Blog & Podcast

From Barbara: How are NEC and breastfeeding connected? They aren’t really. But NEC and formula feeding are. A jury on Friday, July 21st, 2024, found that Abbott Laboratories’ specialized formula for premature infants caused an Illinois girl to develop a dangerous bowel disease, and ordered the healthcare company to pay $495 million in damages. “Illinois …

From Nancy: What Does It Mean to ‘Use You as a Pacifier? Nursing parents are commonly warned: “Don’t let your baby use you as a pacifier.” Although often said, this is an incredibly curious statement. After all, which came first, nursing or the pacifier?  Nursing, of course, long predates the pacifier (aka “dummy”), a man-made …

From Barbara: What is hand expression? Great question! Basically it means getting breast/chestmilk out of a lactation breast without a baby or a breast pump. At LactaLearning, hand expression is a typical tool we value and teach about because you never know when you might get caught with no baby, no pump, and a full …

From Nancy: When Is Pumping Too Much, Not Enough, or Just Right? I’m often asked the question: “Do nursing parents need to pump in order to make enough milk?” The short answer is no. Effective breast pumps have been available for only about the past 70 years. Clearly humans have successfully nursed their babies for …

Who cares about what kind of lactation education principles are being used? Isn’t everyone just doing lecture and power point? No! LactaLearning believes their are better ways to learn and with Barbara Robertson’s Masters Degree in Curriculum Development you better believe the best lactation education principles are being used to create all the LactaLearning courses. …

From Nancy: Spitting up can trigger a host of worries in new parents, some related to their role in this behavior and others to do with baby’s growth and health. Was it something I did? Was it something I ate? Will my baby’s weight gain suffer with the loss of so much milk? Does my …

From Barbara: Happy Father’s Day to anyone who identifies as a father! With breast/chestfeeding the bulk of the focus is on the birthing parent, typically the mother. But what about Dads? Where do they fit into this picture? From research, we know that father support is important to breastfeeding success. In a 2022 study looking …

How important are our words and communication skills as lactation professionals for our families’ success? This episode is all about the power of words as lactation supporters to boost or undermine our nursing families self efficacy. Barbara and Jessica discuss how the social emotional state of breast/chestfeeding families plays a huge role in the postpartum …

From Nancy: My body is not like most. The internet tells me my odd deformity will not shorten my lifespan, but it makes me different. It affected my breastfeeding experience, but what was truly unexpected was the way breastfeeding affected my most peculiar body. Why should you care? And why should I reveal now my …