After more than six weeks on the road, we wanted to be sure to go out with a bang — and the wonderful team at The Pump Station sure made that happened! We arrived to their Santa Monica store and the back parking lot was fully set up with tents galore! There were many great organizations in attendance and a phenomenal lineup of panels and experts.
I had the honor of moderating the two expert panels. The first one was about breastfeeding and included true leaders in the field. The major takeaways for the audience were to educate yourself prenatally and to reach out for help sooner rather than later. It was discussed how there are not many issues with breastfeeding in public in LA, and they acknowledged that Los Angeles was pretty progressive and breastfeeding has become the norm! After this panel, Dr. Harvey Karp, the mastermind behind The Happiest Baby on the Block line, wowed the crowd with his proven methods to calm and communicate with infants and young children.
The second panel was about more general parenting topics (sleep, communication, back health and breastfeeding) with an emphasis family wellness. As a 28-year old with no kids, this was a tougher panel to moderate. Unlike breastfeeding, which I had just talked about non-stop for six weeks, I’m a lot less familiar about sleep cycles and understanding the different needs of an infant. Needless to say, I learned a lot in this panel!
At the end of each event we have a ceremony where the local organizers put a star on the map. We had the co-founders of The Pump Station, Corky & Wendy, do the honors. Then, we did a group photo with everyone screaming ‘Latch On America’ for one last time. These few minutes were surreal as I realized this was the 33rd and last time that we were going to do it on the tour.
It’s hard to believe that the trip has come to an end, but we couldn’t have asked for a better finale!
There is so much going on in Austin that we had to be there for a day and a half. We pulled into Texas WIC headquarters in the late afternoon and spent time with two of Texas’s many breastfeeding rockstars. Man, they have an incredible organization with wonderful resources and support for their mothers. There were a few brochures that blew my mind, both in terms of content and presentation. A lot to learn from them!
The next day, we had a wonderful event coordinated by the Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin. There was great turnout of moms and organizations … and media! Not only did we have local news, we also were broadcast live on air on the area’s largest Spanish-speaking radio station — very cool!
After a great event, we headed back to the Milk Bank for lunch, interviews and a tour. It was a real honor and privilege to not only go on a tour of the space, but actually watch specific steps in the process. One thing is perfectly clear, HMBANA milk banks go through a very rigorous process to make sure that the milk that comes out of their banks has been thoroughly tested and is safe. I was surprised to learn that they go so far as knowing how many calories are in the different milk, so that they can offer milk with different levels for babies with different calorie needs.
In addition to interviewing people who work with the milk bank, we interviewed a mother whose child receives the milk. I can say on her behalf, thank you to anyone who has donated milk — it’s really a precious gift to provide another mother. If you have extra milk in your freezer, there are plenty of milk banks that could desperately use it in order to meet the high demand for breast milk!
Houston! They weren’t joking when they warned us that Texas was going to be hot! Boy, was it… Still, our day in Houston was a lot of fun. Positioned outside the Children’s Museum, we not only had a lot of people show up specifically for the event, but also a lot of moms and babies who were just planning on going to the museum! Always great to get a thumbs up from moms and a big thank you for promoting a cause that is important to them.
In Houston, we had a huge turnout of WIC peer counselors. At every stop, we could always count on having representation from WIC, but they came out in force in Houston. So, a lot of my time was spent speaking to different peer counselors about the needs and issues facing their clients. At one point, I was standing in a circle of five people, representing 3 different races. It was awesome to compare and contrast the issues facing different groups. I walked away from that conversation with a whole new respect for the concept of peer counselors and making sure that moms receive support from someone who they can specifically relate to.
Houston set a high bar for Texas … I quickly was able to sense that different cities in Texas can be a bit competitive. All in attendance were pretty excited that the Houston star was the first one on the bus’s map!
We had a very busy day in Phoenix, Arizona! Not only did we have an incredible event we also went to a workplace that allows moms to bring their babies to work.
First up, we had a packed house at Midwives Rising. There were so many moms and babies, it was tough to move! I was very surprised to learn that many moms felt that Phoenix wasn’t supportive of breastfeeding. There was such energy and support in the room I would have assumed that the whole city was pretty welcoming. But instead, many shared that if you can plug into the support community you can find incredible support, but outside of this tight knit group the rest of the city is much less supportive. I spoke to a mom who was initially unaware of the community and these resources, and she said she felt very alone and isolated during her breastfeeding journey. Fortunately, she met someone who introduced her to the community and she said her journey changed dramatically right then and there. We wished that we could snap our fingers and have all the moms who felt just like she did walk in the room and see all the support and encouragement that was available in Phoenix. As we build out the community on-line on Milk for Thought, our goal is to make it easy and fun for moms to find all their local resources.
After the event, we made our way to the Arizona Department of Health & Human Services to interview members of an office that have a Babies at Work program. Back at our Salt Lake City stop in July, we’d met Carla Moquin, the founder of Babies at Work, so we were very excited to see a workplace that has had a successful program for more than 10 years!
Not only did we meet one mother who had her son with her in the office, we met a colleague who was initially very skeptical about having to work amongst babies. The program is very progressive and allows a mother or father to bring their baby to work to promote bonding and continued breastfeeding. This program has proven very effective at retaining employees and getting employees to return to work earlier than they otherwise would. While a typical concern is, “How can someone be productive with their baby at work?” the counterpoint is that the parent isn’t spending time worried about being separated from their child and eventually can come up with a routine and method that brings their productivity back to about 80-85% of their pre-baby productivity. This is a much better alternative that losing good employees or having them stay away from the workplace for a long time after birth.
At ADHS, we learned that the office enjoys having babies in their company and that it can change the mood and help ground people and “put things in perspective.” I was sold on the benefits of this program and can picture myself in work meetings and in my office with my baby strapped to my chest!
If someone would have told me a few years ago that I was going to be spending my 28th birthday in Las Vegas, I never would have guessed that it would be sitting on a big pink bus in the RV park behind Circus Circus!
When I think of Vegas, I think of the bright lights, casinos and a culture that celebrates the secondary use of breasts. So, with all the talk about the impact of the sexualization of the breast, we knew we had to make a stop there. We brought the bus to a very excited group of women at St. Rose Hospital. I was really pleased with the turnout even before I realized more than half of the people were actually inside! Being hotter than 110 degrees, they made a wise decision to have the organizations line up inside the hospital. So, I quickly left my dad to man the Milk for Thought table and I went inside to meet all the different organizations … there were tons!
I spent quite a bit of time speaking to a pediatrician. It was interesting to hear his perspective on his patients’ attitudes toward breastfeeding. He shared that breastfeeding moms usually fell into camps, either “stressed out” or “laid back.” The stressed out moms put a lot of pressure on themselves and are tough on themselves as they face challenges. The more laid-back moms are confident that all will work out. What he finds is that this attitude can have one of the biggest impacts on outcome. And when I asked him, “In an ideal world, how would you like Milk for Thought to impact your patients?” he said, “Get them to relax and let them know that with the right resources they can get through it.” I’ve learned from my mom that telling a woman to relax doesn’t always get the best reaction. :) So, we’ll have to find other ways to build confidence and let moms know that everything will be OK.
Milk for Thought is bringing together the energy from all different parts of the breastfeeding community -- connecting advocates, experts and parents, providing the very best and most trustworthy breastfeeding information, and offering the support new moms need. Whether you’re passionate, dedicated or simply curious about breastfeeding, you can join forces, find answers and meet likeminded people at Milk for Thought.
