Lactivist Activist

Before my daughter was bor n, I knew I was going to breastfeed . Sometimes it feels so cliché to say that out loud; so many women say it. But for me, it actually wasn’t that I wanted to breastfeed, it was that I felt obligated to breastfeed. When my daughter was born, I was a board-certified pediatrician and in the middle of my fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine—I was doing an additional three years of training to become a bona fide “baby expert.” I told every single mother I spoke to that she should breastfeed or provide breast milk, so how could I possibly even consider not doing it myself? In the hospital after she was born, my daughter latched and we breastfed. Now, I certainly had my struggles, but comparatively they were small struggles—of course, I can only say that now, four years later. Trust me that at the time my molehills were the Himalayas, and I still distinctly remember “quitting” on four occasions before we actually weaned at 13.5 months . But looking b...

March 14, 2014 Written by Dr.   Bobby Ghaheri All too often, patients come to me after a diagnosis of tongue-tie (or lip-tie) has been made, thinking that a procedure is going to suddenly change the way their child breastfeeds. Rarely, especially in the very young child (<2 weeks of age), that is possible. The majority of the time, however, that is not the case. Because babies practice sucking skills in utero, a newborn with an intraoral restriction can have a latch that is quite abnormal the first time they try to nurse. If these restrictions are adequately addressed, the only thing that I provide the infant is the anatomical potential to have a normal latch. If that baby has habits that interfere with normal breastfeeding, little improvement will be initially shown. An example I often cite was inspired by Dr. Brian Palmer : If I ask you to train for a marathon for 3 months, but during that 3 month period, your shoes are tied tog ether, you will develop a specific ...