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138. Oxytocin - The Love Hormone, And Its Mate: Pitocin

On this Valentines Day, the day of love, I'm sharing why the love hormone is critical in both childbirth and lactation. Also, do you know the difference between Pitocin and Oxytocin? It's a slight but critical difference. Listen in to feel more empowered in your birth and breastfeeding decisions.

Oxytocin Study 1
Oxytocin Study 2

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Read the full transcript here:

Welcome to the breezy babies podcast. This is episode 138. Oxytocin, the love hormone and its mate Pitocin. Could you use more confidence as a parent, welcome to the happy place for boobs and babies, you're in good hands. Breezy babies is where we ease your transition into parenthood because it's a bumpy road, am I right? I'm your host Bri the IBCLC. And if you'd like to make life as a parent more breezy, you're in the right place. I'm here to deliver small bite sized tips and tricks so you can crush your parenting and lactation goals. I'm honored to be on this journey with you. Let's go. Hey there friends. Happy Valentine's Day. If you're listening to this podcast on the day that it came out, then it is the day of love. And what is more perfect to talk about a day of love, then the love hormone, which is totally tied to labor and delivery and breastfeeding and everything that this podcast stands for. So I'm so excited to share that with you today. But before we get into that, I just want to send you a reminder that there is still so much good in this world. We got back from our vacation. A little over a week ago, I got back late on a Sunday night. And the next day was Monday. And I had scheduled to do my taxes for my business that day. Even though I knew it was gonna be crazy. I was trying to get it done by the end of the month. And after I went and got my taxes done, which I went in a frenzy. And luckily my tax lady is so good and just took care of everything for me. And can I just say how glad I am that I do not do taxes. I would much rather do breastfeeding, breastfeeding and babies and not taxes at all. But anyway, on my way home from doing my taxes, I thought Oh, I better just stop at the grocery store. We have no food in our house. You know how it is before you go on vacation, you kind of plan it out to where use all your food. And then when you get home, you just have nothing. I tried to plan it out to do a grocery pickup. But where we were we just didn't have any internet access. And I couldn't schedule grocery pickup that far in advance. So anyway, I stopped by the grocery store, I was tired and frazzled and I'm sure I looked so tired and so frazzled. Honestly, after that long flight the day before I kind of had that feeling that I'm so familiar with after working night shift as a nurse for so many years, just kind of in a haze and feeling like I need to go to sleep. It's like not the right time to go to sleep. And anyway, I went through with all of my groceries. I went to Winco. I don't know if you have Winco in your area. They take debit cards only. So I get through all of I'm scanning all my groceries, I bagging them all. I go to pay. And as I'm pulling out my cards, I realize oh my gosh, I don't think I have my debit card. I had taken it out before we traveled because this was a couple years ago. But one time when we're traveling, I actually had my debit card stolen out of my wallet. And the two people who had stolen it, they went down the road to like the local Walgreens and bought two $500 Visa gift cards. And $1,000 was out of my account just like that within a matter of like 10 or 15 minutes after they stole it. Luckily, we had a police report and they put it back. But I mean, if you've had this happen to you before, there's just months of ripple effects of Oh, my daughter's Deutz isn't paid for it because we had that card on file. And now they're saying we have a late fee. And so I need to go in there and update that card. And it just was this ripple effect for months of having a new debit card. So anyway, it I didn't want to have that happen again. So I purposely took out our debit card before we traveled. And that did not serve you well for going to Winco getting back so here I have $160 worth of groceries, already bagged in my cart, and I realized oh my gosh, I don't have my debit card. I'm trying to call my husband to see if he can run it over since he works from home and then I'm remembering that he said he was going to be in a meeting all afternoon and I was just like this is the worst. And the checkers like oh we can just put it all in the fridge you can come back later and pick up your groceries. And I'm just like, oh, this is just feels like too much for today. And can I just tell you, the most angel of a lady standing behind me, she comes over to me and she's like, You know what I would love to pay for your groceries and you can just Venmo me. And that was the nicest thing. Honestly, it didn't cost her anything. I then mode her right away. I was like, I want to make sure that went through to your account before I leave, because I was so appreciative of that small act of kindness on her part that saved me so much time and headache with all that was going to happen with our groceries and not having anything to eat for dinner and trying to get back and pick up those groceries so we could have something for dinner. And this is just a little reminder for you that there still is so much good in the world, even when things feel heavy and hard. And sometimes it seems like there's a lot of negativity on the internet, there are still good people in the world and I cannot wait till I can pay it forward and help someone else out in need. Again, it didn't it didn't cost her anything. I've enrolled her the full amount. But it still was like such a relief in my day. After having such a crazy day that I cannot thank her enough. Her name is Carolyn, actually I know because I've read mode her and and I can't wait to repay and pay that forward to someone else in the future. All right, I am so excited to share about oxytocin with you today. Before I do that, I want to read this apple podcast review for you. It's from mom of three arriba she titled it life saving which oh my gosh, I feel like I had a lifesaver just this last week with nice Carolyn who helped me out at Winco. But this review says you're not alone. This podcast is such a blessing. And every episode gives me peace and more confidence in my breastfeeding journey. Whatever your journey looks like this podcast is a great tool. Thank you so much mom of three underscore rd for leaving that review on Apple podcasts. And I would love to send you one of my products as a small thank you for leaving that review. If you just email me Bri at breezy babies.com. I would love to send you one of my online workshops or ebooks for totally free. Kate, let's get into oxytocin, the love hormone. Let's talk about this on this Valentine's Day, I want to start by telling you that there are two studies that I'm going to be referencing in this podcast episode, I will break down both of those for you very, very simplistically, and just take chunks from it that apply to this podcast because they're both very long and have a lot to them. So if you would like to go and read the two articles and film, then I will have those linked in the show notes. For you to go look on your own. The first study that I'm going to be pulling from is titled oxytocin. That's an easy one, right? Like what other name would we call it besides oxytocin. And this study was last revised in November 30 of 2022. So pretty pretty recently, some of the studies that we pull from in lactation are sold. And it's just the best we can do because there's not a lot of great studies to always pull from when it comes to breastfeeding and lactation, childbirth, there's just not a lot of money behind it. But let's break this down. And let's talk about what oxytocin as you might already be familiar with it if you're in the breastfeeding world if you have done some research about breastfeeding and lactation, but I'm just going to break it down really simply so that we get a firm foundation before we continue on to dive a little deeper into oxytocin and also Pitocin and how the two are related. Okay, so if you were to look up the definition online, it would say oxytocin is an essential lactation hormone released during breastfeeding that causes milk ejections and appears to have a calming effect on the mother.



Outline

Bri’s introduction.
0:00

Oxytocin and life-saving moments.
4:41

What is oxytocin and pitocin?
8:49

What is pitocin and how does it work?
11:09

Risk of postpartum depression.
15:51

The effect of pitocin on breastfeeding.
17:06

Oxytocin levels during breastfeeding.
19:27

Oxytocin’s role in breastfeeding.
23:21

Skin-to-skin contact and breast massage.
25:25

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