Breastfeeding and the Working Mom
Hi friend, Thanks for coming to hang out on the Doctor Nurse Podcast Blog. This month I wanted to talk about breastfeeding and the working mom. I choose this topic this month because of the difficulties and struggles moms have with breastfeeding and returning back to work and the fatigue of the task of breastfeeding. It is something near to my heart because breastfeeding/pumping became my redemption song for the first years of my son and I bonding,
Breastfeeding: A new policy
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) now recommends not only exclusive breastfeeding for about the first six months but now they have aligned their views with the World Health Organization for breastfeeding 2 years or beyond with the introduction of solid foods. In an article by xxx, they state that the benefits of breastfeeding included but are not limited to protecting your baby against lower respiratory tract infections and severe or persistent diarrhea, asthma, eczema, Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, obesity, type 1 and 2 diabetes, leukemia, tooth decay and other problems that can require orthodontia later. They also state that breastfeeding has been linked with a high IQ score. The food that a baby gets over the first 1000 days is critical for the baby’s development and that breastmilk perfectly answers that call.
The benefits of breastfeeding just do not end at benefiting the infant, they also benefit the mother. This includes protection against diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancers of the breast and ovaries.
My Personal Journey with Breastfeeding
As I stated earlier, after having my son via c-section and his blood sugars requiring a 4-day stay in the NICU, breastfeeding was the only thing I felt that I could work to give him since everything else did not go as planned. I leaned into breastfeeding as something that I prayed I could give him since a normal birth and story wasn’t something we both got. It makes me tear up as I type that.
When I went back to work, I was the most determined mom to make sure the one thing that I could “work” to do was seen to completion. I didn’t know how long I could provide breastmilk but I knew I was going to try my hardest because we both needed it. My goal was to go as long as he wanted- so I breastfed my kiddo for 1 month short of 3 years.
Along that path, I faced criticism and critiques from people who said “You are still breastfeeding?” or “Isn’t he a little too old to nurse?” Of course, it initially stung, but I kept going back to my why.
The big why for me was having Gestational Diabetes and knowing the benefits of what I was aiming for.
As someone who has always been relatively thin, I was so embarrassed to admit that I had Gestational Diabetes. One time, during our prenatal classes they asked if anyone had Gestational Diabetes to raise their hand- I couldn’t raise my hand. I sunk down in my chair with my husband looking at me, and of course, standing in solidarity he said nothing. You might be asking why is breastfeeding so important to the mom with Gestational Diabetes or just moms in general.
I want to explain my WHY based on research I know to be true:
Nursing Research
The diagnosis of GDM poses risk to the mother and baby in a variety of metabolic, epigenetic, lifelong, and generational pathways. The rates of GDM have doubled in the last 10 years from 2006-2016 from 4.6% to 8.2% in 2016. Now post COVID, there was a recent article that quoted the CDC as saying the rate of GDM has increased another 30% from 2016-2020, they can imagine it will only go up.
Women who have been diagnosed with GDM have a nearly 5-fold increased risk for developing T2D within 3 years of giving birth and are approximately 16 times more likely to develop T2D within 3 to 6 years, compared with women without a history of GDM. Just as important as the effects of Gestational Diabetes on the baby in the neonatal period and for the rest of their life include prematurity, macrosomia, neonatal hypoglycemia, respiratory distress, hyperbilirubinemia, shoulder dystocia, and other birth traumas. The babies are at an increased risk for early-onset obesity, insulin resistance, and T2D. Even more, the epigenetic effects of diabetes are being researched to affect future generations. This matters not just for the baby in our arms, but the babies that they will hold in their arms when you are a grandmother..
Why this matters to you
(in particular, if you are pregnant, a new mom, or thinking about becoming a mom)
As I detailed in my first blog post, there isn’t a ton of support for new moms and now the recommendations are even heavier for moms to shoot for. It can feel super lonely at work in the “closet” pumping milk for your kiddo at home or at daycare. Can we talk about why there are not more nice areas to pump in? lol.
It feels isolating but I wanted to encourage you to stay focused on your why. Stay focused on your future and your child’s health future- and let nothing derail you (outside of your own mental health or physical restraints such as mastitis, or other breast health problems) to keep you from whatever goal you set for yourself. You are not alone- I was the same mom pumping in-between patients and praying no one would walk in because I forgot to lock the door.
Keep going, Momma!
Here is my Amazon Breastfeeding HELP LIST:
I have the pump I used which I loved, an extra set of pumping supplies (I kept one set for the house and another to take to work), I also put the sterilizer I loved on the list as well – my husband might have loved it more, and my nipple cream that helped when I was dealing with sore nipples:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/HRRNU0KGP2CZ?ref_=wl_share
Sources:
3. J.B. LaManna, S.B. Quelly / The Journal for Nurse Practitioners 16 (2020) 319e323; https://www.npjournal.org/
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