Babies in Common

Hi, in case you don't know me, I’m an IBCLC-lactation consultant in Central Massachusetts. I love working with the families I serve, but I also have a passion for pumping and feeding gear and sharing my knowledge with other professionals. If you're an IBCLC-lactation consultant or other perinatal professional that works with pumping people, you may have heard me speak at a conference, about my “the results-based flange fitting method”, the Flange FITS™ Guide. I teach workshops for IBCLCs and perinatal professionals about pumping and feeding gear, and just finished the world’s first flange fitting comparison research study, with a research professor at University of North Carolina-Greensboro, which we hope to be published soon (it's with the editor, we're waiting and hoping for good news any day!). This October, I am offering FOUR in-person Pumping and Feeding Gear for IBCLCs workshops--Mansfield, MA; Lexingon, KY; Atlanta, GA; and Princeton, NJ. I’m heading out on the road for the month of October and bringing some of my 65+ pumps, some of my 85+ bottles, all the pacifiers, all the nipple shields, all the catchers and pullers, and more…to YOU. We’ll have lactating people to practice doing real flange fitting sessions with, as well! While we are "lactation" consultants, many of us think our title should be "feeding" consultants. Pumping, bottlefeeding and being up-to-date on the products that parents are seeing and buying is important for us as we continue to strive to serve our clients best and with confidence. This workshop offers 7 CERPs as well as other benefits after the workshop. Learn more and sign up (SOON, please, it’s important I see registration numbers rising to give me confidence that we’ll have enough people in each workshop to run them). What a great experience to have such a variety of pumps and flanges, nipple shields, pacifiers, bottles, and too many items to list related to lactation - all in one place! Jeanette was knowledgeable, relatable and FUNNY. She had personal experiences to share as well as many videos and brought in clients to demonstrate techniques for flange fitting in real time with real people using tools we saw and were able to learn about then and there. Jeanette was an interactive speaker and invited participation from the group, which was a good size group, but relatively small enough to be able to have comfortable discussion. I liked that she discussed anecdotal as well as evidenced based evidence for information she shared. I highly recommend this super fun and informative seminar, especially as we have more in person options available compared to the online world we had a few years ago. Jessica Simpson, M.S, CCC-SLP, IBCLC

Pumping, flange fitting, bottlefeeding...there's always so much to talk about. I was delighted to be interviewed on the Katie the Traveling LC Podcast. Check it out, if you'd like. https://lnkd.in/eB6riWwP

Last week was spent in Cleveland, at the conference of the International Consortium of Ankyloglossia (tongue tie) Professionals, connecting with colleagues who have become close friends over the years, meeting new colleagues and other providers who support families with feeding struggles, including dentists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, chiropractors, cranio-sacral therapists, pediatricians...it takes a team approach to support babies and children (and their parents!) with feeding struggles. What have you heard about tongue ties? What are your questions? Did you know know that releasing tongue ties is documented in the Bible (whether you are religious or not, it's an historical document)? I first saw tongue ties being released via scissors when I lived and worked in a village in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa in the early 90s, where I worked with a midwife. Weekly, during our baby weight clinics, if there were latching issues, she and her midwife assistants would try to help and one piece of that was checking for a tongue tie. Now I support families in determining if oral restrictions are part of their feeding journey. We discuss a customized approach to their baby's care, and almost always, that includes FIRST working on oral/facial/body activities, seeing a skilled manual therapist, working on milk supply and latch...many things before moving to meeting with a release provider. While there is so much more to the practice of an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant besides tongue ties, not all IBCLCs get training in tongue ties and oral function (I wish that was part of our basic training, it's just not). Some of us are passionate about it, and continue to get many hours of continuing education every year related to this area. #tonguetie #ibclc #lactation

One of the best ways to learn is to hear something, see something, and DO something. During my upcoming workshops, I'll be doing flange fittings for volunteers, while workshop participants also help! It's not only a great way to learn, but also fun. And the volunteers get a great flange fitting for pumping their milk! Please spread the word...we need more volunteers to come and let me do a flange fitting in front of the group (during a pumping session). This would be with 12-25 lactation professionals. No photos or video will be taken unless the volunteer consents to that. This is for educational purposes. Thank you for your help spreading the word to people in the Greater Washington, DC area! The workshops are in Tyson's Corner, VA. Thanks!

Woot! Done! The manuscript (the research study article describing our study, summarizing the data, laying out the results and conclusions) has been written, edited, and submitted to a journal in hopes they'll want to publish it! Now we (Dr. Lisa Anders and I) wait and hope they say yes with only a few edits! Whew! It's been a year since we started this project!!!! And Lisa did soooo much work on this, after she bravely stepped up to reach out to a stranger (me) to answer my "who wants to do a study?" question during my GOLD Lactation closing keynote talk in May 2022. A bunch has changed/advanced since that talk, but gosh, who knew this concept would be so divisive in the lactation world? Who knew we would get so much pushback from pump manufacturers and even other IBCLCs and perinatal professionals who haven't TRIED what we're talking about? Ya know, when people say "where's the research?"...do they know how much research costs and how much time it takes and how many UNPAID hours go into this stuff when you don't have the money of a big company? ESPECIALLY when there's a whole industry (cough, cough, pump companies, at least most of them) who does NOT want to hear anything that refutes what they've been saying/believing/touting all along? It's all about money, but somehow I think that maybe they'd make more money, really. Then again, why can't companies also care about the greater good at the same time? Anyway, this is a HUGE step toward making change. Here's hoping. Please send your positive vibes our way. We can't share where we submitted it for review, but it has been submitted!! Here's hoping they will say yes! And then that once it's published, great changes will start. Lisa and I are available to help others who want to do a research study, just reach out. If you are a lactation/perinatal professional who wants to learn about flange fitting and pumping and other related topics, sign up for one of my upcoming (or on-demand) courses. See babiesincommon.com for details (under the "for professionals" tab). Or reach out to discuss hosting me for an in-person workshop in your area or a virtual event. To get the Flange FITS™ Guide, also see our website. Woot! Sooooo excited! (And no, this post is not an April Fool's joke.)

I enjoyed presenting today about flange fitting today for the Colorado state WIC (Women, Infants, & Children) Program. About 150 staff members were in attendance and I'm excited to hear what they notice when they implement some/all of what they learned today. About 40% of the babies in the United States qualify for WIC services (along with their parents), and one of the services that WIC programs are supposed to provide is lactation support. That's a LOT of babies whose parents want to provide human milk but may not be able to do so, due to lack of finding the right flange fit. Some WIC programs provide lactation support better than others, and clearly Colorado WIC has the desire to ensure that its staff is up-to-date on the latest strategies to support pumping parents, and they have many flange sizes already available in their offices, thanks to one pump company that works with WIC offices to make varied flanges available. What magic could happen for pumping parents if all pump companies got "on board" with this updated way of flange fitting and made all the sizes and shapes of flanges available? I know it would be life-changing for so many pumping people and babies. But there is such resistance. The most common flange sizes (when using my Flange FITS™ Method) are 13-17...that's VERY different than the "standard" sizes that come with pumps (21-28). We CAN do better for families. Thank you to Colorado WIC for having me and for taking steps to improve the lives of your participants! The more we can have lactating people using the best flanges for them, the more milk they will be able to provide to their children. Besides the improved health outcomes that human milk has been shown to be associated with, when a baby gets milk from a parent or a community member, that saves the government (and that family) a lot of money! Supporting lactation is a good financial move.

It's IBCLC Day! That's a lot of letters, I know. IBCLC stands for International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. It takes years to become a lactation consultant, as there are many college-level courses required, lactations-specific education hours, clinical care hours, and mentorship required. IBCLCs are committed to supporting people who want to breast/chestfeed, pump, and help with bottlefeeding is also part of the support we provide. There are IBCLCs in hospitals, community health programs, private practices, and some medical clinics. We each have our own specialties and experiences, so sometimes a parent-baby dyad or family will benefit from seeing more than one IBCLC for comprehensive care. Did you have an IBCLC or two or three on your care team as you navigated feeding your baby and/or lactation? Share your story in the comments and (if you want), give a shout out to an IBCLC who helped you!

I know, I know, there are a lot of options these days for those who work with lactating families to continue their education and gain credits for recertification. I LOVE going to conferences and taking online seminars. I either learn something new, confirm that I already knew something, and usually learn some new ways I can think about think/do/say things. But the educational sessions I love the most are the ones where I can implement what I learned immediately. The lessons that I can share with my clients right away. I get messages from colleagues every week about how what they learned in one of the courses I offer changed their practice. We don't find "practice-changing" seminars too often. At least I don't. But I certainly can name the few that changed my practice. Whether you work with lactating families or not, can you name three seminars that changed how you practice your profession?

I just got back from speaking in Charleston, SC for the South Carolina Breastfeeding Coalition about pumping and flange fitting. It was wonderful to meet so many other lactation professionals who are passionate and excited about updating their skills and information to better help their clients. I got to know some colleagues I was meeting for the first time, hear about their joys and challenges, I did three flange fittings in front of the audience and one of them saw drops of milk for the first time in six months (as she's trying to induce lactation) and there were many tears on her part and ours. Because MOST people should be using 13, 14, or 15mm flanges...if you work in lactation, I offer professional courses where you can learn more. What was interesting--is that the right word?--is that I was told that some people didn't attend the conference because they saw my photo and judged me (and apparently my content) because I have these GLASSES on. Really? Yep. I find this so sad. Do I wish that there was equity for everyone? Yes, but the groups represented by my rainbow glasses are all too often discriminated against, even in healthcare. So, yes, I stand by what they represent. Does that mean I that my professional content is not worth hearing? Gosh, no. Expanding representation shouldn't be a bad thing. So, do I change my glasses for my professional profile photo or keep the glasses?

Had a successful Pump Clinic today! Parents came with their pumps, nipples were measured to get an idea of what flanges to try, I provided all sorts of flanges for them to try, and everyone pumped while changing flanges throughout pumping to figure out which flanges were most comfortable and yielded the best sprays...while we discussed how changing settings on the pump can affect yield and comfort...so fun and rewarding! Wish you could be more comfortable pumping and possible pump more milk in less time? The next Pump Clinic is in February. Sign up soon! #ibclc #lactation #flangesizematters