There is a misconception that breastfeeding comes easy to everyone who wants to do it. As an IBCLC, I know this is not the truth. I welcome Kaia Lacy, a certified lactation counselor, partner of The Low Milk Supply Foundation, and mother of two to normalize low milk supply in breastfeeding.

We discuss:

• The difference between primary and secondary low milk supply
• Misconceptions about breastfeeding that can negatively impact a feeding journey
• How combo-feeding can be helpful to many

 

Kaia Lacy
Book a private consultations for feeding support and prenatal planning with Kaia at lowsupplymom.com/bookasession

00;00;01;02 – 00;00;27;03

Kaia Lacy

Success and how I viewed success was really influential. And what I didn’t learn until my daughter, Nora, was that success is self-defined. You know, we hold the autonomy to define our own success, and it does mean self-efficacy. And that self-efficacy is not to say, you know, whether I can be BFF or not, but it’s having the tools to navigate breastfeeding from an empowered perspective.

 

00;00;27;05 – 00;00;48;11

Kaia Lacy

Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. I continue to get to talk to the most amazing guests on this podcast who have conversations about parenthood, mom live, child help, development, and so much more. So thank you for tuning in for being here today and for all of your reviews. The reviews are how people learn about the PedsDocTalk podcast, so thank you so much.

 

00;00;48;13 – 00;01;12;09

Kaia Lacy

Today’s guest is Kaia, who is a certified lactation counselor partner to the Low Milk Supply Foundation, mother of two, and educates so many parents on Instagram as low supply mom. And we’re talking about how breast milk production is not easy for everyone and how we want to normalize this. Thank you so much for joining me today, Kaya. Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

 

00;01;12;09 – 00;01;31;08

Kaia Lacy

It’s really, really wonderful to be here. Well, I’m excited because I am an IBCLC, so I’m a lactation consultant. And this is something that’s really important to me to discuss because I really want to normalize that. Not all people who breastfeed are going to have it very easy. Some have a lot of difficulty with production. And so I know we’re going to talk about that.

 

00;01;31;14 – 00;01;57;11

Kaia Lacy

But before we get began, tell me more about yourself and why this topic is important to you. Yeah. Thank you. This is probably the most important topic to me. You know, this really came about from my own personal experiences in feeding. And I’m a mother of two. And with my first child, before I had him, I had these ambitions of exclusively breastfeeding and it was, you know, it was like a non question for me.

 

00;01;57;11 – 00;02;29;17

Kaia Lacy

It was that he’s going to pop out, I’m going to put him on the boob. He’s going to stay there until he’s 3 or 4 years old. We’re going to live in this, you know, hippie cloud of some beautiful ethereal experience, right? So when Carl was born, I very quickly knew something was off. And unfortunately, you know, I had so many negative support experiences and it really unraveled to the extent where eventually, at a month old, he was diagnosed with failure to thrive, which meant that his growth was stunted.

 

00;02;29;17 – 00;03;07;19

Kaia Lacy

He wasn’t getting enough milk. And so shortly thereafter, I was diagnosed with a condition called insufficient glandular tissue, which means that my milk production could never be to the extent where I was able to exclusively breastfeed him. And so, you know, that experience was really, really trying for me, not only as when you have a newborn, when you’re a first time parent and you’re kind of becoming unraveled just with sleep deprivation and figuring out how to sustain this little human, but really losing that experience of breastfeeding in the way that I had hoped for, came with a lot of grief.

 

00;03;07;23 – 00;03;29;22

Kaia Lacy

And, you know, there was a lot braided into that, as far as you know, there was some sprinkle in some medical gaslighting and some formula stigma and, yeah, you know, all these layers that really it was a great recipe for postpartum depression. Yes. And I didn’t know that low supply was even a thing. I thought that everyone could breastfeed.

 

00;03;29;22 – 00;03;51;03

Kaia Lacy

I thought that, you know, I just felt extremely isolated. So it really put me down this trajectory. To learn more about low milk supply, to learn more about combo feeding, and then to, you know, become a support source for those people. You know, I felt so isolated and going through that, and there are so few resources for a low milk supply and combo feeding.

 

00;03;51;06 – 00;04;15;14

Kaia Lacy

So yeah, that’s what what spurred this on. And I went on to have my second child and my experience was much, much different, but it really opened my eyes to how many gaps there are here. Specific area as far as the biological ability to exclusively breastfeed, or even the accessibility and social issues that come with exclusive breastfeeding. Well, you also became a certified lactation counselor.

 

00;04;15;14 – 00;04;45;25

Kaia Lacy

Was this after your experience? It was. Yeah. And you know what? I truly went through a period where, you know, with Carl, I had a lot of negative experiences I’d hired on a lactation firm. And really the overarching message was, if you want it, it’ll work. Just keep keep trying. Let’s triple feed, which is where you, you know, nurse baby at the breast and then pump directly after nursing and then give that bottle and you know, the hope within that is that supply will increase.

 

00;04;45;25 – 00;05;12;24

Kaia Lacy

And everything was really framed as a bridge to something better. So when I did these things and my body was only creating about six ounces of milk a day, it became so taxing. And that was a hard thing to recover from emotionally. Yeah. So in my healing through that, I exclusively pumped. Around two months I decided I couldn’t triple feed me more, and so I moved to exclusively pumping.

 

00;05;12;24 – 00;05;33;09

Kaia Lacy

And then by about four months, I moved to Exclusive formula because it was just very, very taxing on my mental health. And, you know, for a while there, I couldn’t have conversations about feeding. I really couldn’t talk about breastfeeding or a little milk supply or formula. And part of my healing was to start having conversations about it with other parents like me.

 

00;05;33;14 – 00;05;59;29

Kaia Lacy

And, you know, within that, I just again, my experience isn’t rare, which is so unfortunate and so heartbreaking. And so recognizing that need, I just decided, you know, what I’m going to become, Kelsey. I’m going to become an IBC CLC. And so that’s really what started this. So yeah, I used to be an interior designer with my husband and wife, left him in the dust.

 

00;06;00;03 – 00;06;25;25

Kaia Lacy

Gotten on the baby feeding wagon. Wow. You’re like, something else is inspiring me right now, sweetie, I have to move on from interior designing. Yeah. Sorry, honey. Yeah. Boobs all day. Oh, well, I love you. Know, your story is not exactly like mine, but it’s obviously it has so many similar parallels. I became an IB, so you’ll see, because of the lack of openness to formula, the lack of openness to not putting pressure on women to breastfeed.

 

00;06;25;25 – 00;06;51;04

Kaia Lacy

And I do believe that a lot of the pressure to breastfeed backfires for so many women, also obviously affecting their mental health if they cannot do it, but also the whole feedback mechanism of production as well. Like not talking about it, but stress does not do anything for our breast milk production also. But I really want to normalize feeding and all the different ways to feeding, because I do feel like it can actually help someone’s breastfeeding journey if they choose to breastfeed, if they don’t want to.

 

00;06;51;04 – 00;07;14;22

Kaia Lacy

I’m also fine with that if they consider things like formula, if that’s something that they want. And there was such, vilification of formula amongst IB classes that I met, whether that was through training, whether that was through my own postpartum experience, that I was like, wow, like, why are some of you, not all of them? Why are some of you just so against this when it actually could be a vehicle of helping people?

 

00;07;14;22 – 00;07;36;21

Kaia Lacy

And obviously your child is going to be fed then. And that’s what we want. We want our kids to be growing and the mother or parent to be comfortable with what they’re doing as well. So really normalizing these conversations is so healthy I love it. Yeah. And that’s one thing that always strikes me, is that I hear so many times, I wish that I had learned about this before the baby, or someone had told me so much earlier.

 

00;07;36;21 – 00;07;57;16

Kaia Lacy

I didn’t even know that combo feeding existed. And in reality, it is actually more common for families to be combo feeding in those 6 to 12 months, then to not be combo feeding. So this is kind of I like to say it’s like the breast feeder skeleton in the closet. Like a lot of people are doing it, but we’re pretending that it doesn’t happen.

 

00;07;57;18 – 00;08;28;13

Kaia Lacy

And when we don’t have those conversations like, yes, as you well know, as I know, a lot of the brunt of that then falls on parents to try and DIY their experience to kind of figure it out because instead of, you know, engaging in productive conversations and education, it’s kind of like an abstinence only approach where really a lot of different providers are really promoting exclusive breastfeeding as the goal without educating on other options.

 

00;08;28;13 – 00;08;48;29

Kaia Lacy

And so when we can’t, you know, rise to the occasion and accomplish that goal, it leaves us feeling kind of like failures. Oh, and you said it perfectly like that impacted obviously. Or you said it’s a perfect recipe for postpartum depression. I mean, I see this commonly like the first thing that we’re supposed to quote unquote, do as a mother, which is feed your baby.

 

00;08;48;29 – 00;09;05;19

Kaia Lacy

And when you’re not able to do it in the way that you’re being told to do it, correct. Like, oh, you need to breastfeed. Okay, well, it’s not working. It’s not I’m not producing whatever it is, it makes you feel like you said, like this is the first thing that you’re supposed to do as a parent. And when you’re it’s not happening and it’s it is a recipe for feeling like a failure when you’re not a failure.

 

00;09;05;25 – 00;09;31;21

Kaia Lacy

Yeah. And you know that anti formula rhetoric or the attitudes that really do vilify formula, they do truly exist. And it’s more prevalent in some communities and others. But for me that was a huge factor in, you know, my breastfeeding grief was that I had really been inundated to believe that formula was poison. You know, good mothers breastfeed, good mothers don’t give their children formula.

 

00;09;31;21 – 00;09;58;19

Kaia Lacy

It was all these internalized stigmas that I really, really struggled to navigate after I was faced with the fact that I had to give my baby formula. And yeah, it’s something that I wish we were able to have these conversations where there wasn’t such a polarity between the formula. You know, we know that breast milk is wonderful, and in a perfect world, every child would have breast milk.

 

00;09;58;22 – 00;10;28;04

Kaia Lacy

Unfortunately, we do not live in some sort of utopia where biological diversity and access to support or mental health is just like beaming with rainbows. Like this is just not reality, right? So because we don’t live in that, you know, perfect utopia, we have to talk about what makes the most sense. You know, a lot of people approach this conversation from a nutrition perspective and leave out the fact that we’re human beings.

 

00;10;28;04 – 00;10;49;17

Kaia Lacy

We are not robots. We’re not just mechanical beings that are able to accomplish these things. Just because, you know, they might be ideal in certain parameters, right? But there’s a whole puzzle here that I feel like oftentimes we just leave the nuance out of this conversation. Absolutely. And you brought up, you know, misconceptions or, you know, stigmas that were created.

 

00;10;49;17 – 00;11;09;26

Kaia Lacy

I mean, as a health care professional, you know, in my training in residency, there was, a stigma, a formula, even though we educated families on it. I was trained to almost believe, and I did this on my own when I’m like, wait, what are we talking about? That okay, if you’re higher income, you breastfeed. If you’re lower income or you don’t have the resources, you may not want to do it.

 

00;11;09;26 – 00;11;24;03

Kaia Lacy

You’re just going to formula feed, when in reality you could see fluctuations in every different way. Right? You could have a lower income family who breastfeeds higher. And so it doesn’t matter. It’s not based on income. And you saw that and it would be like, oh, I’m going to be honest. Oh they’re just going to formula feed. I’m like, well what?

 

00;11;24;03 – 00;11;41;02

Kaia Lacy

And so then I’m like, oh okay. And then when you’re fed that in your training, you know, like in the racial and social stigmas, and then you’re like, wait, what? What are we talking about here? And then going on breastfeeding research and all of that, I think there is some different things that we have to consider. I’ve already done another episode about that, but I agree with you.

 

00;11;41;02 – 00;12;01;04

Kaia Lacy

I think there’s a lot of stigma. There’s a lot of just confusion. And that confusion does not help anybody, especially the baby and the person who’s feeding them or the people who are feeding them. So I think it’s an important conversation. And now you said there are some misconceptions about breastfeeding. Like is there anything else that, you know, any other misconception about breastfeeding that you feel impacted your journey early on?

 

00;12;01;07 – 00;12;23;21

Kaia Lacy

Well, you know, I think the majority of the misconceptions really associated feeding with morality for me, you know, good mothers breastfeed. It’s, you know, if you want it, it will work. And a lot of that, aside from those kind of emotionally manipulative, like not a great approach. You know, we want to inspire parents, but that’s just not the way to do it.

 

00;12;23;27 – 00;12;42;18

Kaia Lacy

And those things just aren’t entirely true. You know, there’s this misnomer that formula will ruin breastfeeding. And that was a huge one for me. You know, I felt pressure any time I was giving Carl formula. I said, well, this is just I’m ruining breastfeeding. Every bottle. I give him my supply will go down. And that’s not necessarily true.

 

00;12;42;18 – 00;13;16;28

Kaia Lacy

You know, it’s more so. It’s not the formula that complicates a nursing relationship or a breastfeeding relationship. Whether you’re pumping or nursing. It’s really that there is such a lack of access and education on how to incorporate formula or donor milk into feeding while sustaining lactation. And so instead of just giving parents the tools to learn about, you know, certain techniques or practices or even giving them info about lactation physiology, that could really come in handy while you’re doing these things.

 

00;13;16;28 – 00;13;40;18

Kaia Lacy

We just say formula is going to ruin breastfeeding. You know, if you supplement is going to ruin breastfeeding and it’s just not true at all. You know, I’ve seen that in my own life. You know, I have insufficient glandular tissue. After my second childbirth I produced around, I don’t know, 10 to 12oz a day. And I combo fed her from birth through the first year, and she is three years old and she is still breastfeeding.

 

00;13;40;18 – 00;14;02;05

Kaia Lacy

And so, you know, when people say formula One’s breastfeeding, I’m like, here’s exhibit you’re not. That’s just incorrect. It’s not true. It’s not the formula. It’s the absolute lack of information. Yeah. It’s just it’s not true. It’s a big misconception. Yeah. And it’s again it’s lack of maybe the people who are giving the advice don’t have the education or have bias behind it.

 

00;14;02;05 – 00;14;20;17

Kaia Lacy

So they don’t know that it actually is a possibility. I do a lot of combo feeding education in my practice. It’s just I’ve realized how beneficial it can be for many women who maybe whether they have IGT or whether they just have our naturally low breast milk suppliers. It is something that I’ve seen as a vehicle, like you said, of helping them get to breastfeeding.

 

00;14;20;17 – 00;14;42;18

Kaia Lacy

And like I said, some of them, they do not want to continue breastfeeding and I’m happy to support them on that too. Right. But it is an awesome option. Now with your IGT, you got diagnosed with that or you found out you had that with your older son. Yeah with Carl. So incision glandular tissue is you know, when you think all the milk that we can make, we all have our individual milk storage capacity.

 

00;14;42;18 – 00;15;03;17

Kaia Lacy

Right. So the breasts have the cells inside of them. And that’s kind of what dictates how much milk you can make. So milk storage capacity is going to be the largest yield of make a person can ever have at one time. It’s the largest amount of milk that you can hold inside the breast. So for over suppliers their milk storage capacity may be eight ounces nine ounces.

 

00;15;03;21 – 00;15;29;01

Kaia Lacy

You can be as big as like 16 17oz per breast, which blows my mind. Yeah. And an exclusively breastfeeding dyads that milk storage capacity may be as small as 2.5 to 5oz per breast. So with insufficient glandular tissue you have a milk storage capacity that is below that threshold. It’s really hard to even identify what your milk storage capacity is.

 

00;15;29;01 – 00;15;52;02

Kaia Lacy

But a lot of times, you know, we can find it by accident if we’re frequently nursing or pumping and maybe baby has missed a feed overnight. We wake up in the morning and pump, and sometimes that can give us an idea that our milk storage capacity is there or larger than that. So with IGT, you may have a milk storage capacity of one ounce per breast.

 

00;15;52;04 – 00;16;14;22

Kaia Lacy

And so you have a smaller volume of lobular tissue or the cells inside your breast that make breast milk. Right. So the issue with IGT is that it is not well understood. The majority of research that has been conducted on IGT and even low milk supply causes, a lot of it has happened within the last 10 to 12 years.

 

00;16;14;24 – 00;16;55;29

Kaia Lacy

And as you all know, there’s a huge gap in when research is implemented into curriculum, whether provider curriculum or elsewhere. And so when I presented with symptoms of IGT that were very apparent to someone who knows about IGT, that was overlooked because the providers I worked with just weren’t aware of it. So it took until all my six week postpartum appointment where I had a midwife, actually a nurse practitioner, who was able to identify that I had IgG through blood test to rule out any other conditions, but also through some physical features.

 

00;16;55;29 – 00;17;23;17

Kaia Lacy

You know, hyperplastic breasts is one physical feature that’s more prominent with IgG. And I also had no breast changes in pregnancy or postpartum. And those are kind of red flags for IGT that were very much so overlooked. Had I known about that, you know, 2 or 3 weeks postpartum, it may have changed the trajectory of feeding, but because I was just told, you know, keep pumping, take some moringa and you’ll be able to make enough milk.

 

00;17;23;19 – 00;17;48;29

Kaia Lacy

Yeah. It really damaged my view of breastfeeding. It damaged my ability to bond with my child. And it was really a negative experience. So getting parents these diagnoses is important. Helping them to understand why they may be struggling is important because at the end of the day, so many of us are going to blame ourselves when truly it is a biological, physiological condition.

 

00;17;49;01 – 00;18;07;08

Kaia Lacy

Absolutely. I love that you are being so open about this because it’s so important you brought up a really good comment about breast changes in pregnancy. I also did not have that with my son. I am also pregnant right now and I don’t have it as well. Like second time I’m not having any changes. Like you know, people report like soreness.

 

00;18;07;08 – 00;18;24;06

Kaia Lacy

All of that and I it’s so interesting cause I talked to my fertility doctor about it just to get her thoughts. And we were just chatting about she’s like, did you breastfeed your first? I’m like, no. And she was, you know, we chatted about it briefly, but it’s something that again, there’s still so much research coming out about it, but it’s something to consider that there could be a connection there.

 

00;18;24;06 – 00;18;47;05

Kaia Lacy

Obviously more research is coming. And one of the things that I think we ought to normalize. So in a woman who does not have IgG, for example, you could potentially increase supply by power pumping or frequent pumping, but with IGT because your glandular tissue just cannot support that volume power pumping or pumping a lot frequently, and may not be helpful.

 

00;18;47;05 – 00;19;09;06

Kaia Lacy

Right? It may do some, but you’re not going to become an over producer by doing that, right? Because it’s all physiology, right? And so, you know, to kind of make it easier to digest a lot of times, you know, what we separate it into is there’s primary low supply and there’s secondary low supply. So secondary low supply. You know this is one of the issues with education.

 

00;19;09;06 – 00;19;38;07

Kaia Lacy

How we’re treating people is we’re blanketing everyone who’s experiencing low milk production into the secondary low supply group. So with secondary low milk supply this is low milk supply which is a direct result of inefficient or infrequent breast screening. And this can happen. You know we see this if mother and baby are separated. If there is an oral restriction like a tongue tie, if there is, you know, some people just get horrible information.

 

00;19;38;07 – 00;20;08;11

Kaia Lacy

They may go to their first checkup and pediatrician says, well, don’t feed more than four hours, which if we’re not draining the breast frequently and efficiently, that can down regulate supply and that can cause low supply. So that is secondary a little milk supply and it’s common. And the treatment for that or how you attempt to increase supply is truly just by adding and more frequent and more efficient breast training.

 

00;20;08;13 – 00;20;28;04

Kaia Lacy

And this isn’t an easy task, especially, you know, if a child has an oral restriction, if they have a tongue tie, for example, and they’re really it’s a challenge to efficiently drain the breast, that sifting through that navigating that is very difficult. A lot of times it will involve some sort of triple feeding and and it’s a big, tall order.

 

00;20;28;04 – 00;20;52;04

Kaia Lacy

But a lot of people with secondary looks like can increase their supply to the extent to exclusively breastfeed. This does have timelines attached as well. You know, research has shown that this is technically considered relaxation. And for those with secondary low milk supply we’re trying to re lactate. We’re trying to turn these receptors back on in the breast to get that milk back to people to ABF.

 

00;20;52;07 – 00;21;17;18

Kaia Lacy

You have a much higher chance of that being successful before six weeks. After six weeks postpartum, it’s only about 30% of people that can increase supply to the extent EBS with secondary milk supply. And this also, you know, has to do with maternal age. And there’s a lot of factors. Lactation is so nuanced. And this is where this headaches I have is that it is so individual and so nuanced.

 

00;21;17;18 – 00;21;50;17

Kaia Lacy

It’s not just baby’s age, their oral function, the patterns of nursing or pumping you’re doing. There’s also other things at play that are so crucial. And so that’s secondary lummox. By then we have primary low milk supply and primary low supply conditions or any underlying maternal or biological influences, whether it’s anatomy or physiology, anatomy being IGT. Right. So we don’t have the milk storage capacity, but there are other conditions that also contribute to low milk supply.

 

00;21;50;17 – 00;22;24;25

Kaia Lacy

You know, there’s symptoms of PCOS like insulin resistance, high androgens, hypothyroid is there’s luteal phase defect, which is a common cause of infertility struggles. There are a lot of primary conditions that can either suppress hormones necessary to lactation or even cellular communication. That happens in the body during lactation, or that limit the volume of milk you can make just by way of anatomy.

 

00;22;24;27 – 00;22;56;08

Kaia Lacy

Right? Yeah. So the thing that I find most damaging to so many of my clients with primary low milk supply is that everybody’s getting advice about secondary milk supply. So when you’re telling a person with high androgens with insulin resistance, with IGT, hey, you just need a pump more. Yes. Just need to triple feed. That’s a lot of times that’s not going to work for them because there’s an underlying root cause to low supply.

 

00;22;56;08 – 00;23;17;05

Kaia Lacy

And if that’s not treated in some cases it can’t be done. Nothing’s going to happen. You know. And so there’s this big C of nuance involved in all of this that I think it’s hard because so many people are just getting information on a need to know basis. And you know, it’s 2022. We can have these conversations. People understand them.

 

00;23;17;10 – 00;23;37;19

Kaia Lacy

Yes, exactly. And no, I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for separating out the primary and secondary in such a easy to digest way, because it is important to recognize. And kind of going back to the question I had about trying to power pump a primary low supply situation, because when you hear pumping education and you hear, oh yeah, so you’re going to pump like every two hours, every three hours, and that’s going to you’re going to see changes.

 

00;23;37;19 – 00;23;52;10

Kaia Lacy

And then when you don’t see the changes and if you have primary low supply, you’re going to feel like, well, what the heck am I doing? I can’t even freaking pump. I can’t even breastfeed. I can’t even do anything like what is going on here. So again, I think this is just such an important conversation. I’m so excited.

 

00;23;52;10 – 00;24;11;06

Kaia Lacy

This is on my podcast because I agree. I think there is so much that I’ll be honest, even in my Ebcdic education, even as my pediatrics education, they don’t talk about primary and secondary low supply. I don’t know if you had that experience when you took your training for being a certified lactation counselor, but there’s not a big emphasis on that.

 

00;24;11;06 – 00;24;38;16

Kaia Lacy

That’s something that we learn just from experience. And normally it’s so frustrating to me, and that’s one of the reasons I am becoming an ob C as well. I’m doing pathway three to IB TLC right now, and I’ll tell you, it’s so frustrating because I have ABCs that contact me, and it’s one of those things where I’m like, I should not be the one here to educate on this, because I feel like this should be something that our ABCs, and by and far they have a great understanding with.

 

00;24;38;16 – 00;25;00;07

Kaia Lacy

But that again goes back to integrating research into curriculum and the gap that we’re in right now. And yeah, it’s very frustrating. I know we could talk about combo feeding forever too, because I think there is a lot of benefits there. I think maybe we’ll do a whole other episode about the nitty gritty of combo feeding, but in general on this episode, I would love to hear because I know you did that.

 

00;25;00;14 – 00;25;21;21

Kaia Lacy

How is it helpful in both of these situations and almost like an umbrella way of doing it, if you will. I know there might be a little bit of nuance there, but just kind of advocating for the combo feeding. Oh my goodness. Combo feeding is helpful in so many ways. You know, in my personal life, it offered me the opportunity to breastfeed because with low supply, what’s the other option, you know?

 

00;25;21;22 – 00;25;45;06

Kaia Lacy

Right. So it was a really wonderful gift. Once I kind of did some of that healing through my own internalized formula stigma and the kind of dismissal that I felt and being isolated. Once I really found a community of combo feeders and learned more about how to combo, feed and compliment lactation, it was a huge gift, you know?

 

00;25;45;06 – 00;26;13;11

Kaia Lacy

And for people, you don’t have to have low milk supply to combo feed. You know, combo cooking can be a great, great method of feeding for people who, you know, may feel pressure to perform beyond their limits, you know, and chasing ounces of milk and combo feeding can relieve some of that pressure. It can be a more sustainable option for those that are separated from their infants, or they’re at work or babies at daycare.

 

00;26;13;11 – 00;26;41;14

Kaia Lacy

You know, it’s just one other option that I think, you know, it’s not for everyone. But that doesn’t mean it’s not for anyone. Yeah. And, you know, it’s 2022. We have endless obligations thrown at us. And I think to enter into a more realistic conversation about feeding, it has to include education and support of combo feeding, because so many of us are going to do it anyway.

 

00;26;41;16 – 00;27;02;08

Kaia Lacy

Oh, 100%. And again, normalizing it. So there’s no stigma around it, normalizing it so people can feel supported. What formula should I use or how do I do it? How do I know baby’s full is the same thing I mean, parents have all of these questions, right? Like I get when I have combo feeding discussions. Parents will ask me like because they don’t know and we should tell them, is it the same signs of fullness and hunger?

 

00;27;02;08 – 00;27;18;05

Kaia Lacy

And I’m like, yeah, and that’s an honest question, right? They’re asking because they don’t know. And we should have these honest conversations and you know, schedule and what are the goals. Right. Like I always whenever I do combo feeding education I ask the mom, I’m like, what are your goals here? I want whatever’s best for my baby and what’s going to keep me sane.

 

00;27;18;05 – 00;27;35;23

Kaia Lacy

I’m like, let’s talk about combo feeding that. Because I think it’s wonderful. I have some moms who are like, listen, I want to only exclusively breastfeed. And I like to manage expectations, right? Like, hey, I’m concerned about the supply. I think I can get you there. I think we can have conversations on how we can, you know, implement whether it’s pumping or formula.

 

00;27;35;23 – 00;27;53;12

Kaia Lacy

But this is such that, like you said, perfectly timed, like this is like a conversation that is nuanced. That should be like a medical personal conversation. Right? So when all these people have judgment like, oh, I wouldn’t do that, just take the supplement or pump this out, you’re going to get it. They don’t know the nuance, right? This is a health conversation that we’re having.

 

00;27;53;12 – 00;28;13;16

Kaia Lacy

Like, this is why I feel like every pediatrician should have training. And I feel like in formula I basically or certified lactation counseling because it is an important conversation and not stigmatizing all of it because it can lead to success. How the mother or parent who’s feeding the baby define success, right? Like that is the goal here. Oh, this is such a great conversation.

 

00;28;13;16 – 00;28;29;25

Kaia Lacy

Is there any other final message? Like I said, I think I would love to have you back on to talk solely about combo feeding. And maybe if people have questions about that, what would be your final message? And maybe I would love to see, like how do you want to normalize today in 2022, how we define breastfeeding success quote unquote.

 

00;28;29;26 – 00;28;54;24

Kaia Lacy

Yeah, yeah. You know, and I think part of this I talk a lot about, you know, shifts in mindset and the mental component here because that is so huge. You know, we know for research that self-efficacy is a huge determinant on how long we breastfeed, whether it’s combo feeding or otherwise. And I learned that through my own experience, that success and how I viewed success was really influential.

 

00;28;54;24 – 00;29;21;15

Kaia Lacy

And what I didn’t learn until my daughter, Norah, was that success is self-defined. You know, we hold the autonomy to define our own success, and it does mean self-efficacy. And that self-efficacy is not to say, you know, whether I can iBSf or not, but it’s having the tools to navigate breastfeeding from an empowered perspective. So success can be breastfeeding for one day or a year or many, you know.

 

00;29;21;15 – 00;29;42;28

Kaia Lacy

But the thing is, breastfeeding is not a pass fail. Yeah. And that’s one thing I like to drive home, because we tend to think of things and polarities and success becomes this reflection of how close is our proximity to exclusive breastfeeding. And that’s not necessarily what successes, you know, some of you at that way, but success is relative, right?

 

00;29;42;28 – 00;30;04;25

Kaia Lacy

For some reason that’s easier to register in other aspects of life. You know, if I was to say, for example, if I want to run a marathon, but I only get halfway or I takes twice as long as everyone else or injure myself, you know, did I fail the marathon? Was I known as full? You know, so much of success is self-defined.

 

00;30;04;25 – 00;30;26;02

Kaia Lacy

I can run half of that marathon and know that it was a success for me. Yeah, it’s the same with breastfeeding. It’s the same with combo feeding. Any way that we feed our infants is we hold the autonomy to define success for ourselves. What a great message. Well, I want to like put that up on fliers and just drop it in the sky.

 

00;30;26;06 – 00;30;45;01

Kaia Lacy

We need that. We need it. I mean, it’s just it’s so frustrating. And like you said, it has to be self-defined because so much of the expectation around breastfeeding is defined by other people and that have no clue on the nuance, like we discuss. Right? Like and then it’s looked, as she said, it’s looked as a failure. When it’s not failure, you’re you’re meeting whatever goal you need to.

 

00;30;45;01 – 00;31;12;10

Kaia Lacy

And it’s not about checking a box and saying, oh, I exclusively breastfed for six months a year. And you get this like big purple metal. It’s not about that, right? And it’s so personal. Yeah. This was such a great conversation. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say and one other thing that I will add as it pertains to success is I hear so many people who are combo feeding say, I don’t feel like I’m breastfeeding, I’m not breastfeeding, I’m not a breastfeeding.

 

00;31;12;12 – 00;31;30;06

Kaia Lacy

And that was, you know, a big thing for me is I didn’t feel like I was in this breastfeeding club, and I really I didn’t gain perspective on this until later on because my daughter had about half formula, half breast milk all through her first year. That entire first year, I never really felt like I was breastfeeding, right.

 

00;31;30;12 – 00;32;01;01

Kaia Lacy

Fast forward my daughter’s three years old and still nursing. So was I not breastfeeding that entire first year just because it was combo feeding her? Yeah, I was always doing it. I didn’t have to feel like I was less than. And that, I think, really helps me gain perspective and engage my own definition of success. I love this, you have brought so many important messages, not just about normalizing all of this, but empowering parents to actually advocate for themselves and, you know, understand that they’re not alone.

 

00;32;01;01 – 00;32;17;06

Kaia Lacy

And I think that is so huge on this podcast. So I appreciate all the things that you share. And I’m sure people are going to want to stay connected and learn more about combo feeding, learn more about low supply, learn more about how you educate the world on infant feeding. Newborn feeding. So where can our guest find you?

 

00;32;17;06 – 00;32;36;13

Kaia Lacy

If you can again see your Instagram handle and any resources you have. Thank you so much! Yeah, my Instagram is low supply mom, which is easy enough, right? Remember I’m the one with low supply. I also have a website Lowes Play mom.com and I’m currently working on a pretty extensive combo feeding course, so that’ll be coming out shortly.

 

00;32;36;15 – 00;32;56;09

Dr. Mona

Amazing. Again, thank you so much for joining me today. Everyone listening. If you love this episode, please make sure to leave a review or a rating. Remember to call out this episode and Kaia and the amazing information she shared with us today. I would love to have you back on. Like I mentioned, I hope we can make this happen.

 

00;32;56;15 – 00;33;04;17

Dr. Mona

Let’s do it. That sounds great. Yeah. Yes, and thank you again for joining us. And I will have another guest next week.

 

00;33;04;18 – 00;33;20;08

Dr. Mona

Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. As always, please leave a review. Share this episode with a friend. Share it on your social media. Make sure to follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel, PedsDocTalk TV. We’ll talk to you soon.