La Leche League

And I, I thought I'm gonna do the same thing.

Well, my little boy came along and demanded to be fed and I went to La Leche League which says you must demand, you must feed your children on demand and so schedule went out the window and I had no one in Southwest Louisiana to encourage me in, uh, keeping a routine and a schedule.

So he nursed every two hours for the first 10 months of his life [laughs]

[laughs]

Human bodies can overcome these challenges.

During my California homeopathic practice, many La Leche League mothers brought their children in to see me.

or came in for personal symptoms.

And from the La Leche League International website is the explanation of La Leche.

It says breastfeeding is warmth, nutrition, and love all rolled into one.

We've been supporting mothers and nursing parents since 1956.

And there were families that I knew.

I was in La Leche League, so I knew Waldorf families-

Oh, yeah

...

ride.

As a former La Leche League leader, we used to advocate about the benefits of having babies eat for a full six months, like no solids until at least six months.

And then preferably nurse for a whole year.

Because of all the antibodies.

okay.

One of the best things I ever learned at La Leche League, I used to be a leader.

And before that, I was a member.

And one of the leaders said that adults decide whether or not to try a food based on color, smell, and texture before they've had a single bite all the time.

Some of them are, we have a nurse practitioner, two nurse practitioners on staff.

We've got a few of them that were lactation La Leche League leaders, or they were just community-based support folks before they became IBCLCs.

But they really have the training in the background to do clinical lactation care.

So they can do a full feeding assessment.

But my mom was very pro-mom.

She taught childbirth classes, and we did La Leche League, and she was a breastfeeding activist.

And I had this very kind of like... 1980s hippie kid growing up experience.

So this kind of stuff resonates with me where I'm like, yeah, where are the mom's art? Where is the special artist retreat, artist residency, artist incubation To get all of that

Hello and welcome to the official LLL podcast.

I'm Sarah Fletcher.

And I'm Maria Jasnova and we are your hosts.

LLL is a charity that offers mother to mother and parent to parent support for breastfeeding.

Whatever infant feeding looks like in your household, we would love to connect with you.

The charity was founded by seven mothers in 1956.

Since then, LLL has accumulated a wealth of knowledge that is now supported by the latest scientific evidence and research.

We hope that this podcast can bring you this treasure trove of information in bite-sized portions.

If you wean gradually, it gives your supply time to wind down and will keep you more comfortable along the way.

Some organizations, like La Leche League, divide weaning into daytime and nighttime.

Daytime can be easier because there's lots of distractions that you have access to, like food, activities, other people to lean on.

Nighttime is often a little bit harder, and that's because if your baby's crying in the middle of the night, the easiest way to get them to stop is often to feed them, and that's what's gonna get them back to sleep the fastest.

So once you envision this as inflammation rather than a blockage, those old fixes start making less sense.

Aggressively massaging, adding heat can actually worsen inflammation, and if you're over-emptying your breasts, you're telling your body to make more milk, and that just fuels the cycle that you're trying to break.

La Leche League has also updated its guidance to match this.

In a notice talking about the change, they describe how the thinking shifted from removing a plug to calming inflammation.

But I, again, I just didn't want to do something to really ... you know, I wanted to see what happens and, and make that natural kind of thing.

And, and I also felt that, um, uh, I read sort of the La Leche League, um, article where it says about how this is your baby telling you they're not ready for a sibling, and I took that on board as well-

Yeah

... uh, which is written there.