and it’s sometimes hard to question it ... the system sometimes struggles with self awareness and it shouts and stares you down ...
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This is a pivotal time in my journey; 6 months to go, reflecting and considering my place in the system, trying to work out what or who the system is .... and how and IF ‘it’ and I can get along .... 💭
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30/04/2025

This Doula 👇🏻💕

As I sit looking out over this beautiful view, while visiting friends and family in South Africa, I'm overcome with peace and excitement of things to come.
Are you progressing through your pregnancy, feeling at peace with understanding your choices regarding your care?
*Do you have questions about where you would like to give birth?
*Do you know about your birth choices?
*Would you like to understand how Hypnobirthing could support you through labour?
*How a Birth Doula could support you and your partner/husband in the antenatal period and labour?
*Understand how a Postnatal Doula could support you as you enter this new chapter of Matrescence?

Have a look over my website www.peacefulbeginnings.co.uk
and feel free to contact me for a no obligation connection call.

28/04/2025

⚠️ NO IGGYS TODAY ⚠️

Bank holiday 5/5

Back 12/5

15/04/2025

👇🏻

If your newborn is given a hat in hospital it’s worth bearing the following in mind-

-Evidence tells us that the opportunity for new mothers to smell their baby’s head releases oxytocin and causes chemical changes in the brain that promote care taking and bonding. This can’t happen when a baby is wearing a hat.

-This oxytocin will also be helpful in causing the uterus continuing to contract, and therefore in the delivery of the placenta.

-Smelling your baby’s head also increases the release of hormones that increases aggression (promoting care taking) in females, and reducing it in males (to promote infant survival)

-The Lullaby Trust states that babies shouldn’t wear hats in doors.

-The idea that babies lose a lot of heat through their heads has been debunked many times, and we know that the ideal way to regulate a baby’s temperature is through skin to skin on a mother’s body. Babies don’t need hats to keep warm as long as you keep them skin to skin with you.

What’s your experience of birth, babies and hats?

17/03/2025

Are you pregnant and have been told that your baby is too big or too small? Do they want to induce you or give you a caesarean because of it? This episode is a compilation of the information shared on this podcast over a year ago in the big babies, small babies episodes. It’s been given revamp to....