114. Lactation Q&A with Bri: Part 1

These are the answers to the questions YOU have. In this episode I'll answer: 
What supplements do you recommend to increase milk supply?
How to decide when to wean?
How do you know you have nipple thrush?
The baby started clicking while nursing at 7 weeks- what's changed?
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*This podcast is not "medical advice". Please consult with your Healthcare Provider about your specific situation.

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Read the full transcript here: 

Welcome to the Breezy Babies Podcast, where we talk about all things boobs, babies and breastfeeding. This is episode 114, Q and A with brie. I'm brie the IBCLC and I made Brizy babies with you in mind to help ease your transition into parenthood. Becoming a parent changes your life in every way imaginable. Bumps in the road are going to come up as you move into your new role, but my goal is to help smooth out those bumps and help you become the most confident parent you can be. With good education and support, I know you can meet your breastfeeding and parenting goals. Let's do this together. Hey there friend. How are you? Thank you so much for coming to listen to the podcast episode today. This is a glorious week, not only for today's topic, but also because my kids are back to school this week and it is so nice. Not saying that I didn't enjoy the summer. We had a lot of fun. We just enjoyed the nice weather and it was great. But man, I really missed having a little bit of order and schedule and it already is so nice to have my older kids back in school. And this is the first year that all of my older kids, my three older, are in all day school, so this is a whole new world for me. This is the only year that they are all in elementary school together and then my oldest is off to junior high and then we still have six years before the baby even goes to kindergarten, which is kind of funny. We were so close to having all three kids in all day school and never kind of start number. But it's all good. The baby takes naps during the day and so it's good because I still have little spurts where I can get work done and record podcasts episodes for you. I thought it would be fun today to just do a Q and A. I recently opened up a question box on my Instagram and I said, what questions do you have? And some were big topics that I would have to record an entire episode on, but others were just kind of short little answers. And I thought it would be fun to do a Q and A episode because it's been a while since I have done one of those. In fact, I think it's been a long while since I've done a Q and a podcast episode. I think I should do more of these because they're kind of fun and it's just a little bit more off the cuff as well. So that is what we have set for you today. But first, I want to tell you that many of you who listen to this podcast, you check and see if you have free consulting your insurance and many of you have been approved. And nothing makes my day more than when I meet with a client in a consult, most often telehealth. I do mostly telehealth consults. Which works really great for me because I have a young breastfeeding baby. But I also do some in person. But for sure the majority of telehealth and always makes my day every time I jump on a call and someone says. Oh. I listened to your podcast episode. This is so fun to be able to meet you and talk with you over secure video and it just makes my day and makes these podcast episodes just a little bit easier to record every week. So this episode is just going to be you and me. I know the last couple of weeks I've had some amazing guests that I'm sure you have loved learning from. If you missed those, just go back a week or two. You can listen to those amazing guests. But today is just you and me answering questions. We'll see how far we get. Today I'll try and answer all these questions that I pulled from Instagram, but if not, maybe we'll have a part two because I like to keep these episodes nice, short to the point because I know your time is limited and I know you're probably like me where you're like, okay, just get to the good stuff. But to finish my thought from before, if you want to check to see if your insurance covers free consults, you can always click the link in my bio, put in your information through my link on Lactation network. They're the ones that do the billing for me and they will send you a simple email that says, yes, you are covered or no, you are not. Either way, even if you're not covered, we still have self pay options and accept healthcare spending accounts as well. So here we go. Are you ready for me to answer some of your top most burning questions? Let's start with this one right here. This one says, what supplements do you recommend to increase milk supply? Okay, this is kind of a little bit of a loaded question and I don't have a for sure answer for this, so maybe this wasn't the best question to start with, but this is a really common one. I have people ask all the time, what supplement can I take to help boost my supply? So of course I have to start by telling you that there is no magic supplement in the world. There's no supplement that I say, hey everyone, if you take this, you for sure will see an increase in your supply. It just doesn't exist. So the thing that does work for everyone is you remove more milk from your risk and then you make more milk. That's just kind of a given. So if you are ever needing a boost in supply, the first thing that I would have you try before saying, oh, try this supplement is feed your baby more frequently or add in some pumping or do some power pumping, do some breast compressions while your baby is feeding to remove more milk and get more milk to them. Anytime that you can remove more milk, that is the best thing to tell your body to make more milk. A full breath tells your body to slow down milk production and a drained breast tells your body, okay, more so the more frequently that you're draining your breast throughout the day, the better your milk supply will be. And do you want to know kind of the secret window? The best time to really get a boost in your supply is if you remove milk early in the morning. I'm talking like 01:00 A.m., 03:00 A.m., maybe even 05:00 A.m.. That is the best time to remove milk and see a boost in your supply. Okay, so let's say you've done that, you're like, okay, I am feeding my baby more frequently, I'm doing all the things, but I got sick recently or maybe I just started my period and I'm just seeing this dip in supply and I need some help getting back on track. That's when you can consider something like a supplement. Now, again, I still stand by what I said before. There's no one supplement that, oh, this works really well for everyone. But I will say that the most popular supplement. By the way, a supplement that boosts supply is called a galacticog. That's kind of a weird word, but the most common galacticog is fenugreek. But it's not my favorite. It can cause problems with thyroids, it can cause problems with blood sugar. It's just not my favorite galacticog. So even though that's the most well known, that's really never the first one that I recommend to my clients first. Sometimes it can even be something as simple as changing your diet, like maybe adding in some oatmeal, maybe some protein, things like that. And if you do want to actually take an herb that will boost your supply, if you work one on one with a consultant, we can suggest something like Moringa. Now, I do prefer something like Moringa over Finney Greek, but again, it's very personalized. It's not a one size fits all. So I would highly suggest working one on one with an IBCLC if you would like to know. First of all, if you need a supplement, I have clients all the time who are hanging out over supply labs who want to take a supplement to boost their supply even more. And that option causes problems with clogged ducts mass status, feeling uncomfortable, filling in gorge. So first of all, work with an IBC to know if you need a boost and then of course, we'll help you and make sure that you're removing enough milk. And then that last step is to add in some supplements if needed. All right, next question, how to decide when to wean? This is a really common question. In fact, one of my very most top downloaded most popular episodes right now is how to Stop Breastfeeding Past One Year of Age. The title is something like that. It's not that exactly, but the podcast has so many downloads right now, and I also have another podcast episode about weaning before twelve months. So that's kind of the difference between the two. So if you want to dive deep on that topic, go back and listen to those two podcast episodes. But the short answer is, if you're leaning before twelve months of age, you may want to discuss that with an IBC, because you have to remember that your baby's main source of nutrition is either breast milk, donor milk, or formula in the first year of life. Now, let's say your baby for this question, I'm not sure how old the baby is of the mom who asked this question, but let's just say that this baby is over twelve months. Okay? So at this point, some parents do decide to lean at one year of age, but now the recommendation is actually to continue to two years if you are able, and if you and your baby both want to. So first of all, I would say don't feel like you have to wean at one year. Many clients that I talk with, they think, oh my gosh, my baby is a year old, or a year and a half, or coming up too. I have to wean. That's what I'm supposed to do. So first I talk with them and get really clear of, okay, is that what you feel like you have to do or is that actually what you want to do? Because those are two very different things and there's no age where we say, oh, you really have to wean by this age. You really shouldn't be breastfeeding past this age. That doesn't exist. So first of all, when I work with clients, we get really clear on, okay, are you really ready to wean if your baby is less than 18 months, they are not likely to self wean. So you may be the deciding factor in if you're ready to wean or not, which is fine because you are literally half of the breastfeeding puzzle. So first of all, get clear if you truly are ready to win. And the best way I found for moms to go through that process is I tell them when I meet with them, okay, I want you to just take a piece of paper and just start writing. Just start writing whatever comes to your mind surrounding, leaning, and it could just look like, I want to stop breastfeeding. That makes me feel sad. Just write whatever comes to your mind. Put it down on paper. There is something so magical about taking something from your brain and putting it on paper. Sometimes you'll be surprised at what comes out. So do not filter what comes through. Just write and write. And that makes it so much easier for us to come back together and be like, oh, okay, this is how you truly feel. And so let's start the weaning process because you're ready or actually it doesn't sound like you're quite ready and you don't have to wean right now. So keep breastfeeding. There you have it. Hopefully that gives you a little more clarity about when to win. Okay, let's talk about nipple thresh next. That was the next question. So I just want to start by saying that thresh is not as common as you would think. It, I think, is very over diagnosed. A lot of times parents or practitioners will just look in a baby's mouth and say, oh, they have a white tongue. Okay, that must be fresh. Now, white tongue I see most often with oral restrictions and not with thrush. Not saying that thrush doesn't ever happen, it's just not quite as common as we think. So this is from League. Let me read this off to you. They say having two or more of these symptoms makes it more likely that threshold is involved, especially if these include shiny or flaking skin. Okay? So these are some symptoms of thrush and a mother, you ready. So listen to these. And if you have two or more of these symptoms, according to Lalette League, then you may have thrush. So the first one is burning nipple pain. The second one is flaking skin on the nipple. Or areola the next one is shiny skin on the nipple or Aryola, then a loss of color on the nipple or Ariella painful breath without tender spots or sore lumps. And then the last one is stabbing pains in the breast behind the Arola. They go on to say that threshold is often associated with if you've had nipple damage that has been healing, but if you're having itching of the nipples or burning pain, those are the most common symptoms of thresh. Okay? So again, it's not always like, oh, your baby has a white tongue, it's for sure thresh. We look for some of these other symptoms as well, especially if you're having pain that persists through a feed. Then you may want to talk with your IBC LC about thresh. Okay, this kind of leads into the next question, the next question that was submitted. This mom said, baby started clicking while nursing at seven weeks. What's changed? Now, the reason that this kind of leads into that is that one symptom of thrush in a baby could be that they start to make a clicking noise that wasn't there before. Okay, again, that doesn't mean like, oh, your baby's clicking. That means they have thresh. Don't take that to mean that. You also would see white patches inside your baby's mouth, on the tongue, on the gums, on the cheeks, all around the mouth, not just on the tongue. And if you wiped it off, it would be hard to wipe off or it would leave red sore areas underneath so again, this podcast cannot diagnose anything and certainly not thrush. So I highly suggest working one on one with an IBC LC if your baby is clicking or you suspect thrush. Now, clicking also can be a sign of oral restriction because that means that your baby is losing suction with your breast and pulling his or her tongue down and back. So that's what causes the clicking noise. So just because your baby is clicking doesn't for sure mean that they have thrush. It doesn't for sure mean that they have something like a tongue tie. That's why I really suggest to have an IBCLC in your corner to help you work this through, because chances are your pediatrician is not going to be able to guide you along this path. Which makes sense. They are the experts in so many other areas when it comes to your baby, but not when it comes to lactation. All right, I think that's enough questions for today. I want to keep these podcast episodes as short as possible. I still had a handful of questions that I did not get to today. So let's say this. How about we do part two of this Q and A podcast? Come back next week for part two. I'm going to be answering more of your questions. And hey, if you ever have a question or a topic that you want to hear me talk more about on this podcast, then you can always send me a DM on Instagram at breezybabies or just send me an email. Brie@breezybabies.com. I can't wait to come back and spend more time with you next Tuesday when this new podcast episode drops. And of course, I'm going to leave you with you are strong, you are smart, you're beautiful, you're a good friend to all. Bye.