Speaker 0
Welcome to the Free Birth Podcast, a supportive space for people who are learning, exploring, and celebrating their autonomous choices in childbirth. Together, we'll unpack truths, share personal stories, and claim our ability to birth freely and intuitively. Here's your host, Emily Saldea.
Speaker 1
I have a very exciting announcement to make. The official Freebird Society membership network is now live. We have abandoned mainstream social media and created our own private network, a truly safe space where women can be free to talk about pregnancy, birth, holistic mothering, and, of course, radical birth work. And you don't have to be a hardcore free birther to join. This is for any woman who is curious about natural birth and natural mothering and who wants to explore any of the ideas that we touch on in this podcast in more depth. It's also a great resource for women who are planning a free birth, a place to share stories, ideas, information, and most importantly, community and support. Head to our website at free birth society dot com to apply. We are so proud of this new space, and we can't wait to welcome you. Come join us in the fun. This week, we're doing a deep dive into all things ties. We are joined by the lovely Jacqueline Kinser, who's an IBCLC in Arizona. She answers a ton of my questions. We get into lip ties, tongue ties, even buckle ties. She tells us ways to self assess our own selves or our babies and what you can do about it. Jacqueline also shares some thoughts on alcohol, diet, and smoking while breastfeeding.
Speaker 2
So I was a stockbroker, and I loved my job so much. I really, really did. I got it wasn't like Wolf on Wall Street. You know? It was I really got to help people on a daily basis achieve their dreams and goals through managing their finances. And I would empower them with the knowledge to manage it themselves, and it was just really rewarding, really fulfilling. I worked with an awesome team, and I was on track to just skyrocket up the ladder of success. I mean, I was up for a big promotion and got a massive bonus and award from my CEO, and then I have my baby and went on maternity leave. And I kept thinking I wanted to take a year off after having my son, and that was kinda what my husband and I talked about. And I remember meeting with my manager when he was about, I guess, maybe eight or twelve weeks old and maternity leave was gonna be up at, you know, twelve weeks or whatever. And I go in and she's like, so are you ready to come back? And I just started crying. Yeah. Totally. She's like, oh, let's go to the let's go to a conference room or something. So, actually, she takes me to the nursing room. There is a, like, lactation nursing room at the office, and she just told me I totally understand. I took about five years off when I had my kids, and I came back and worked my way up. And the coolest thing ever was I had really no I you know, I was breastfeeding and I had really no conception of how long you should breastfeed or anything like that. I hadn't really done any research. I just knew I wanted to breastfeed. And she told me that she nursed her kids until they were five. Mhmm. And I, like, just didn't even know that was a thing. And I don't I need to go back and thank her for that because she said it so normally, so nonchalantly, and really planted a seed for me that I thought, wow. You can be a mom and breastfeed and be successful and do all these things. So I did not go back to that job. And then about a year and a half, actually, after my son was born, they offered me a promotion and all sorts of things. I still turned it down because
Speaker 1
it didn't work. So you didn't go back at all, and then a year and a half later, they were like, come back. Here's a promotion, and you were like, no. Thank you.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I interviewed everything, got the job Woah. And just was like, I don't wanna be away from my Yeah. Toddler for fifty hours a week, and I'm not gonna go to team happy hours with you. And Right. If I don't do that, I'm not gonna be successful. So, you know, all the things. And and maybe I'd have to work a few years, and then I could have a really light schedule, but I didn't wanna miss the earlier. So I kept thinking to myself, what do I do? How what can I create as a mom and make that fit into my life as a mom? And I was already running this, natural moms group locally, just kind of I had no friends with babies. And if I knew somebody, they weren't naturally minded, so I created a community. And now that group is several thousands of members, and I kind of became the resident, like, natural breastfeeding and, you know, peer advice person. And so I was doing that, and I kept thinking, I'm really good at this, and I'd love to learn more. So I took a certification to be able to teach breastfeeding classes. And once I did that, the passion just turned on for me. Mhmm. And I just wanted to go I'm the type of person, whatever I want do, I wanna get to the top of it. Like, I wanna be, like, the CEO. And so I was like, what do I what's the top credential in the land that I need? And I was like, board certified lactation consultant. Done. And so I made it happen. I did my clinical hours. I brought my son with me, and, I sat for my board exam when my daughter was, gosh, four weeks old. Oh my gosh. What? What's Yeah. You? No. I could not bring her into the testing facility. So I had to be test? They give you four hours. I think I took forty five minutes for the first section and maybe another hour for the second section.
Speaker 1
You're like, my boobs are gonna explode.
Speaker 2
Pretty much. It was it was really yeah, my husband had her, you know, she had never been away from me. She never had a bottle. I had beautiful pregnancy, home birth. It was, you know, really a free birth and, to leave her was really hard.
Speaker 1
Oh, boy.
Speaker 2
And to study for the exam was really hard.
Speaker 1
Right. Well, in that la la land of postpartum and the end of pregnancy. Wow. That's wild. But, yeah,
Speaker 2
I opened my practice as soon as I got my certification and, I brought her with me to all my appointments. I just started seeing moms just. I charge kind of a low rate because I figure, well, I'm bringing my baby and I'm just getting started. And I refer out the ones that I thought were too complicated or complex, and I would just I just continue to learn, and it was really cool. Every mom, I you know, they'd call me or text me to book an appointment, and I'd say, hey. I have a four month old, five month old baby. Is it okay if I bring her? And they were always emphatically saying yes. They wanted to see how does lactation come at the speed.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, there really couldn't be a better field to bring your kid to it because you can No. Surely show a mom what a latch is like if if the kids are nude. Yeah. Totally. And this is what we were just saying before we were recording that this is this needs to happen in the absence of, you know, what we kind of envision as this idyllic, you know, village, you know, concept where everybody's just watching each other breastfeed their babies and it's totally normal and, I mean, I have had many, many mothers that I've supported who have literally never seen a baby latch. They've never seen a woman breastfeed ever and that it's it's really wild. How is someone supposed to just magically, you know, intuit this whole pretty awkward sometimes dance in the beginning without having any foundation for it or any reference point of normalcy. Yeah. So Yeah. I love that you would bring her. I would have totally wanted my wife
Speaker 2
to be
Speaker 1
told that
Speaker 2
I Yeah. Then I started thinking I shouldn't charge a discount.
Speaker 1
Right. No. You don't bring it. You're literally bringing a live model.
Speaker 2
Right. This is more value. And it was really cool because I think they would really pick up on my confidence with breastfeeding. And so I would just so easily latch my baby and just show them how it was done, and and they'd get it really quickly. And now it's now it's like a lot of I'm saying things, and I'm showing them with my hands, but it takes a few times. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Then it's So I should just have other baby and it's Exactly. Like a tax write off for me.
Speaker 1
It's actually a part of your job now to just keep using baby. Apparently. So how was your breastfeeding relationship with with both of these children? Was it
Speaker 2
Good question. So my first that's kind of, I guess, what got me into I I had questions about why breastfeeding wasn't going the way I wanted with my first. So he, it was a home birth. We end up transferring to hospitals. It was a whole big deal there, but, you know, he latched pretty quickly after birth. And, you know, by day two, I was already in a lot of pain. And the lactation consultant in the hospital just did that thing where they come on, come in and shove the baby on the breast, which was nothing I could ever do. And I just thought it was so forceful. He's my baby. Like, I don't that's not how I handle my child. Mhmm. And so I didn't ever call her back. And she just threw threw me some some lanolin and some hydrogel pads and was like, here you go. And they smelled like chemicals. I just, didn't want it. So I kinda just tapped it out. And I remember I saw my pediatrician who was also an IDCLC, and she said everything's going great. And I'm over here going, why does it hurt so much? Why are my nipples bruised? This doesn't make sense. And so then I started going to La Leche League meetings, still digging for answers. I read cover to cover the womanly art of breastfeeding. Nothing in there about
Speaker 1
All the while, you're breastfeeding in pain while trying to. It's brutal.
Speaker 2
So it was I think my son was about four weeks old when I went to my first law election week meeting, and I see all these women breastfeeding. And and I kind of let my goal was how do women breastfeed because I was one of those that had never seen another one breastfeed. Right. So now I get to be around them, and it was so cool. And they I remember in some point in the meeting, they said breastfeeding shouldn't hurt. And I was internally, I didn't say anything because I'm like, well, they're the authority. But internally, I was kind of angry and going, but it does hurt. Right. You're wrong. It hurts. And I remember feeling that and holding that inside me for a really long time, but I kept hearing them just so peacefully say, breastfeeding shouldn't hurt. It's not supposed to be painful. And it just was an idea that I kept repeating and I kept going all these meetings and I became a leader. And then when my son was twenty one months old, we well, a little before that, but he got his lip tie released because he had cavities on his upper teeth. He's still breastfeeding, no longer painful. But we get the little tired at least.
Speaker 1
So up until twenty one months, it was still painful?
Speaker 2
Kind of getting that piece. So the first six weeks were actually what I would describe as painful.
Speaker 1
Okay.
Speaker 2
The rest of it, it seemed fine. It didn't know any better. Okay. Although after six months, he kind of started to go off the growth chart. Not that he was there was never a concern about his weight gain, but I kept thinking, aren't they supposed to stay on the growth curve? It's kinda weird that he's not. But, yeah, twenty one months, we discovered he had these cavities, and the dentist said it was because the lip was being held down by his lip tie, and so food would get trapped there and it was causing decay. Made sense to me. Then I started researching. I learned all about lip tie tongue well, learned a lot about lip tie and tongue tie. And so we go to the dentist, and I asked her repeatedly, does he have a tongue tie? She's like, nope. Okay. Alright. We'll just get the tie treated. So he's still nursing. He's twenty one months. He latches right after the procedure. For the first time ever, breastfeeding was actually comfortable. Woah. I had no idea this whole time it was like a baseline. I just got used to it. And all of a sudden, he's getting more milk. It feels good to breastfeed. I had never felt breastfeeding felt good. And I think almost like a taboo word. Like, I was like, it actually feels pleasurable. Like, he's relieving my breast of milk as opposed to chomping on it to get milk out.
Speaker 1
Wow.
Speaker 2
And the dentist is there, and she's like, wow. I didn't expect that. Because he's twenty one months. I didn't think it would be such a drastic change.
Speaker 1
Wow.
Speaker 2
And there it was. So that was just a lip tie release, and he still has his tongue tie. But but yeah. So I then I got really, like, into tongue tie and lip tie because I was like, woah. What the heck? I went to all these people, and nobody told me. And moms need to know this information, and I need to know more so I can help moms. And that was really what catapulted me into, you know, becoming lactation consultant and just getting there as quickly as possible. And then my daughter, beautiful pregnancy, no ultrasound, no vaginal exams, just glorious home birth. And she's born, and and she's breastfeeding right away. Her latch was good right away. I feel in her mouth right after birth, and, you know, I'm on my birth high, so I'm convinced she's just perfect. Lo and behold, about nine days old, she starts spitting up, and I'm going, oh, it's something in my in my diet. So I'm like, I'm I drink almond milk all the time. Well, I used to, and I was like, oh, it's almonds. I gotta take almonds out. So I I start taking stuff out of my diet, and it's not really helping. And I think it was I had to get her adjusted because it started hurting breastfeeding on one breast or something. And finally, the chiropractor was like, I I have to show you this. And she had a tongue tie and a lip tie and buckle ties. What's that? The cheek. Those are from the cheeks to the gums. Oh. They're on they're on the side. Yeah. So she had, like, two buckle ties on one side, on one cheek, and one on the other. And I was like, I knew it, but I didn't wanna admit it. So even even me, even a lactation consultant, I had someone else tell me and still, you know, felt like and that's probably very very interesting for your listeners because I had had the most wonderful like, the pregnancy that I had always dreamed of having, the birth I'd always dreamed of having, the beautiful sacred postpartum. The last thing I wanted to do was disrupt any of that by getting my baby's ties treated. So I didn't actually get them I could have done it sooner. I waited until she was six weeks old. But by week five, she was so colicky that I was ready, but
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
We just couldn't get in any sooner at that point. But I I get it from that mom standpoint of, you know unless unless your nipples are just, like, bleeding and falling apart, it might be sometimes you need to be ready for it to happen before you go through with something like that. Well, I'm curious if you could speak
Speaker 1
a little bit because I've never actually seen it or, you know, attended that procedure. I think that a lot of women, like me, who don't know anything about what it actually is, you know, and maybe it sounds scarier than it is or more traumatic than it is, because I've also heard moms be like, oh, it was nothing, it was a snip and, you know, little blood and they nursed right away and it was all good. So, I've I've kind of heard, you know, and then there's the laser, which is getting more and more common. So, can you kind of paint a little bit of clarity for for all the different types, like the the snip and then the laser and and, yeah, what that's like to to witness it, I guess?
Speaker 2
Sure. That's that's an excellent question. So there's a lot of different ways to do it, and just because someone does it doesn't mean that they do it correctly or well, and so that's hard. I've definitely seen some botched procedures, but but it can be done with scissors. It can be done with electrocautery, which is basically burning the tissue. It can be done with scalpel, although very rarely is that ever done on a baby. And then laser, and there's various types of lasers. So, you know, I've seen all outcomes. I would say a scissors release can be cleaned, but likely to be more bleeding.
Speaker 1
Mhmm.
Speaker 2
And I'm not sure if all the tissue actually gets removed. The nice thing about a laser, specifically non diode laser, so something that doesn't touch the tissue but is an optical laser, The nice thing about those is that they remove all of the problematic tissue, so there's not like a flap of something hanging around or it cauterizes it. But, also, like in this is getting really sciency, but if you use a c o two laser, the wavelengths that it utilizes either ninety six hundred nanometers or ten thousand six hundred, there's a photo biomodulation effect, which is what cold lasers are. So there's actually kind of a a pain I wouldn't say it's a numbing effect, but it's, kind of a an analgesic effect, so to speak, of the laser while simultaneously evaporating the tissue, I guess, if that makes sense. So to me, when I've seen all of the different tools being used over the years, a c o two laser is really where I see the best outcome for the baby, for the healing, for the minimal pain, for the very low temperature. I mean, it's still gonna be a hundred degrees Celsius. It has to boil water. That's how it vaporizes the tissue, but that's much lower than other tools we could be using. And how long does
Speaker 1
that take? Yeah. That's how I was just gonna Yeah.
Speaker 2
It's so quick. So that's the thing is, you know, I always tell parents at least with the providers that I'm so lucky to work with in my area and all of and others around the country is that, really, your baby is gonna be away from you, like, five minutes max. It's really quick. So they'll swaddle the baby. They put on laser safety glasses. And then to do a tongue tie release, I mean, that probably takes thirty seconds. It's really not anything that takes a long time. A lip tie release, thirty or less in a really skilled provider's hands. And then if it were buckle ties, those are probably just five seconds each. So it's really, really quick. And then if they know what they're doing, they're gonna have the mom breastfeed the baby right after or if they're not breastfeeding, bottle feeding, but that sucking provides
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Excellent pain relief.
Speaker 1
Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And as
Speaker 2
soon as the laser's done cutting, there's no pain. I've personally had it done to myself.
Speaker 1
Interesting.
Speaker 2
It only hurts while it's being done and it's really not even that painful. So
Speaker 1
That's nice. That's interesting that you had it, so you can literally speak to
Speaker 2
what it feels
Speaker 1
like. Wow. Okay. And then, well, so now I have to ask since you said that you had it, how has it affected you personally in your mouth and and you're really like, why did you have it and and how did it change?
Speaker 2
You know, I didn't even realize the level of dysfunction that I had when I had it done. I kinda just volunteered. Like, I wanna see what it feels like, and I was I was was
Speaker 1
it lip or tie?
Speaker 2
Just my tongue tie. Okay. Although I I actually still have a lip tie. I need to get my tongue tie released again. It's a very long story, but I didn't realize how how tied I was. I always thought I had I could stick out my tongue so I could do all these things. I I never I thought I didn't have problems, but right after I got it released, I sat up, and I felt like I took the first deep breath I'd ever taken in my whole life. What? It was crazy, like, finally. And my tongue was it just was, like, stuck to the roof of my mouth, which is where our tongues should actually always be. And that was just, like, a really calming sensation. Yeah. Right after.
Speaker 1
Woah. And
Speaker 2
all my neck I didn't think my neck and shoulders were tense, but I sat up and I was like, wow. Everything's really loose and relaxed, and What? My shoulders felt great. I felt like I could finally stand up straight. Like, I finally had that good posture I always wanted in an instant. Literally, in an instant. So that was really cool. I didn't realize how much it was impacting me and also speech and and lots of other things that now I've I've learned more and I know, but, yeah, it was pretty incredible. And it's different for everybody, especially in adults. So those are my issues.
Speaker 1
Because this is a free birth podcast, of course, I then have to ask, are are there what are the ways or in your opinion that you can self assess if you have ties? Because now I'm sure everybody's really curious. Good question.
Speaker 2
You know, it's actually something that if I get to work with someone prenatally, this is, I ask a lot of questions about them because, it's gonna tell me if if they have ties, it can actually impact their birth. I'm not that willing to
Speaker 1
explain that. But genetic, you can get back to that, but that's also, I guess, what I'm
Speaker 2
Genetic and epigenetic, but, yeah, there's a correlation that any any of the physical therapists that I've worked with that work on babies and and also moms, and they do a lot pelvic floor work, they've noticed a connection between tongue tie and pelvic floor issues. And, lip ties also seem to correlate with the pelvic area as well. So that and your posture. So it there's it's it's the fascial system. So fascia coats the tongue muscle. It goes there's the deep front line all through the front of the body. And if it's tight in one area, it's gonna be tight in all
Speaker 1
the others. Yeah.
Speaker 2
So it makes sense. Right? But but any sort of breathing issues, if somebody's a mouth breather, their tongue has to be low on their mouth. And like I said, it should always be resting on the roof of your mouth. So if you're listening to this podcast right now, just check-in with yourself and ask where is my tongue. It should not be the roof of my mouth. Now it is. Yeah. It should not be touching your teeth at all. Yeah. It should not be, resting on the floor of your mouth. It should be suctioned to the roof of your mouth. Mhmm.
Speaker 1
Okay.
Speaker 2
And if that feels tight for you, that's probably because you have a narrow palate because your tongue is not normally resting in that place. So the tongue is the scaffolding for the for the palate on the roof of the mouth. And by it resting up there and by it touching that part of the body while it's swallowing, it makes the face broad. It makes the jaw broad and we're so deficient of that in our society now and that's a lot of reasons. But speech issues, if anybody has any speech issues, I'd venture to say please absolutely check for a tongue tie, especially with l sounds and r. Those require tongue elevation.
Speaker 1
And what about visually? Is that
Speaker 2
Visually, yeah. Sometimes the tongue tie can be tied to the tip of the tongue, and the tongue can be kind of a heart shape, so that's a really obvious one. But anyone other than that, it's really hard to tell. So a good test is if you suction your tongue to the roof of your mouth, like, you're going to click your tongue, make that sound. Look in the mirror. How wide can you open your mouth with your tongue tongue suctioned to the roof of your mouth? If it's not very wide, like, you can barely open your mouth, I'd venture to say that's a tongue tie. Another test is open wide.
Speaker 1
Wait. Suction it and then open, you're saying?
Speaker 2
Yeah. Suction it and open it.
Speaker 1
I wish people could see us. Oh, look at all that space in there. Okay. Suction.
Speaker 2
Be a cave. You should have a cave under your tongue.
Speaker 1
Let me try it and go.
Speaker 2
It's okay. It's okay. So if you open your mouth wide and then you try and lift the tip of your tongue up to the roof of your mouth, can you touch the roof of your mouth? Uh-uh. That's a really good one. You can? I can.
Speaker 1
Okay. So if I
Speaker 2
can work.
Speaker 1
Is that it indicative? Like, is that, like, like, I definitely do have one or just a possible?
Speaker 2
You probably have one. I can't do it. It looks like you have one. You probably have one. Yes. It's not always that there's other reasons why your pallet can be high. And so, you know, I don't wanna say that everybody that can't do that, but that's a really good one to kinda tell. But, yeah, if anybody has troubles with l's, r's, if you're if you're snoring if you have noxious oral habits like nail biting or in children, thumb sucking, or just you you wanna chew on things, clothing, whatever, hair pulling, trichotillomania, that's another one. Pain. Those are all correlate ear ringing, tinnitus, those are all correlated to improper position of the tongue in the mouth. Wow. Yeah. But snoring, sleep apnea, those are major, major risk factors. If you've ever needed orthodontics ever in your life, even if you've never had if you've never been able to accommodate the growth of your wisdom teeth in your mouth, I'd venture to say something orally is going wrong there and and always check for a tongue tie.
Speaker 1
Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So it sounds like it is probably way, way, way more common than than I perhaps realize.
Speaker 2
Yes. Yes. Okay. I have the curse of everywhere I go, especially in restaurants, and I get to see people eat. Oh, yeah? Tongue tied. Tongue tied. Yes. Okay. So
Speaker 1
I guess what I'm before we get into kind of your thoughts on why that's so rampant, because I'm very curious what you have to say about that, What about so so all the stuff that you just mentioned, I don't have any of the, the things other than that thing you just said. I can't put my tongue up there. I I sucked my thumb when I was a kiddo, but not that long. I think I stopped, you know, by toddler or whatever. I don't actually don't know. But, all of that stuff you just listed, I'm like thinking of all the people in my life who do all that stuff, you know, who snore, who bite their nails, or who pull their hair. So do you think in my let's say in my situation, because I'm not noticeably suffering from any of those things, that it would still be worth considering exploring? Because I couldn't I guess I'm I'm assuming that you'll say something like, well, you don't know how good it can be once once it's clipped if if I do indeed have one.
Speaker 2
Yes. That's actually part of what I would say, but also I'd go deeper and dig other questions like, have you ever had your tonsils removed? Have you ever had chronic ear infections? Did you need tubes in your ears? And then I take measurements of your oral cavity in your face. That would tell me a lot. Interesting. Deficient like, we know the human face between at certain ages is supposed to have certain measurements. So if you were deficient in those areas, well, why is that? So Interesting. Wow. This
Speaker 1
runs so much deeper than I realized.
Speaker 2
It's very deep. And and with babies, I, you know, I also really am looking at their skeletal structure because in the war between muscle and bone, muscle always wins. Muscle is what stimulates, the osteocytes to grow. And so the issue isn't necessarily that people have, you know, a recessed jaw or a narrow face or a high palate. That is the issue, but it's also that they're actually skeletally deficient. They because they've lacked the proper muscular forces on their bone tissue, they haven't even grown enough bone. Wow. Yeah. But we can actually change that. So with correct function, we can now fulfill our genetic potential because we've changed the function, which will change the structure. It doesn't matter how old you are. It happens. It's very cool.
Speaker 1
Very cool.
Speaker 2
Gosh. We're
Speaker 1
so adaptive for better or worse.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it happens faster in babies, obviously. So it's always awesome to get somebody when they have a baby this little because and, again, it's not like you treat the baby prevent preventatively. Like, you wouldn't be like, oh, well, you know, we don't we wanna make sure, you know there's there's always gonna be, like, a correlating symptom as to why you treat the baby, but, a lot of people just don't know what to look for.
Speaker 1
Totally. Okay. So then let let's go there. So, yeah, what would be again, because our audience is predominantly, you know, women who are birthing outside the system, who are not taking their babies to pediatricians, and who are, you know, really either already doing or or really curious in learning how to self assess and and not necessarily, I don't think that it extends into that they wouldn't, seek assistance and seek help should that be necessary. So I think this is a really, really important conversation to have on this podcast. So what are some signs for a mama who's birthed outside the system, who's not gonna see a pediatrician, and I know you're gonna have to be kind of, generic here to some degree, because you're not working with a specific mom and baby in this question, but what are some signs that should tip a mama off to at least start considering that perhaps there's a tie?
Speaker 2
Really, really good question. You know, assuming she's doing great with her latching technique and positioning and she has browsed YouTube and found all the right videos and, you know, whatever it is, gotten help from a friend, whoever. If there is pain, and I mean acute pain breastfeeding, like, not like some tenderness or some soreness, but there's any tissue trauma. Tissue trauma to the nipple is very unlikely to happen just because of poor positioning or poor latch.
Speaker 1
Okay.
Speaker 2
Very unlikely to happen. There might be soreness and tenderness, but you fix the latch and it goes away. But if there's, like, bleeding, cracking, bruising, that kind of thing happening to her nipples, she absolutely wants to think about tongue tie
Speaker 1
Okay.
Speaker 2
Or some other structural issue like birth trauma, but that's gonna be unlikely in this kind of population that we're talking about. So, actually, you know, having a great pregnancy and birth is going to do ninety percent of the work to set you up for good breastfeeding. Exactly. So, that's that's too important.
Speaker 1
It's not gonna prevent ties. It's not gonna prevent ties
Speaker 2
as I found out. So, yeah. But pain pain breastfeeding damage to the tissue, I will have people that I get a lot of backlash when I say that. And what I really tell people is, look. Pain is not normal. It might be common, but it's not normal. And if you are if your truth is that, you know, breastfeeding is painful because it was for you, I was there. I was the angry mom. I was like, no. It's painful. Who are you to tell me it's not? Mhmm. But I didn't know any better, and I didn't know the right questions to ask. And I certainly didn't have the right support available to me. And and, honestly, the Internet didn't have any of this information at the time or any of that either. But then the question to ask is, well, why is it that there are many women out there that never have pain breastfeeding? Are they is something abnormal about them? Like Right. There's not to me, there's not two different normals. And and to me, it's also like, well, you know, breastfeeding just really shouldn't hurt. I mean, it's the propagation of our species. If it hurt and nipples were bloody and damaged for months at a time, I don't know that we'd be at seven billion people on earth. But that, also just a shallow lash. Like, most moms kinda know if the lash is good or not. And if you're doing all the things, especially if the latch starts out great and then becomes shallow, that's a really good one. If your nipple is compressed, either sometimes it will look like the like the end of a lipstick tube or it'll be, kinda squished like a little, like, comes to a point so the nipple is not flat and blunt anymore once the baby unlatches. Probably, that is a tongue tie. Another great way to know would be, like, if baby has milk leaking out the corners of their mouth when they're nursing.
Speaker 1
Oh, so that right. They're not suctioning that. Right? Correct.
Speaker 2
Right. Yeah. There's a lot of reasons. It could be, a poor latch, it could be tongue thrusting, it could be a poor suck, something like that.
Speaker 1
Interesting. So Yeah. The what's the difference between I mean, I know the the physical difference between a tongue and a lip tie. Obviously, there are different parts of the mouth, but are all the symptoms you just showed or that you just spoke to indicative of tongue and not necessarily lip or one or the other? Or
Speaker 2
Good question. So the tongue tie is what I would say is the most functionally important because the tongue what should be happening when the baby breastfeeds is that they open their mouth really wide and their tongue can extend over the lower gums while their jaw is wide open. Mhmm. That's really important. So often a tongue tie will have the tongue retract and pull back when the jaw is open. It just can't it can't separate itself because it's tied. So then that that tip of the tongue is sort of over the lower gums, the mouth's open wide, and then it's the mid tongue that moves up and down. And what that does is that creates a pressure differential in the baby's oral cavity. So it'll create generates negative pressure in the baby's mouth. There's positive pressure in the breast full of milk, and that differential is what draws the milk into the baby's mouth. So people think it's it's some sort of it's like sucking. It's like, well, it's not really actually sucking. Like, we think of a breast pump. That sucks. Mhmm. Baby doesn't really suck. They can Like, as a combination. Yes. So the tongue is waving up and down, up and down, and again, it's the mid tongue. It's not the tip of the tongue. And so that's the biggest functional impact. Anything else, if that's not able to do that, we get chomping and other things. Now the lip tie can impact the seal the baby is able to
Speaker 1
get
Speaker 2
at the breast. So if the lip curls under, if it's if there's too much oral tension, then it can't maintain a wide open mouth.
Speaker 1
Mhmm.
Speaker 2
It will hurt too much. It'll be really just tight. The other thing I also see is is pain, but it will be that the mom will describe the pain as coming from the top of the baby's mouth versus where the baby's attached to the nipple, like the lower jaw
Speaker 1
or something. So how does spitting up come into this? Because I'm I'm pretty ignorant to to how how that relates, but I very often see that suggestion. And even I think you mentioned something like that too in the beginning of the call. So what is what's up with that?
Speaker 2
It has a lot to do with it. So there's a few different ways that it can happen, but doctor Scott Siegel, he is an oral maxillofacial surgeon. He's done a couple studies on this as well as doctor Larry Kotlow, but he's called it aerophagia induced reflux, meaning that the baby has swallowed air, and that's what's causing the milk to come up. So the air bubble wants to come up. It brings milk with it. And they can swallow air one of two ways. One is just having a shallow latch and that the corners of the baby's mouth are away from the breast, and that allows air to come in through the corners of the mouth. The other way is that I I sense it and I hear it when I listen to swallows with my stethoscope is that when that when that mid tongue does not elevate posteriorly in the mouth, the baby can't block off the airway while it's collecting milk in the mouth. So they're breathing in because it's a suck swallow breathe pattern. So they're breathing in, and then they're about to suck, but it's like the air in the milk sort of mixes in the mouth and gets swallowed altogether. So now they're swallowing it. So, again, it's aerophage induced reflux, but two different ways it can happen. The other way that I see it happen is that digestion begins in the mouth. And if we have any tension there, it would be silly to think that there's no other tension elsewhere in the digestive tract. Yeah. So with sphincters, with fascia, all sorts of things. And so if if there is tightness in the digestive tract, it's going to push milk up and out Wow. Or it's going to push it, you know, out the other way. Or usually, I see it there'll be reflux combined with constipation. So I see that a lot. And I would also say that just because the baby is audibly swallowing air, especially if a baby is, like, coming off choking at the breast, has hiccups often, like, that's definitely indicative of air swallowing, things like that.
Speaker 1
Yeah. But
Speaker 2
I do think that there are so many, gut issues in our our population. Even if you're super healthy, it's just really hard to like, the second, let's say you got your gut all healed up. Like, the second you did that, but then you, like, went outside and breathed in some air. So, you know, like, it's just rude. Right. So it's really, really hard and, to maintain that, like, perfect gut. Right? So I think that and babies have immature guts, they're supposed to, so they're so sensitive to anything that could possibly coming into our milk. And I think that if a baby's tied, that's indicative of, you know, poor, you know, methylation or gut health or other things that will go along with food intolerances. So a lot of times, we fix the ties and we see the spit up stops or at least a lot less, but there may still be some and it's not because they're still swallowing air. So it takes a really, you know, a really trained professional to kinda rule that out, but most of the time it's air. Sometimes even parents will tell me they hear gulping. Mhmm. And gulping would be air swallowing too.
Speaker 1
Okay. So then let's go to diet because I hear really different sides of this. On the one hand, I think it's kind of the, more common feeling that diet does affect breast milk and that it does affect, and I certainly have have have known mothers who swear by cutting out x y z and it changing their spit up pattern or or whatever. But then I also have a very educated intuitive women on the other side that say absolutely not, and that that babies are far more adaptive than that, and that and that diet, plays a very, very little, or they're not convinced that diet even matters at all, and that that it doesn't even make sense that, let's say, a pregnant mama who's growing this baby, who then eats the same stuff that she ate in her pregnancy, that it would negatively impact a baby. So, I'd love for you to share your opinion on, diet and and how how accurate you feel like that is. Does diet really affect, you know, obviously maybe not every baby, but but have you seen that true or false?
Speaker 2
Good question. Well, I it is true. It does matter and I can tell you it matters because every day, I help women change their diets and heal their guts, and we see resolution of symptoms. Like, I have a client who came to see me two weeks ago. She has been just she's so committed to breastfeeding. She's already you know, she sees several naturopaths and homeopaths and is doing all the wonderful things. And her baby has severe eczema. Aw. Really bad. Head to toe. I mean, he was it was bad. And her daughter had it, and I go through the mom's health history. We uncover a lot of things. In fact, she thought I was psychic because I knew she had a yeast infection. Right.
Speaker 1
Well yeah.
Speaker 2
And I was like, well, it's not surprising.
Speaker 1
But Right. Totally.
Speaker 2
All these things. And she's like, I've already taken out dairy. I've taken out gluten. I've taken out all the things. You know, it's still really bad. And I was like, that's great that you've taken out all those foods, but what you haven't done and, unfortunately, your naturopaths have only gotten you so far, which is half of the puzzle, taking out the foods that are causing an immune reaction, but you have to heal the gut so that no more gets in because what you'll have to do is you'll have to keep taking out more and more foods. Mhmm. So I put her on a gut healing regimen. She's texted me a week and a half later a picture of her baby with barely visible eczema. It's almost completely healed in a week and a half. Not only that, she tells me I'm not bloated after I'm eating. I have way more frequent bowel movements, which is a good thing. So does the baby. For the first time ever, he has a normal yellow breastfed baby poop. And so what was what was the half.
Speaker 1
What was the healing gut regimen?
Speaker 2
Various things for her specifically.
Speaker 1
Oh, okay. The main stuff.
Speaker 2
I mean, probiotics were part of the puzzle, but that's not always an immediate part of the puzzle. It depends on a lot of factors, but digestive enzymes at meals. Mhmm. And, also, I had her take out all dairy, like sheep and goat milk she was having, and, some glutamine. L glutamine is an amino acid that helps repair the intestinal lining Cool. Amongst some other things too. Just some co fat like zinc and and some other things, magnesium. Those are all she was already kinda taking a bunch of stuff, but, yeah, we did that. And and it's like, okay. I her and a lot of other people in my practice that I see where we do that, but I hear so often that it's either like, oh, take out dairy because it's always dairy.
Speaker 1
Totally. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Or whatever. But we actually have a great deal of research from the dairy industry on this, And we know that what we feed dairy cows absolutely affects the quality of their milk and Yeah.
Speaker 1
For sure.
Speaker 2
It's like, why would humans be different? You know? So, like, eating more protein in your diet actually increases the fat content of your milk. And so a lot of moms ask me, well, how do I get more fat in my milk? And, you know, turns out they're they're, you know, vegetarians, but they're not getting enough protein or whatever, and there's things like that. So but, yeah, absolutely. I see food intolerances, and it's just, you know, if your gut is leaky, food proteins are leaving the gut, they're going into your bloodstream, that goes into the milk because milk is made from blood, then your baby is born with a leaky gut on purpose. Oh. It's meant to receive living tissue, which is human milk. And it has IgA antibodies and all these, you know, the the hamlet cancer killing cells and everything. It wants those things in the bloodstream. And so anything else that gets in there that's a foreign protein that is not biologically designed for them can cause an immune response, which will ultimately lead to skin rashes or foul poops or spit up or all these other problems. And so, yeah, I see the proof every day. I wish that I could tell moms that it didn't matter what they were. Right. I wish I could and I yeah. If moms have healthy guts, I think they can. Right. Right.
Speaker 1
Okay. That makes sense. And so then where where do you what's your thoughts around alcohol and breastfeeding?
Speaker 2
Well, alcohol is never good for the gut. So, you know, if you just wanna look at it from that perspective. Mhmm. You know, what I try to I get this question a lot actually because the holidays are coming up, so all my clients are like, what about a glass of wine? And I'm like, look. You know, you having a glass of wine, I mean, what's your blood alcohol level gonna be? You know, point o two four? I don't know. I mean, it's not gonna be high. And so then, you know, that's gonna be the same blood alcohol level that's in your milk. So your baby is gonna even if you're at the, quote, unquote, legal limit of, like, point zero eight. If your baby ingests point zero eight, like, their blood alcohol level is, like, point zero zero zero one. I mean, it's so low. If your baby's full term, has no health complications, whatever, I'm not saying it's healthy to drink alcohol, but, like, I'd probably just not worry about it.
Speaker 1
Yeah. That that was my when I read is it doctor Jack Newman? Is he who had all this stuff?
Speaker 2
Yes. He has some great
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Information on that. Yeah.
Speaker 1
And and that was, you know, when I was exploring it and we were talking about it in my groups and stuff, some people posted some of his studies and his kind of synopsis on the whole thing, and it was basically, the conclusion was it was so minuscule. I'm not talking about alcoholics who are hitting the sauce all day long, obvious. Right. But but, even and actually, it wasn't just one drink, it was like two or three drinks, and with some regularity, and it still was minuscule of what was actually being passed to the baby. So I, you know, I thought I was like, oh, that's cool. That that makes me feel better. But I I was wondering if you yeah. Also
Speaker 2
Good question. Yeah. I mean, if your baby's jaundice, probably not a good idea, but, if everything otherwise is going well, then yeah. And feel free to enjoy.
Speaker 1
Any any feelings around weed and tobacco as well since we're on the subject?
Speaker 2
You know, weed, I don't feel like I have a a a problem with, and there's all kinds of different research out there that I would say I just wouldn't say it's I don't see anything super risky about it. I would say that any kind of smoke inhalation, though, can be problematic.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
And especially if if, you know, it's your hair is smelling like that or your clothing or whatever and your baby is breathing that in, that's where I find a lot of the problems. Pure tobacco, I don't know that I would say that's as problematic as, you know, a cigarette with all the other chemicals and things. And so if you are smoking anything, the one thing you would not wanna do is to share a bed with your baby. Even, you know I mean, having a couple drinks is fine, but if you were feeling like you were so inebriated that it would be hard for you to care for your baby, again, make sure your baby's safe, not sleeping on the same surface as you. But, yeah, I think, you know, a lot of those things I would say also you kind of wanna just I even take it back to, like, an emotional or spiritual perspective of self sabotage. Like, why do you feel the need to do those things to your body to put yourself into an altered state? Like, what what benefit do you really derive from that? And are there also negative, painful consequences to doing that? And that doesn't have a lot to do with breastfeeding, but just, you know, is there something is there something else there that we're kind of covering up
Speaker 1
if
Speaker 2
that's a regular thing for you?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Totally. I hear that for sure. Okay. So then the big question is I wanna know just to go back to the ties, what is your feeling or knowledge base around why? Why is it so common and where does the I'm gonna say it wrong, MTHFR. Is Is that right?
Speaker 2
You got it. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Of, you know, what what's up with that and and everyone walking around thinking they have this and and the midline deformities and just all of, you know, I I think for for myself included, I think a lot of people listening, it just is, like these things you see come up all the time and people are talking about it, but it, obviously with most information everyone says different stuff. So, what is, I guess, I was resistant until you just pretty much until this conversation, I was resistant to the notion that, that babies or or humans were being born at such a, large majority with a, what's the right word? Not flaw, imperfection, but with like a deformity, with a legitimate, you know, imperfection for lack of a better, term for it.
Speaker 2
No. I mean, it is. It is it is something that is not it doesn't serve us very well in our in our biological processes. You know? I mean, I look at breastfeeding as a vital sign, and if there's anything that is causing this function there that could potentially, increase the risk of shortened breastfeeding duration or cessation, I think we really have to look at that even as as much as we look at respiration rates and heart rates and things like that.
Speaker 1
So is this something that you think do you do you think this is something that's new? Or is it something that's just now starting to get actually diagnosed? And maybe we've always had it for I don't I don't mean like for millions of years, but, you know, I'm thinking about my mom's story of the cracked nipples and how much it hurt with me, and, you know, I'm like, oh shit, I'm convinced I have a tie now. And so, you know, how far back does this go? And it is I know this is a huge question, but also why? And, yeah, yeah, I think my up until now, I I was kind of weighing on the, you know, big pharma, industrial birth, you know, there's always, you know, there's always a reason to to pathologize a baby, and, really having a very, very, very deep distrust in, what I have seen, the the baby industry to be, essentially. That does not mean that there isn't huge value, with the right providers, of course, and that there isn't real wisdom in, in in some of the practices. But I think because the Lip Thai Tongue Tying thing as a birth worker has become the quote unquote kind of start trending in the last couple of years, and I didn't ever hear about it when I started birth work twelve, thirteen years ago, or rare, I shouldn't say ever, but it was not like now. I mean, now, it's like almost every woman I know is is finding out or thinking or, learning that her baby has a tie. And so, I guess I'm just kind of admitting that my own bias here or my own suspicion was rooted in, yeah, just feeling a little suspicious about it, and and you're totally opening my mind to this. So, I'm wondering what what's up with it, I guess, as a blanket question.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, and I appreciate that you're being open actually. So, I will say that I think, you know, it's been going on for a while. I've definitely just personally seen where I have a client and, you know, and her mom's with her and we find the ties and I'm looking at mom and she's got this gap between her front teeth and she's like, oh, I think I have one, you know, and we look and sure enough.
Speaker 1
Oh my god.
Speaker 2
I'll even have I'll have parent parents tell me, you know, oh, my grandma had that cut when she was a baby. And so we know it's it's gone back a few generations, but we know it wasn't always part of humans and our oral development. We know that a lot from fossil records, not because soft tissue stays preserved, but, doctor Kevin Boyd is amazing. I think, I don't remember if he's a dentist, but he's, like an anthropologist and a researcher. And he has looked at the fossil records, and it's actually written in most breastfeeding tech textbooks for lactation consultants that babies are born with recessed chins to help them breastfeed better. That is totally wrong. That's actually harder to breastfeed a baby with a recessed chin, but a big reason for the recessed chin would be a tongue tie. And we know from the fossil record, human babies were born or we could even see fetuses that, you know, that didn't make it in the fossil record. And we could see that the upper jaw and lower jaw were even. They were just as far forward as one another, and a recessed jaw makes no sense because it closes off the airway. So why would we be born hard, you know, with difficulty breathing? Right? So, we know. And I think it's really, you know, kind of around the industrial revolution where this probably really became a rampant problem for several reasons. I think just, you know, toxins and pollution, but also, throwing off our natural circadian rhythms and all sorts of things. And now I see I do think that there are more than ever, and I think more providers have learned how to assess for these things. There are definitely it's rare, And especially in my area, it's rare, but, there are areas where providers are in this for the wrong reason, which is money, and it can be overdiagnosed or there's not the right treatment, but that's really rare. Most of the time, it's underdiagnosed. But the other thing I
Speaker 1
see is totally coming from this position that it was being overdiagnosed, pretty much just making that up with my my suspicion was that it was being overdiagnosed rooted in just a, you know, like, another thing to quick fix and see if it helps.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's also, like, sometimes a nonskilled provider will recognize the tie and see it, but what they're not doing is that thing of differential diagnosis. So what they're not looking at is going, well, obviously, you know, this baby was you know, the pushing stage was, like, three hours, and they're in a hospital on their back, and they're, like, actually pushing for three hours and being directed to push. And now we look at the cranial shape of this baby,
Speaker 1
and, like,
Speaker 2
we can't say that that's not affecting breastfeeding too. And so what they're not doing is, like, referring that baby for body work to try and get that worked out to see if that resolves things because it can change the way the tongue functions. Totally. So for me, it's like, I might see a tongue tie, but I'm also gonna look at the whole baby and be like, well, you know, we can rule that story all we want, and it's not gonna improve it much. So there's that. But, yeah, I think genetic mutations, MTHFR, for sure that's implicated, but there's other ones. COMT, TBX twenty two. I think more and more research will come out about this, and, you know, I don't know really exactly what we could do to prevent it. I feel like even my first you know, he had a lip tie and a tongue tie. My daughter, who I had, you know, spent three years after having my son getting super healthy and doing, quote, unquote, all the right things Right. She was even more tied. Her tongue tie was more severe. Her lip tie was bad, and then she had buckle ties, and my son did not and does not. So I see more buckle ties popping up now, and that's how I know it's becoming more common as I see like, it's like, it used to be like I'd see just a tongue tie and maybe a lip tie every now and again. Now it's like it's always a tongue and lip tie for the most part, what I see.
Speaker 1
Uh-huh. And
Speaker 2
now I'm seeing, like, tongue, lip tie, and buckle ties. So why are visually those.
Speaker 1
Right. Totally. So visually, if you were to open your baby's mouth, you would see tight
Speaker 2
Yeah. Usually, it's best to feel. So if you ran your Mhmm. Finger, along the upper jaw between the cheek and the gums and you really just ran your finger around there, if you felt any speed bumps on the sides kind of where the cheeks meet the lip Mhmm. That would probably be a buccal tie.
Speaker 1
And you should not have those ideally?
Speaker 2
You should not have those. Yeah. Wow. Like, they just shouldn't be there.
Speaker 1
Wow.
Speaker 2
Like, if I if I go to my house, I don't have that. Right.
Speaker 1
I don't either.
Speaker 2
You know? My son doesn't have that. I've I very rarely do see them in adults. I do see them, but it's far less common. But I am seeing them a lot in babies now. Damn. Yeah. Lower lower lip ties. I don't see those hardly at all, but I definitely have seen some lower lip ties and seen huge benefits to getting those released when they're there.
Speaker 1
Wow.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So it's happening more and more, and I don't know. It's like we're we're like the the ball is rolling. The train left the station. Like, we might have to re you know, it probably took a few generations to get us here. It's gonna take a few generations to get us back if we ever do.
Speaker 1
Wow. Creepy.
Speaker 2
Yeah. We're screwed. No kidding.
Speaker 1
That will be the name of this episode. We're screwed
Speaker 2
with Tell Ty, we're screwed.
Speaker 1
Well, and so I keep, and we can wrap up here, but I keep thinking of course about my own baby, which is my only, baby and the only baby I've ever breastfed. And, is like she obviously has ties. I mean, that just that the way that she latches and the spitting up, but I guess where I'm going with this is where's the line of it doesn't it's not negatively impacting our breastfeeding at all. Literally, no pain, full long sessions, you know, sleeps well, you know, and now she's teething and that's all still totally going fine, but, you know, where's that balance of this is not an obvious, like you said, you know, it's the first thing of looking for symptoms is pain, which we didn't ever have. So that's kind of interesting to me in thinking about my own possible ties of I don't have any, like, seemingly, life damaging, you know, symptoms that would be a red flag, but at the same time, it seems like I actually do have a tie. So I don't know. I guess I'm just kind of, like, playing with that idea of, well, when's when's the point to intervene? I don't know. What do you think?
Speaker 2
I am that's a really good question, and I feel like I actually have a lot of moms, kinda ask me that, you know, and or friends or whatever. I bet you that if I watched her breastfeed that I would see a lot of dysfunction. And it's not to say that you're doing it wrong or whatever. It's just that when I look at it, I look at how are those muscles moving, what's happening with the joints. And if I see that dysfunction compensation happening, I know I know the trajectory. There's often, like, a phenotype. So I might be like, oh, she's overusing her masseters, and so, you know, she's got gonna have some TMJ problems later or
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Whatever it is. Right? But the other thing that people really just aren't taught, and this is what needs to be getting taught, like, prenatally and things. And, you know, if you're taking a breastfeeding class, not like you know, I hate those breastfeeding classes that are like, oh, the benefits of breastfeeding.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
First of all, I think everybody is kind of on board now, but, that's just not relevant. What is relevant is to know that your baby getting a mouthful of breast tissue with that wide deep latch is obviously going to stimulate your breasts to make milk and and release milk into the mouth very easily. So there is a little bit of compression that happens, although that shouldn't be the main driver. But that the what the breast does is the breast is amazing. So the breast molds to fit the baby's oral cavity. And as it does that and the tongue creates the compression and the right forces, it grows their entire mid face forward, and that is what we are biologically designed for. That is why the, you know, the normal biological age of weaning is somewhere between ages of two and seven. I'd argue probably more like four and seven if we really let it go. But it's supposed to grow there mid face. And the first two years of cranial development are really crucial. A lot of things are almost, you know, maybe ninety percent like, orbit growth, the eye sockets. That's ninety percent complete by age two. And the eye socket growth is actually dependent on the mid face, the palates, everything underneath it. Wow. So if the pallet is not being if the jaw is not being brought forward so normal physiological breastfeeding, the way that works is when the tongue moves, it creates forwards orthopedic forces, literally growing bone and moving the whole mid face forward. So if you look at I know this probably sounds like really stereotypical, but you can go and look at, like, a picture of a child in Africa, and they will have these broad jaws and their mid face is forward. Even if you look at, like, a primates, a gorilla, an ape, something like that, they have this, like, like, their whole mid face sticks out more than the upper face. We're actually supposed to look very much like that as humans, and we're mostly the opposite where our chins and everything is recessed.
Speaker 1
So you see that missing, like, in African American people here, for example.
Speaker 2
Yes. Absolutely. But I will I will say that most of the time when I see a baby that doesn't have any ties, they are not white. They are African American or, Hispanic. Mhmm. So it's very interesting. But Mhmm. Or Native American, actually. I've seen that too. But It's just the
Speaker 1
white people that are fucked up.
Speaker 2
The white people are the worst. They're the they have the narrowest faces. They have all the sleep apnea, but Yeah. All the worst. Intolerances. And I always quiz everybody. I'm like, what's your diet like? Like, they don't have ties. You know? The one thing I've one thing they all have in common is they don't eat genetically modified foods. So that's very interesting. But but, yeah, if we don't have that breast tissue and those forwards orthopedic forces filling the mouth and growing the it's really growing the airway and the mid face and all of that Wow. Then that development is really hard to make up for later on in life. And anything other than that, a shallow latch of just the nipple is very much like giving the baby a bottle or a pacifier, and it's going to impair that oral development. And so to me, it's like, yeah, there can be compensations. The baby can gain weight. They can get milk. They can do things, and maybe mom is not in pain. But what are the real implications of not treating that now? And are you going to treat it now and put your baby through something that is painful and you're gonna spend four to six weeks doing therapeutic exercises and whatever? Or are you gonna put them through phase one, two, and three ortho, get a sleep study, like and it's not like it's up to you to decide as the parent, obviously. But Of course. When we when I can point out the functional deficiencies, like, this is not the way the muscles are supposed to be moving. It's like if you went to the doctor and you're limping, they're not like, oh, well you can walk. So as long as you can walk, you're good.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And this is that weird rub, like, this is the weird intersection for me of, you know, just trusting nature and physiology and everything that feels really wonderful between she and I and everything intuitively in my, in my maternal, you know, body and instinct to saying, this is going great, except for the spitting up. That was really the only thing that I was like, I don't know, that doesn't that seems a little excessive. You know, anyway, so yeah, it's it's an interesting intersection of, and then and then also for me and probably most of my listeners, just like this deep distrust of, you know, people quote unquote in the system and and the high volume care and the charts and the averages and your baby should. And it's like, well, should, I don't know, should should doesn't allow for a lot of individuality, or a lot of, you know, yeah, a lot of individualized cases and and I I one thing I did wanna make sure to say is when you were talking about the Lilece League, classes and and, you know, them saying that it shouldn't hurt and you're over here going, well, it does hurt, and yet I'm still breastfeeding. That made me think of this really old school video that I used to show my my, clients that was I think it's just called baby led breastfeeding. And I've I've been trying to remember her name the whole time we've been talking. I know her last name is Smiley, doctor Smiley. She was like big, I think in the nineties or something. But anyway, she was awesome in this video and she uses analogy that always stuck with me, which is it's normal to get a pebble in your shoe, but it's not normal to let the pebble stay in your shoe. And so pain is the way of your body guiding you to do something different, and that really stuck with me. And I just wanted to to say that and make sure that was in this episode because it's such a I mean, and you said it in your own way as well. It's pain is the is your body speaking. And so, it's not that I don't I don't I I try to stay away from this this concept of should because it gets really confusing and heady, I think. But to say that, if your breastfeeding is hurting, you could continue doing that, but who wants to continue breastfeeding hurting? That doesn't sound, you know, fun for anybody because, there there there is steps that you can take to reevaluate, reassess, and get the support to move out of pain because the pain in breastfeeding is really our biggest red flag that something is up, you know. And then, we have, like, the situation I just laid out with my baby that I didn't have pain, so so that's confusing to me and and and, you know, something for me to explore. But if you're having pain, that is really the biggest red flag that that we're going to be given in breastfeeding. That something, something is off to the point where it could be put back on again, and and you you can and you you you deserve to feel what breastfeeding can feel like, without tears streaming down your face. You know, I've I've seen I've seen so many women just suffer, and suffer for a long time and really because they didn't know that there was another way. And sometimes that fix, that shift is not very hard to do. But it does, it takes that first step of actually having someone say, Hey, this could be better. You could actually, there's actually a possibility here, a very high one that, you you could even shift into enjoying it. And so, yeah, I hope that I hope that anyone who's who's experiencing pain in breastfeeding can consider that and and meditate on that and know that there are resources, and and I just wanted to close with, you sharing how people can access you and do you offer virtual, support, and and if so, how can anyone listening that wants to do a session with you reach out?
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's a really great question. And one final thing I'll add is Mhmm. Is, you know, we've talked a lot about the ties and getting them fixed, but getting them fixed is never the only piece of the puzzle. And I think that that really gets overlooked. So a lot of moms will kind of self diagnose, which is awesome, and they'll go to a provider and get it fixed, and then they wonder why breastfeeding never got better. And the problem is is that the procedure was never going to be the quick fix. Maybe that first latch right after was amazing, But unless you are working with a skilled provider who knows exactly what to look for in terms of the function of breastfeeding, what you're doing as mom, what your baby's doing, and unless you get rid of all those old dysfunctional habits
Speaker 1
Mhmm.
Speaker 2
And kind of not even retrain, but, like, train for the first time ever, like, how to do this the right way, like, you're most of the time, it's not a magic fix and your baby just figures it out. And so if they're not working with a good lactation consultant, they're not getting the body work they need, they're not getting you know, they're not sure about the the oral exercises that are required for six weeks after, like, all the things, then, unfortunately, we see all these sad stories online of why I got the tongue tie fixed. It didn't do anything. Yeah. You know? And it's not the only fix, and and I'm very cautious. You know, I believe every mom knows her baby best, and I have so many clients that will come to me, and they'll be like, why? I wish I had known earlier. I'm like, you know what? If you had it treated earlier, who's to say that that would have worked out better than getting it treated now when your baby's six months old? Mhmm. Maybe you weren't ready. Maybe your baby would have healed improperly because of where they were in their you know, they were gonna go through a growth spurt and something would have happened and it wouldn't have healed well or, you know, like, trust the timing. Trust that when you find out about it, that that's the right time for you to treat it. Don't, you know, go out there trying to think, oh my gosh. I have to, like, find everybody's tie and it is what it is. Yeah. And I'm okay with my son's tie not being treated and, you know, it's it is what it is. We'll get him treated.
Speaker 1
When you felt that relief with him, you still then had to go on and do the six weeks of of PT or whatever it was, the exercise
Speaker 2
that you're doing? So I wasn't super educated on that, but because it was only a lip tie we did do chiropractic, but, because it was only a lip tie, it's much less invasive to go and do the extra like, I'm not trying to get the lip muscle to move differently. Right. Right. Does that make sense? Mhmm. Yeah. So it wasn't super involved. And, I basically just texted photos to the dentist. We had to drive, like, a couple hours to go see her, but texted photos, and she'd follow-up with us that way. So it all worked out fine. But, normally, you know, you wouldn't wanna do that. But, yes, to answer your question, I do work remotely. I do video or phone appointments with people. And in fact, even just sometimes I always think, gosh. I hope I can do a good enough job on video. You know? And I'll do these appointments with moms, and they're like, this is way better than what I got in the hospital. Yeah. So
Speaker 1
It's a low bar.
Speaker 2
Yeah. If you don't have somebody locally even if you're in a big city, you know, you might not have a provider that's just as skilled or as knowledgeable. And besides the ties, knowing the gut health or herbs, I mean, it's you know, fenugreek for milk supply is really old and outdated, and I pretty much never recommend it. So if you're really like, I've done all the things. I've eaten all the lactation cookies. Not that that's necessarily your audience. But Yeah. If you really want some true help with that, let me know.
Speaker 1
Mhmm.
Speaker 2
Or thrush or mastitis or any of these things. You know, you don't need antibiotics. You don't need antifungals. I think moms need to know that. But but, yeah, I do that. So, yeah, they can find me on holistic lactation dot com. Okay. My Instagram and Facebook are also holistic lactation. I love doing this work. I love supporting moms. And what's really cool is that, you know, my goal is to get you the quickest results possible. I don't wanna keep working with you. So, you know, if I refer you to get a a tongue tie treated, that's actually a lot less money for me. So, I think that people sometimes go, oh, you know, it's all about the money. And I'm like, no. I would probably have, like, ten visits with the mom if we kept trying to figure out what was going wrong.
Speaker 1
Mhmm.
Speaker 2
So, most of the time, people are are done with me. If they're in person and they have I, you know, I do. I am part of that system. I take insurance in person. Nice. But it makes it really so far insurance has not told me what to do. So Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, then you can reach
Speaker 1
so many more people.
Speaker 2
Yeah. But, yeah, video visits sometimes are also covered by insurance if people wanna know that. But yeah. And if you are listening to this podcast and you are wondering how can I get someone in my area, is there someone there? I also speak at conferences all over the world. I've met some amazing providers literally all over the world. So if somebody has questions, they can definitely reach out to me, and I'll try to connect you.
Speaker 1
Cool. Well, you are a true gem in this community and much much needed and hopefully, you will train women as you get older and have your whole flock and online courses and just everything to get this information out there because it's it really, you know, and it's sad, but it really is a rare day that I meet, a a lactation consultant who is really looking at the whole body and is really looking at the whole situation and, isn't isn't just kind of following the averages from the textbooks, you know, and maybe it's because they're, I don't know, newer or something, but you definitely just seem to to get it in a really, clear and and humbled and and direct way. So I'm I really appreciate that about you.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you. Yeah. I can't remember the last time I looked at a lactation textbook.
Speaker 1
Great. Awesome. Well, thank you for your time. I'm excited to share this.
Speaker 2
Thank you.
Speaker 1
That's it for today, everyone. Join us next week for another episode of the FreeBirth podcast. Thanks for joining us, and remember, your body, your choice. Lots of love.
