Healthy Latch Lactation Support

04/22/2022

Overdue update on my practice! Cross your fingers for me, hoping to make a BIG step today!! 😍

04/03/2022

AND biological!

02/18/2022

The quality and safety of our infant nutrition is our top priority. We’re initiating a proactive, voluntary recall of powder formulas manufactured at our Sturgis, MI plant, including Similac, Alimentum, and EleCare. We value the trust parents place in us and are doing everything we can to resolve this immediately. For more information as it becomes available, please visit: www.SimilacRecall.com.

09/26/2021

Boring, but it works!

What?
A Frosty? For breastmilk supply?
We hear it alllll…
👉🏽Blue Gatorade (specifically blue for some reason)
👉🏽Under Armour drink
👉🏽The Pink drink from Starbucks
👉🏽Wendy’s Frosty (malt in there somewhere?)
👉🏽37$ fenugreek brownies bought online. And a hundred other things/claims/companies that want your money.
OMG -
Here’s the thing:
There are things that can provide mild bump to supply by helping boost prolactin and decrease dopamine… but, the most important thing for continued supply is—
REMOVING MILK EFFECTIVELY.
I know, it’s boring. But that’s the thing.
Skin to skin, power pumping, hand expression, nursing your baby- these are ways to help bump supply.
If you want a Starbucks, get something you like. Drink some water (drink to thirst, you don’t need to drink gallons!)
Let me tell you, this Frosty was yummy, but it ain’t making any breastmilk.
If you’d like to discuss milk supply worries and supplements, we can do that.
If you bring me a Frosty, lol!
Was there something that you felt boosted your milk supply?
Share in the comments!!👇🏽👇🏽

08/23/2021

Sometimes, you may need to shape your breast to give baby a little help. This can help baby achieve a deeper, more effective latch and provide comfort for you. Here are some breast holds to try! ⁠
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What’s your favorite hold? Share your breastfeeding tips below!⁠

08/01/2021

Yep. I will support you no matter how you feed your baby, but I don’t have $150k to tell you that on the front page. And I don’t want you to ever feel like you’re at war with society on either end of the feeding spectrum - but this ad was made to add flames to the fire that exists and did so on a week lactation professionals are just trying to let you know we are here if you want support.

Happy World Breastfeeding Week, everybody. What we do to families in the USA is shameful.

I was falling asleep last night and thinking about how I wasn’t going to do a post or anything special for World Breastfeeding Week. Because honestly, if all of us lactation professionals do our job well we won’t NEED to have a World Breastfeeding Week anymore. We don’t have a World Drink When You’re Thirsty Day or a World Close Your Eyes When You’re Asleep month.

Breastfeeding or chestfeeding should just be a thing, a normal thing, a thing that is done to feed a baby. It should be so commonplace that nobody really thinks twice about it. Lactation shouldn’t need holidays and cheerleading squads and if I‘m totally honest, lactation shouldn’t need so many certifications and professionals. It should just be a normal part of life. You have a baby? You feed it, and you feed it a food that is appropriate for a baby to eat.

As I tell my families all the time “I don’t care what you feed your baby as long as it isn’t Mountain Dew. Human milk, formula, I will help you no matter how you want this to go.” I am a lactation consultant who works with tons of families whose babies are eating formula, and often I work with families whose babies are EXCLUSIVELY eating formula and are having trouble with bottle feeding. I’m not a breast-or-nothing kinda gal. I’m not that kind of lactation consultant. So I wasn’t gonna say anything about World Breastfeeding Week.

But then I woke up this morning and scrolled through Facebook and saw the full-page ad that a new-ish formula company put in the New York Times today. On the first day of World Breastfeeding Week. It wasn’t a coincidence, they say in their press release that they intentionally planned it for this week.

The headline is “How is b̵r̵e̵a̵s̵t̵feeding going?” because when you really want to bridge a divide and include everyone, the absolute best way to do that is to put a strikethrough in your headline. Why not use “How is feeding going?” instead which is, in theory, the whole point of their campaign and actually the URL they are touting?

You don’t include people by striking out part of the conversation.

I am not naming their brand and I scribbled out their logo because they knew well and good that people would be upset about this ad being placed today. And you know what that means right? Free advertising for them as people on the internet talk about their brand. All publicity is good publicity.

I’ll be honest, I can’t read the rest of the ad because I don’t have it on paper and I can’t zoom in enough. I can read their press release- which is loudly preaching the topic of inclusion- and which goes in depth into why they are doing this during World Breastfeeding Week. You can go ahead and read it if their copy interests you, do a quick Google and you’ll very easily find it.

But make no mistake about it. This is not about inclusion. This is marketing. This is ALL marketing. From what I can tell a NYT full-page color ad in the Sunday edition is around $150,000. If they REALLY were interested in inclusion and changing the conversation then their brand name wouldn’t be plastered all over the ad. THIS IS ALL MARKETING TO SELL YOU THEIR PRODUCT.

This is what we do to parents all day every day, for every single product and method and program and diaper and dish detergent and sleep training system and, and, and. You are not being included, you are not being supported.

You are being sold to.

And thus, we are back to the beginning. This is why we have World Breastfeeding Week. Because lactation doesn’t have a marketing department, an advertising budget, a slick team of copywriters and photographers and salespeople. We have people like me who sit in our little corner of the world and say “hey folks, if you want to breastfeed or chestfeed or bodyfeed your baby or you want to feed your baby human milk, I want to help you do that.” Yes, I charge money for my time and expertise and services, because I have to feed my kids too. So I guess you could say I’m part of the problem and that’s valid. But I don’t have $150,000 to run an ad… hell, I don’t have an advertising budget period. I just have me, and my mouth talking to parents, and my fingers writing blog posts and Facebook posts and Instagram posts when I have time.

So… happy World Breastfeeding Week, everyone. I’ll be over here spending it like I spend every other week of the year… helping families to feed their babies. I’m here if you need me.

07/15/2021

I’m done. I’m sick of the fighting. These phrases were created to divide you. I see post after post of people arguing on these topics and most of the time they both believe the SAME CORE IDEAS. The problem is each side of the argument

👏🏼that was made to make you feel this way👏🏼

triggers an extreme emotional response and we get NOWHERE with each other.

Stop using phrases at all. I used to agree with switching out to saying “Informed is Best” or “Support is Best” because they are at least attempting to bring people together… but it’s not working. Just stop giving slogans to any feeding ideal. It only fuels the fire, and nobody needs that stress in their life, no matter how they are feeding their baby.

06/14/2021

When we take a look at mammals, which humans are, we see different types of mothering and we can see how their species-specific milk is designed to mother that way.

We have the nest and cache mammals. These mammals can nurse their babies and leave them in a nest or safe place from anywhere from 4-15 hours before their babies need to feed again. Their milk is high in fat and protein and lower in water. They are able to space out feeds throughout the day.

We have the carry, follow, hibernate mammals. These mammals need to nurse their babies continuously. Their milk is low in fat and protein and high in water. They keep their babies close to them at all times and need to feed them continuously throughout the day.

Guess what the composition of human milk most closely resembles? Here’s a clue, human milk is amongst the lowest in fat and protein and highest in water.

Humans by design are carriers. That’s why our babies want to constantly nurse and be close to us. So often mothers nurse their baby’s and feel that since their baby wants to nurse again, before that stretch we were aiming for them to hold off to, they must not be making enough milk. Or they fear their baby has a sleeping issue because they wake often to be fed and held close. The fact is, your baby and your milk are genetically created to breastfeed and be kept close continuously.

We are carrying mammals living in a nesting mammals world. Society sets us up and supports us to be nesters. From spreading the message that your baby should be sleeping and not feeding throughout the night, that your baby should only eat in designated intervals, the thousand dollar gadgets they try to sell with the promise of long stretches, to the minuscule amount of maternity leave. But our babies aren’t programmed this way and neither are we. This is one reason why parents are so exhausted, we have very little support from our society and our health care system to be the carrying mammals we are born to be.

Follow Milkitivity on Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/milkitivity_/

06/01/2021

🤣🤣🤣 this is exactly the crop top I’d buy

05/17/2021

I recently had the opportunity to interview with VoyageSTL Magazine about what I do! Feel free to check it out and share 🥰

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chelsea Simpson. Chelsea, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin? So I technically have two businesses (Healthy Latch Lactation Support LLC & Chelsea Simpson Birth Services). When I had my daughter, it wa...

04/20/2021

After a great prenatal appointment this evening, I spent a lot of time thinking about how much I love these types of appointments. Hearing about the goals of the parents-to-be, seeing their excitement for their breastfeeding journey, being welcomed into their space during such an intimate time of their lives, it’s really hard not to smile when you think about it.

So here’s a shameless plug, in case you didn’t realize, I offer prenatal lactation visits (and I love them!). I’d love to chat with you about what breastfeeding means to you and how I can help set you and your family up to meet your goals. 🤍

04/05/2021

🍏

I often compare latching to the breast to eating an apple, and here’s a visual to show you why!

In the same way a BIG mouthful of apple had been taken here, your baby needs to take a similarly large amount of breast tissue in when they latch.

Their jaw needs to be open wide and the whole of their mouth filled with breast tissue to ensure the ni**le goes nice and deep to make feeding comfy for you, and efficient for the baby too!

Start with your ni**le almost up your baby’s nose like they’re sniffing it. Their mouth may feel far from the ni**le, but they need this distance to be able to latch correctly.

The chin and bottom jaw will be the first point of contact with the breast, and wait for the big gape. By tipping their head back, the baby’s upper jaw will be able to come up and over to ensure a deep latch with maximum b**b in the mouth!

Look at the amount of surface area covered!

Hope this is useful!