What Have You Done For Me Lately?

Is anyone else feeling a bit salty during the time of COVID? I find myself a little less patient, a little quick to express irritation and with a general buzz of anxiety around me a lot of the time these days in my personal life. There seem to be so many more questions than answers, and for me, it has always been difficult to operate with lots of unknowns. Along with prioritizing self-care (I’m partial to hot showers while blasting great music and long walks with a podcast), it has been a definite joy and distraction to see and support families both safely in-home and virtually at this point and I am forever grateful I get to do work that I LOVE.

But what is the work, exactly? I suppose if you are here on my website you already have some idea of what lactation consultants can offer, but perhaps the details and nuances are less apparent for any number of reasons. For well over a decade, I have too often heard the unfortunate rhetoric about lactation consultants having a specific agenda to get the world to exclusively and directly breastfeed at the detriment of the emotional well-being of the breastfeeding parent (and family). People have been reluctant to reach out to someone with the title “Lactation Consultant” for fear that this agenda will be pushed on them or fear of judgment for the feeding plan they may have made either out of necessity or by choice. The truth is, there may be some of those consultants out there, but a vast majority of us subscribe to the notion that individual family circumstances deserve individualized emotional support and specifically tailored plans that may incorporate all sorts of feeding methods.

I came across this article today and felt compelled to share it as I feel it does a great job of explaining what we do and how to find the ideal support for yourself and your family.

In the spirit of the season, and amongst all the challenges most of us are facing in some way or another, I want to share my sincerest thanks and gratitude for all the families I’ve had the pleasure of supporting throughout this crisis and look forward to the day when I can hug and parents can see the smile I’m currently displaying under my very necessary mask.