Katie The Traveling Lactation Consultant
Katie The Traveling Lactation Consultant
Ep 34 We are Mammals
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All mammals breathe air, all mammals give live birth. All mammals breastfeed their young. Humans are mammals, even tho we tend to forget it. Breastfeeding should be easy (cats don't worry about breastfeeding). Katie Oshita and Shaz Tayebi talk about how remembering that we are mammals can deeply change and impact our breastfeeding practices.
Podcast guest: Shaz Tayebi, IBCLC, brings her midwifery experience from Iran to her lactation career in Canada. She noticed there were much more breastfeeding challenges in her practice in Canada compared to rural areas of Iran, where they trust babies more than books, apps, instructions, etc. That’s why she created the documentary “We’re Mammals”!
“We’re Mammals” helps parents and healthcare providers understand newborn’s innate feeding behaviors, acknowledge that the mammalian approach to breastfeeding is a failproof method (the reason we are not extinct) and identify barriers to trusting baby’s instincts.
As a mother of two, one having special needs, she has first hand experience in what a normal breastfeeding journey looks like. She’s also a craniosacral therapist, a gentle form of body work, which she originally learned for her son and is now corporating it in helping families too. She mentors doulas and lactation consultants as well.
Podcast host: Katie Oshita, RN, BSN, IBCLC has over 22 years of experience working in Maternal-Infant Medicine. Katie is a telehealth lactation consultant believing that clients anywhere in the world deserve the best care possible for their needs. Being an expert on TOTs, Katie helps families everywhere navigate breastfeeding struggles, especially tongue tie and gut/allergy related issues. Email katie@cuddlesandmilk.com or www.cuddlesandmilk.com
Disclaimer, this content is meant for information only and not as a diagnosis or medical treatment for any condition. If you or a loved one needs help, please seek out a qualified medical professional for assistance. Welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Katie Ostaff, BSM, RN IBCLC, an infant feeding specialist. Quench your thirst for knowledge and travel with me across the nation to discover, learn, collaborate, and better serve clients from all over the globe. Let's ride and thrive together. Today on the podcast, we have Shaz Tayabi, an IBCLC, who brings her midwifery experience from Iran to her lactation career in Canada. She noticed there were much more breastfeeding challenges in her practice in Canada compared to the rural areas of Iran, where they trust babies more than books, apps, and instructions. That's why she created the documentary We Are Mammals. We are Mammals helps parents and healthcare providers understand that newborn's innate feeding behaviors, acknowledge the mammalian approach to breastfeeding is a fail-proof method, the reason we're not extinct, and identify barriers to trusting babies' instinct. As a mother of two, one having special needs, Shaz has first hand experience in what a normal breastfeeding journey looks like. She's also trained as a cranial sacral therapist. It's a gentle form of body work, which she originally learned for her son and is now incorporating in her practice to help families as well. She mentors doulas and lactation consultants. Please welcome Shaz to the podcast. I am so excited to have you today, Shaz. I have to say that I was so surprised to see your name come up in a Facebook group that I'm on. And when I saw it, I instantly was like, oh my gosh, that's gotta be the IBCLC I saw in this documentary. And I knew I had to get you on the podcast because I take classes and watch videos and do conferences all the time. And some of them really kind of hit home. And I think it's a lot about when we're ready to hear something. You know, it's not just amazing material. It's also like, you know, the learner has to be ready. But your documentary really spoke to me. So I really wanted to talk about it today. And it's kind of a verge from what I usually talk about with tongue tie. And we're talking about, you know, more than normal here, but I feel like it really needs some space to be talked about. So thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02So let's start with, you know, kind of why did you even want to create this documentary and why did you see the need?
SPEAKER_00That's a beautiful question. So, first of all, the documentary is called or the video is called uh We're mammals. And this actually, if we have to go back to the root of it, it was when I first I was a midwife in my home country, Iran, for uh more than 18 years. So about 30 years ago, when I was a new midwife, yes, that's how old I am, and I was uh working in villages in Iran, as well as private hospitals in the city. And in the villages, there was the births were beautiful, smooth, like just so natural. I'm so blessed to have had my first experiences with birth and breastfeeding and just perinatal experiences with those women who basically most of them didn't couldn't even write their names. And but they had so much trust in their body. And uh that was beautiful. But then at the hospital, in the private hospital in the city, two hours away from the village when I worked, there were more higher, highly educated families. Well, it was a private hospital, better off to you know, well read, took classes, or but still there was like birth was more obviously more um medicalized. Medicalized, yes, medicalized, and there was more interventions, and also there were breastfeeding challenges. To my experience then, which before it was before I had my own kids, I was just like, why is it that these women in you know, two hours away in the village have no breastfeeding issue, not less, no breastfeeding issues, whereas in the private hospital in the city, to my experience at that point, it seemed a lot compared to, of course, no breastfeeding issues. And now I'm comparing to Canada, and I'm just like, whoa, that private hospital was so much better. Like there was much less uh breastfeeding issues. And so one point I asked one of the moms in her postpartum session, in her postpartum visit at the village, and said, you know, ask about how breastfeeding is going. And she was like, We're speaking the same language, and she still couldn't understand. What do you mean? And I'm like, Oh, is there any pain? Do you need to, you know, how is baby feeding? How, you know, all these. I start asking questions, and she looks at me confused. And she says, and I always say these in my prenatal classes to remind moms of this factor. And she looks at me, and no insult to any person, but they just said, Well, my cow had its baby the same day I did, they're breastfeeding. How is it possible that my baby can't? And it was just that aha moment for me. It's just like that's it. They see themselves as mammals, and that's why they have that trust, and that's why there's no breastfeeding issues. And they're in the hospital where you know our clients had, you know, held PhD degrees, and you know, they might have been doctors themselves, they're looking at instructions and books and specialists for their answers. And so this route basically this seed was planted about 30 years ago for the weird mammals. And because of that, because I I learned from those villagers, I had the best, um, the most amazing breastfeeding experience with my kids. Uh, even my second one, who my first one is 26 years old, and she breastfed beautifully. And but she was a neurotypical child, term labor, vaginal birth. So you'd assume these go hand in hand. My son, who is now 15, has Down syndrome. He was premature, he had to have surgery the first day of his life. So he was NPO, he couldn't even have a bottle of formula, nothing, he just had IV. I didn't even see him for 24 hours. I mean, if we're talking about the golden hours, I didn't see him, let alone feed him. And I saw him in 24 hours, and he was given okay to eat orally for feed, eat, just come off the IV after 40 hours. So until 40 hours after birth, this premature baby with Down syndrome, which their low-tone muscles uh can impact breastfeeding. I just held him in my arm. And at first he didn't do anything, and I'm just like, oh God, he doesn't have the feeding behaviors because he's premature, and this few hours, a couple of days, basically has has, you know, shut them, you know, it didn't allow it releasing those reflexes. And then um, then he's I just expressed some colostrum and he started licking the milk. And I'm just oh okay, he doesn't have a sucking reflex. And uh, because we know, you know, that kind of mastic mastered in the last few weeks in utero. And I'm just like, that's okay, I'll just express and let him lick the milk off. And five minutes or three minutes of that, he latched on beautifully by himself. I did not latch him. There was no pain. He actively, he was exclusively breastfed until a point that for his medical condition, we had to switch to a special formula. But breastfeeding itself was easy because I didn't get in his way. And that's what I want. That's what I am now uh trying to educate families that babies are hardwired. We don't need to, we can't question million years of evolution by, oh, let's do this instead of what was always happening.
SPEAKER_02It just makes so much sense. I mean, babies have been feeding since the beginning of time.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And what is it? So when I came to Canada in um 2009, I started working as a doula and childbirth educator until I became a lactation consultant. And I was surprised of how much challenges. And later, uh in doing all these webinars and uh classes and workshops, I realized there's 92% in North America have breastfeeding issues. It's like, what other physiological function do you know that 92% of it is not going well? Right.
SPEAKER_02I mean, if 92% of us were born not being able to breathe, we would have been extinct.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So I would say if I told you a certain country, this surprises people, and it's more it I think it's more understandable. I know it's uh different concept, but just a physiological function, comparing it with another physiological function. If I told you a certain country, a certain culture, 92% of men had erectile dysfunction, would you accept that? Would you just say, oh, yeah, that's how it is. Here's medication, here's tools, or you know, just don't have sex. That's it. That's not the way we would approach that problem. And the same 92% of women who are having breastfeeding issues, well, here's medication, increase your supply. Here's tools, pump and shields and stuff. And the last one would be well, just don't breastfeed. Here's formula. And yes, there is a place for formula. I'm not against the use of formula whatsoever, but is it 92% of our babies should be? I mean, again, we would have been extinct if this was the situation. And then when I come to practice it, I see that everyone is doing this, which in my video I show the reasons exactly why that how the women are taught to breastfeed and latch to the baby. Uh, that's that is what that is the main reason of the problems.
SPEAKER_02I had a client one time that the her grandmother was she was from somewhere in Central America. This was a couple of years ago, I don't remember. And her grandmother can't was with her at the home visit that I did. Then this was the mom's grandmother, baby's great grandma. And you know, it was my first visit, and the mom kind of sat up and got like the breastfeeding pillow and did all this stuff. And her grandma was like, What are you doing? Like, that's not how we feed babies. And the client responded, Well, that's how we feed babies in America. Like that's what we're supposed to do. And I kind of walked over and was like, Well, what if we try it without all the stuff? What if we get rid of the breastfeeding pillow? And she was, we, and we got the baby on beautifully. I mean, the baby just, you know, in a nice laid-back position, the baby just knew what to do, right? We basically removed the obstacles. We didn't latch baby. We we got out of the baby's way. It's beautiful. And grandma was like, okay, that looks more comfortable. I was like, yeah, you're more comfortable now, aren't you? I mean, we've so institutionalized medicalized birth and breastfeeding that it's so clinical. You know, these moms are sitting up in these like rock hard chairs with all these pillows, like they're, you know, gonna take a test or something. I'm like, why are you not comfortable? Exactly.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna spend eight hours a day doing this. I would exactly. If someone's work is computer, like they do a computer job, like when I take my computer to a visit, okay, I might just have like five minutes of notes on my computer and I'll put my laptop on my lap on while I'm sitting on the couch, you know, and just put write down some notes. But I tell them, if this was my job, is would this be the way I'd be working on my computer? I'd make sure the height, the screen, the chair, the desk, everything is comfortable. You're doing this full time 24 or 7. You have to be comfortable. And that's the number one instruction, be comfortable.
SPEAKER_02I think one of the things that gets the moms on my, you know, because on my side is I try to tell them too that they need to be comfortable, but they generally will be like, that doesn't matter. I need to take care of baby. And what I try to explain too is that when you're uncomfortable and your body is in pain, you're gonna release cortisol. And when your body is comfortable and happy, you're gonna release dopamine and prolactin and like oxytocin. And I said, nature doesn't want you uncomfortable. All of that pain is gonna make this a really negative experience and it's gonna make it all harder.
SPEAKER_00Like Zelope. Or I add to that in what you were you just mentioned about the hormones, but also I'm also I didn't introduce, but I'm also a craniosacral therapist and a body worker, which I learned for my son. And now one of the blessings he's brought to my life is that I'm using that skill for families as well and bringing income to my family. But as a craniosacral therapist, I see tightness. I mean, mom and baby are one you are still one unit. It's just the umblical cord is just invisible. So if she is tight physically, muscles are tight or in pain, this baby's gonna feel it. And the first thing they tighten up is their jaw, which will affect the feed. And uh, when you tell them that even if it's not for you, it's for baby, then it's a lot of the time, because mothers are usually will do anything for their babies. And if they understand that being relaxed and comfortable is good for their babies, more likely that they'll pay attention to it. Uh, otherwise they'll think it's a selfish thing, which it shouldn't, even if it hasn't have any impact on your baby, mom should be comfortable because it's an ongoing function throughout the day.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I I couldn't agree more. And it's they do spend so much time doing it. And I've had so many clients that have come to me, you know, after doing this for weeks or months, and they've got, you know, headaches, neck pain, back pain. You know, some of them have carpal tunnel. I see that a lot too, because they're like holding baby's head and trying to bend and shove it on, and then they're holding it really firmly during the feed. And it's, you know, they're hurting their bodies so much. And pregnancy and breastfeeding already, you know, it takes a decent amount out of our system. And, you know, it we need to be kind to our bodies. The older I get, the more that that is very important to me. And exactly kind of like you said, with the ergonomics, like they will be in these really funky positions. Or sometimes I'll see, you know, this very uncomfortable cross cradle position, and they've got the baby's tummy straight up to the sky. And I'm like, baby doesn't want a nurse with their head turned to the side. No wonder they're coming off. Try swallowing with your head over your shoulder. It doesn't feel good. You know, I'm like, we need to make sure that everybody is more comfortable. But as you were saying all of this, I realized that in I use a little charting app when I see my clients, and I just thought about this. There's a spot where it asks who latched the baby, and it says mom or else or both. It doesn't even give an option. Like right there.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness. So even the word latch, like in my culture, in farsi, latch, in farsi means it will say I'll say it in farse, it's pestonget if then it means taking the breast, baby taking the breast. Who's in charge of the the word latch means the baby's doing it? When I first told my mom, who God bless her soul, she's just passed away recently. But uh, when I first told her I'm gonna be a lactation consultant, she was just confused, looking at me. We're doing a virtual, you know, video call. And she's like, What does that mean? What are you gonna do? You're gonna teach babies how to take the breast, they already know what to do. And I said, and I told her, No, I'm gonna tell you teach moms to get out of their way. So babies who already know what to do, they'll do it. And she goes, Oh, okay, that's good. So, and then when I made the documentary and I told them my mom and dad both I told them that I made this documentary, I was excited, and uh I said it's called We're Mammals, and they both of them are looking uh confused, and they say, You mean the sorry, but this is like these white people don't know that they're mammals? Do they know they're mammals? It's just bringing it to the breastfeeding concept, reminding that as a mammal, we never we don't question a puppy or a kitten. We teach a mama cat to latch her baby. Why all of a sudden we have to teach our moms to latch a baby?
SPEAKER_02You know, I think it's only really been, I mean, maybe the last 150, 200 years that we have really lost, and it's it's with a lot of other things. I feel like a lot of herbal medicine, people's medicine, a lot of things all kind of went away at the same time as the Western medicine kind of became something in the United States, especially. But it's like this whole idea that all these, I mean, it's you can even look at all the births that now happen in hospitals instead of at home, deaths that happen in hospitals instead of at home. Like we've institutionalized everything, everything that used to happen at home. We now have this idea that the hospital is safer, better, you know, it's it's where everything should be.
SPEAKER_00And in some cases, that is true, but not all cases. Yes. If I didn't have the cesarean and uh surgery my son needed, he would not be here today. Absolutely. That's fair. But for my daughter, you know, everything natural, it was a hospital birth. We didn't have home births in Iran. Surprisingly, everything is become medicalized. Whereas before, like to my mom's generation, you know, squatting was the position of birth, you know, home birth was the norm. Whereas as a midwife in Iran, I had never attended a home birth. I did my first home birth here as a doula in Canada.
SPEAKER_02It's so sad because you're right. I think the bottom line is we've stopped trusting our bodies, we've stopped trusting nature, we've stopped trusting our babies, we've stopped trusting everything. I mean, you can say the same thing about herbal medicine and homeopathy and everything too. We've stopped trusting all these things that aren't coming from a big medical system. And the truth is, all these things have been around a lot longer than these hospitals have. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00And that's where we have to take a step back and remind ourselves. Like again, big believer in the fact that in the both birth and breastfeeding, but because now I'm focusing more on breastfeeding, it's the fact to remind, like I tell everyone in my practice, you know, we're mammals. If they have a pet in their home, I say, Did when they have babies, do you take them to a vet? Do you bring a vet home to teach them how to breastfeed? And they laugh and they say, Well, that's as funny it is, that's how funny it is that I'm here. And I might be shooting myself in the foot by, you know, uh basically bankrupting myself by saying that you don't need a lactation consultant for the majority of not when there's you know anatomical problems, not when there's ties, not when there's a cleft palate. You know, those are different things. Those are off of the norms, just like the cesarean for my premature baby was needed. There are times that we need surgical or tools for breastfeeding, but not for most of the moms, not for most babies. That's where my frustration comes. So the majority of the moms that I see are coming for nipple pain. And Katie, please tell me if you've heard this before of healthcare providers telling moms, oh, of course it hurts. You've never done this before.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so often, and I just cringe. And I mean, that's like I'm creating a prenatal class right now with a chiropractor. And one of the things that I have like in big bold letters is it should not be painful to nurse. Yeah, not even in the beginning.
SPEAKER_00Not even in the beginning. And I take it. Yeah, exactly. These are the ones that I see, for example, again, they kind of because, well, thankfully, Canada's healthcare system is uh is basically very good, covers a lot of expenses for people don't have to pay out of pocket, but unfortunately lactation consultant isn't in it. But they usually come to me as a private lactation consultant when they've exhausted all their free resources. They're not really free, but they're not paying out of pocket. And um, when I see them at two weeks, three weeks with this is the scenario nipples damaged, they're using creams and nipple shield, their baby's not getting enough milk from the breast. It takes 40 minutes to feed, then they have to pump, then bottle feed the baby. And before you know it, you start the whole process again. And this mom, as you were saying before, like now has carpal tunnel syndrome, maybe sore neck. This baby, there is a fight, it's a battle between them. Why did this beautiful physiological function turn into a battle? And then all majority of the time, you can't believe the success rate of this approach of just hold the baby however you want to hold them and let baby do it. Like, even not naming cradle, um, laid back, sideline, koala hold, you know, anything, just hold the baby like you would be holding, walking, like naturally. One mom at once came to the door holding her baby, like on you know, in a cradle, the how you would walk with a baby. And then when she wanted to feed, she sat straight, the pillow, holding the breast, holding the baby awkwardly, you know, the cross idle, and shoved the baby's head into the breast or the breast into the baby's mouth. And and it hurt. Obviously, my first question is always, how does it feel? And uh she said, It hurts. Like if I ask her, this is a ridiculous question, but on a scale of zero to 10, how does it feel? 10 being the worst pain. And she goes, Can I say 11? And that is so when these are the moms I'm seeing. And then I told her, this specific mom that came to the door with her baby, I said, Why don't you just hold the baby how you were when you came to the door and opened the door? And she couldn't redo that because she was she was looking for instructions. She wasn't just instinctively how you would hold your baby. She she just couldn't, like she was so now we have a lot. I I don't worry about babies not doing being able to do all these. I'm always worried about moms unlearning all the things that they were taught before, right? That you have to do this and that. And believe it or not, I had her topless. I said, okay, now with her baby. I said, okay, can you just walk with her? And she got up and held the baby. And I said, okay, now. And then as she's standing, the baby just latched on. And it and I asked, and she goes, Oh, what? She just did that, and I wasn't even looking. And I said, Tell me how it feels. And she goes, This can't be true. She's not latched on, is she? And I said, What do you see? What do you see? She said, Oh my God, she's drinking. And it had no pain for her. I didn't do anything. I did not latch the baby. I didn't give her instruction. I said, do what you were doing. And that's where the whole key is to get out of baby's way. Let baby be in charge. And you know, baby latch in a comfortable position. And in my video, I explain how breastfeeding is not a mouth and nipple function. Because look, even in our books, Katie, in our references, if you ever want to see a explaining about latch, you see a close-up picture of a baby's mouth and the breast. Right. And not the whole breast, even just close-up.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02You don't see the baby's whole body and mom's whole body.
SPEAKER_00Whereas it's a whole body experience. Baby's whole body has to latch into mom's whole body. And once moms realize like a small turn, as you were saying before, like if the baby is, you know, her her belly is facing the ceiling and her face is facing the mom's chest, well, this is going to be very hard for her to swallow, right? And move her jaw. They have to move their jaw. They're not just suction. And uh and you just go, okay, make her comfortable. And how you would just naturally don't think about breastfeeding. As soon as you put away the breastfeeding instruction things, then the breastfeeding actually goes well. And then another thing is about duration, the instruction that is always given to mom, 15 minutes on one breast and 15 minutes on the other. So I'm always saying, what was the baby doing the first 15 minutes that still needed another 15 minutes? And most of them are also pumping or topping up with formula. So those 30 minutes weren't effective. Whereas when a baby has a good latch and mom has a good supply, which majority of the time that's the case, in you know, just default, a feeding can be done in five minutes. I'm not saying always take a baby back off at five minutes. So I have to clear clarify. I don't go by minutes, and one baby might need 15 minutes. But if it's not hurting and baby is actively moving jaw movements and swallowing, and then they pause. One of the things that moms, again, frustrations I have if the baby falls asleep at the breasts when they're hungry, not when they're done and satiated. That's different. Great if they fall asleep. Breast sleeping is beautiful. But if they're hungry, you put them to the breasts, you latch them, and it hurts. And then in a minute they fall asleep. Moms are told to stimulate the baby, use wet washcloths. Uh, I've one mom even said that uh she was told to put a spoon in the freezer and just touch the baby's, you know, uh legs with that frozen spoon to stimulate her to keep going, which get, I mean, I got chills when I heard that. Why would you torture a baby? So a reason that if a baby's not done and as soon as they start, they fall asleep, instead of poking them, look at the latch, look at milk transfer. If the reward is not worth it, so if they're burning more calories than the calories they're getting, for survival, they will shut down. Now, if we poke them, sucking is a reflex. They'll start moving their mouth. That doesn't mean they're drinking, they're not transferring milk, but they're just burning more calories. And then these are the babies who actually lose weight, although they were at the breast for half an hour. And then all of a sudden, the same midwife who was telling them to stimulate, you don't need to do anything, stay in bed for 24 hours and just, you know, feed the baby, which is beautiful. It's a beautiful advice. When the baby is doing it and when the latch is not painful, if it is, I mean, what is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. Right. And then these moms are these babies are keep moving, moving, moving, working, whereas not getting, and mom's nipples damage more, even more. And whereas you allow baby to latch if it's not painful. Now, if even if baby latches and it's painful, then that's I think that's when you should they should see a lactation consultant. Let's consider some oral restrictions. Uh, I'm a body worker, I see babies who have protocol this, they have a you know a difficult birth, they were four steps, vacuum, or cesarean, and they need more help. That's different. But overall, if a baby latches on by herself, it's almost always pain-free and they'll do a good job of transferring milk.
SPEAKER_02Because that's what they were meant to do, but too often we're so far in their way. You know, recently I've been taking this wonderful reflexes class, and I was talking with clients about it and explaining in more detail. I'll bring up the reflexes and talk about, you know, that that adorable palm palmer reflex where they, you know, it looks like they're holding your hand, and the parents are like, Yeah, that's the best thing. They make the best pictures. I'm like, okay, but that actually has a purpose. And they're like, really? And I'm like, yeah, it's not just to look adorable, it's actually to stimulate the letdown. And I will actually always say it's like a puppy or kitty, right? They, you know, massage to get the milk out, and they'll be like, Oh, and I'm like, So could we take off those mittens? Could we unswaddle the baby? Could we put their hands in the house?
SPEAKER_00Haven't you heard how many times have you heard mom saying, Oh, her hands in the way? Yes, or they tuck them underneath or someone else would be shoving the babies or or you know, just restricting the baby, putting the baby's hand down, uh, so that they could latch. And I always say, Why would nature put their own hands in their own way of survival? It's your in your way of latching, I agree. And in nature, moms don't latch the baby. Think of any mammal you want, it's always the baby latching, right? I mean, it's I'm not just talking about animals, like in cultures. Let's look at cultures that breastfeeding is going better. In my video, I interviewed Dr. Michel Audant, which I was surprised, beautiful. Like I was just fascinated that he even accepted my invite. For those who don't know, he's a one of the biggest advocates for natural birth, although he's an OB, he's French. And he mentions about birth. We're starting with the wrong question. If we we're seeing, oh, what happened to this birth that didn't go right? What happened? You know, we're always seeing looking at problems. Let's change the question. Let's see what's going on in those births that are happening smoothly. And then find those factors and bring it to other births. So I'm gonna steal that from him to change the question to breastfeeding. Instead of saying, oh, why is this baby having so challenges? Let's look at those women who are breastfeeding successfully. What are they doing? And let's bring those. It's like how there are books and uh now, you know, like iPodcasts and things about like successful uh entrepreneurs. What did they do to get there? Right? Right. We don't study while you know, I mean that they do study, but we usually don't go follow, see, okay, what did those people who weren't successful, what did they do wrong and all that? We we look at successful success and what what happened, what did they do? So just like in birth, we want to look at those who had a very gentle, whether home birth or hospital birth, you can have a very gentle, natural physiological birth at the hospital. But what happened? Let's look at that. Let's look at mom's mindset, let's look at the surrounding, the support, the interventions that weren't done, and you know, with the positions she got in. And then let's encourage that culture. That would be when we're gonna make changes. We want to look at those who've done it well.
SPEAKER_02The problem is there's this, you know, domino cascade. And the minute you start with one thing, then the all the others follow. And in birth, it frequently is that fetal monitoring because even when I've worked in hospitals that had the wireless where the moms could walk around, they stand up, they walk around, you're not getting the baby very well. And so then they'll just have mom go back in and sit in bed. And they'll say, Well, we just need to monitor. And the minute you get the mom in bed sitting, it's not a very comfortable place to labor. And before you know it, mom's asking for pain meds, right? And an ID and continuous monitoring and oxytocin, because then her pain meds slowed down labor and an epidural and all the interventions that happen, you know, one after the other. And the same thing can be said for breastfeeding. You know, too often I hear of a baby that, you know, didn't get to the breast initially. Maybe it went off and had its bath and everything done, and then six or eight hour mark hadn't really fed. And so the hospital wanted baby to have a little bit of formula.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then, you know, we just aren't getting to the breast and it's not going well, and mom's trying to pump and not get anything. And it's just one thing after another. And we just need to go back to that beginning. And it's like, if we could just start over, if we could just let things be more natural in the beginning, you know, I mean, there's I tell clients all the time in prenatal visits, I'm like, I always say, always, always, assuming everything is natural. Of course, if you're not breathing or you're bleeding or baby's not breathing, those things are absolutely a priority. Life is important. We will deal with the breastfeeding later, but everyone has to be alive. But if everyone's doing fine, there's nothing they need to take the baby for. And there's nothing I love telling moms too. I'm like, there's nothing you need to do. And they'll be like, well, don't I need to breastfeed a baby? And I'm like, no, it'll do it when it's ready. Baby will get there. But how about if you just rest? How about if you just lay there and gaze at your newborn and are in glowy amazement of this new human that is here that you have been dreaming of for 40 weeks, and now you're just gonna lay there and hold them. And that's all I'm gonna ask of you. That's it.
SPEAKER_00You know, and if we would just take so much off the mouth, their smell will start the whole, you know, cascade of a good, like the good cascade.
SPEAKER_02Right. But too often we give all these jobs to mom, and we're like, well, make sure that the baby gets latched and make sure that it transfers enough and make sure that it has a deep latch and make sure that its lips are flanged and make sure that you're doing, you know, that you're in the right position, and make sure this and this and this. And the four moms are like, I can't remember all this. I can't remember what to do.
SPEAKER_00Unfortunately, and a lot of moms cry when I see them. They say, I feel like I mean, I am a successful person, you know, I'm educated, but I feel so stupid. I can't remember any of the instructions that my midwife or my other lactation consultant or doctor has told me. And I say, You're not stupid, you're not supposed to remember and go by instructions. Who was it? Was it I think it was the Dr. Katherine Kendall Cathet about the left brain uh instructions kind of interfere with the right brain because breastfeeding is a right brain activity. It's very hard, not impossible, but very hard to do a right brain activity using your left brain. So let's do it right brain-wise.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're not supposed to be this intellectual, you know, this is not this crazy difficult intellectual task that we need to attack with, you know, spreadsheets and sticky notes and a plan of action. We just need to feel. We need to be in our bodies and feel and not overthink.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. It's sad that such a simple thing. I mean, majority of the moms I see, I just let them, I say, just lie down. I love the laid back biological nurturing. I mean, the term biological nurturing is basically trademarked by uh Suzanne Colson, right? But just laid back, let baby do it. It's just fascinating. And majority of the times that helps, that gets the problem, that gets, you know, I rarely see my clients more than once. And if I do, it's mostly because it's too good to be true, unless they have tongue tie and they need rehabilitation and all that. That's different. But majority of the moms I see, most of the times their second time that they come is basically because they can't believe it's too good to be true. They say, How can it be? It's just like a six-minute feed and he's done. And I say, How does it feel? Good, no pain. How's his diapers? Good, lots of peas, lots of poos. Then why are you surprised? Why do you want it? Do you want it to be longer? I'm not saying every five-minute feed is a good feed. I'm saying it can be right uh uh good. Either way, it's not real, it doesn't, it's doesn't matter how long it takes.
SPEAKER_02It matters how active the baby is. Can you hear and see swallowing? Do your breasts feel heavier before the feed and lighter after? You know, does baby come off happy?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Satiated that milk drunk milk coma. Um, I've had so many moms say, I've never seen this face because the baby is always even if they get a lot of milk, they work their butt off to get those that milk. So they're not happily satiated. Yes, they got the milk they needed, but they're exhausted. They're burning some of the calories on the spot. And so it's just allowing baby to do its thing.
SPEAKER_02It's a beautiful thing. And I think unfortunately, we get in the way so much. And I unfortunately too, I see a lot of products get in the way too. You know, I mean, I think there's so much in the United States, and I'm not sure if it's you know similar or not in Canada, but in the United States, we have a lot of moms that are they're looking for that answer of how do I do this, right? You've got a ton of people who have higher education and they're nervous, they're older, they hear all these stories and they want, they want to do a good job. And so they're and I think there's very much a commercial instinct in the US where it's like, well, there's got to be a product for that. There's got to be something that makes it easier, right? And so, you know, we do. We have all these things. We have the snoo that will rock your baby so you don't have to hold it. And we have the breastfeeding pillow so that you can sit up and breastfeed and you don't have to hold your baby. And we have, you know, nipple shields and we have all of these. I mean, they're even coming out now. I've been seeing a bunch of breast milk detection, like breast milk test kits for testing how many calories are in your milk and what quality it is. And I just cringe and I'm I'm so outraged because the more that those come out, the more that we undermine women's trust in their bodies, the more that we tell them that they're not adequate, the more that we tell them that they're not enough. And yeah, it they're doing it and they're selling products and everything else. But the more this happens, the more we have these families falling apart because these, you know, these moms don't know how to trust themselves. And so they go down this whole path. And like you said, formula is a wonderful thing. And there are babies and humans on this earth that would not be here without it. And I am absolutely, you know, I'm I have clients that I have supplementing right now. Like I am absolutely not against supplementing. There are definitely times we need it, but I also think it's very important to not downplay the risks of it either. As humans, breast milk is meant to be our first food. It we're really meant to breastfeed for years, not months, right? To get that airway development, that oral facial development, to have that protection through years. There's so many reasons, but it's it just blows my mind right now with the way that it is thought of in this country and the way that we just push products at things instead of support, you know, and people constantly will want to give out these baby gifts and everything. And I'm like, could you could you just offer support to the family? You know, deliver a meal, take their dog for a walk.
SPEAKER_00That's what I teach in my prenatal classes. This is what I always say, you know, you for your baby shower on your registry, ask for a meal train, you know, ask for meals, ask for a postpartum doula, ask for a gift certificate to a lactation consultant. I mean, why? I mean, I had a client who said her one of the gifts was nipple shields and lanolin. Okay. If you need those, there are they're good things, but if you need them, you should be seeing a lactation consultant.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah. And too often those are the go-to things. You know, I'll have clients ask me at prenatals, well, which which bottles and which, you know, nipple shields and everything should I buy? And I'm like, you just said you wanted to exclusively breastfeed. And they said, well, yeah, but I'm assuming that's not gonna go that easily. So what bottle nipple shield should I get? And I'm like, let's start from a place of thinking it can go well, right? And they just can't. They're I think systematically we are told that we are not competent to have these babies to feed them, to do everything else, and not always in those words, sometimes actually, but a lot of times it's all the other little things, right? It's the products, it's the message, it's from the OBs and the pediatricians, it's you know, it's all of it. And we are just not, you know, no one stops and says, it's okay. Your body knows what to do. We'll be here if you need us, right? We'll we'll watch and we'll make sure your pregnancy and birth and and you know, postpartum goes well, but your body knows what to do. I mean, I I don't know if you've read them, but I'm a huge Outlander fan. They're historical fiction books set in the 1700s. And there was a couple scenes in them where women were having babies. It happens a couple of different times. I mean, people have babies. And I always find it fascinating when she talks about how different birth was back then and feeding and everything, and coming at it with this like 20th century, you know, really industrialized world view. And they would just, you know, be working at home and then they would stop and go up and, you know, walk around the bedroom, sit and do things and, you know, squat a lot, right? Have the baby. And then before you know it, they're in their nursing and everyone is coming in and saying hi. And, you know, the next day, mom's wearing the baby in a sling, walking around nursing off and on, whenever they want throughout the day. Like it's so different. And it just makes me so sad that it's like, how did we get from there, which was thousands of years of humanity and humans and mammals just being born and fed and breathing and walking and all these things, right? How did we get from there to where we are now, to where we think we need to teach everything? I mean, even things like crawling and walking. And I have parents saying to, you know, I need to teach them how to walk. And I'm like, no, no, you don't need to teach the baby how to walk. Stand back, they will do it when they're ready. All we really need to do is get out of their way. There are these things that are innate that we have reflexes for, we have instinct, we have thousands of years of DNA guiding us. And yet, in these last couple hundred years, we have this idea that we need to teach everything and that we need to control and do everything. And I'm like, we wouldn't be here if you had to teach that.
SPEAKER_00I always say you don't need to be an obstetrician, you don't need to be an embryologist to grow a fetus, you don't need to be an uh obstetrician to give birth, you don't need to be a lactation consultant to breastfeed your baby.
SPEAKER_02Right. I mean, this whole concept that women can't trust their bodies and their babies, and it's just it's just really sad. And I think that we just need to get out of the way a lot more. We need to stop swaddling babies, we need to stop the mittens, we need to stop these really funky, weird positions. But we also really at the heart of it, I think need to go back to what you say too that we don't latch the baby. Let them do what they do. Babies never.
SPEAKER_00We never, I mean, the positions that are taught, mostly number one, what I see is cross cradle and then football hole. The positions that I see, how They handle the baby. And I've not from moms alone. When I was a doula, I'm not a doula anymore, but when I was a doula and I was there at the hospital right after birth, the I can say almost aggressive, like this is the term that my clients even use that they say they were so aggressive and just push the baby, we shove the baby. When do we ever care for a baby like that? When do we bathe a baby so harsh? When do we change their diaper so harsh that we do with breastfeeding? Or the terms that is even used. Like I heard this that wait for a big wide open mouth, like a cobra. And then as soon as that open, that much opens, put the you know, basically, uh, basically shove the nipple in their mouth.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I keep hearing later.
SPEAKER_00What do you expect from a cobra at your breast? You would expect pain. Yeah, but I keep hearing later.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, I keep hearing all the time lately that clients are told in the hospital, just shove with love, just take that baby's head and shove it on. And it's so wrong on so many levels. And I'm like, well, I can diagram all this, but the bottom line is baby knows what to do. So let's leave baby alone. But I also show them too. I mean, a lot of times when they're shoving these kids on, they're really flexing in their heads. Try to open your mouth with your chin against your chest.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. It's not gonna go well. And uh and um I I forget names, I apologize if I'm making, but I think it's Catherine Watson uh that she that in my video is also there about when I speak about the head. But it's all like all mammals when they nurse, they have to have their heads either neutral or extended back, tilted back, like as you were saying, because they don't just suck. I tell my clients always they that this they're not like sucking on a straw, they have to move their tongue. That's why if there's tongue tie, they have breastfeeding issues. Basically, with that position, we make all babies almost like tongue tie because we're restricting. I want those who are listening just because breastfeeding, if you think of it, is like eating an ice cream cone, like the tongue motion and jaw motion, licking an ice cream, and pretend tilt your head down, chin down, and do the jaw movements, like lick the ice cream and see how limited. Look, if I do that now, you see my speech change. I've tilted my head down. Why did my speech change? Because the range of movement of my tongue changed. Now it's my neutral head and my tongue is moving correctly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, it's I think there's so many, so many issues with it. But I, you know, we don't people don't realize how much the tongue does and how important positioning is and all of this. But I think the bottom line is in 80, 90% of the cases that we see, if we just went back to the basics and let the baby do this, they'd be fine. Exactly. You know, and it's really sad that, you know, this is what I wish they were doing in hospitals. And in like my, you know, in my dream world where everything happens beautifully, this would happen in hospitals or even better in home births. And we would prevent so many problems. And then the ones who were left with, you know, cleft palate, anatomical ties, other issues, you know, low tone, I mean, just different things that are they're having other issues and it gets past this, then we step in, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_02But the first line should be let's treat everything moving forward as a natural, like you said, like all other mammals do. I mean, when your dog has puppies, do you go over and start pumping out the milk and give it to the baby in a bottle? No, right? You know that that puppy will feed, you know, and occasionally there's one that isn't doing as well and may need to get kind of work its way in there and do better and stuff like that. But we don't, we don't need to teach the mama dog how to nurse. She just lays there and the kids come and get on. And she's so exhausted that of course that's what she's going to do.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. We have a term in Farsi. Uh, and and just so to be clear, I'm not saying everything we do in Iran is good. Okay. I ran away from that culture in that country. But the breastfeeding part, at least it was working well. And I mean, now people are, you know, watching YouTube videos, and who makes that? Does a rural African woman make that uh YouTube video? No, sadly not. Exactly. So the instructions are they're going by some instructions now, but before, and definitely like in my mother's generation or you know, when I was born, what we have like a term that we say, if someone is constantly like not pregnant or anything, if someone is just always the constantly walking around aimlessly, you know, a child who just constantly runs around, or someone who's a lot of people, my own sister has this habit of when she's talking on the phone, she has to keep walking. And so what we tell them is that, are you in labor? Because we assume that's the that's the what it looks like when you're in labor, you should be walking. And get this when someone, even a man, if they're constantly in bed, okay, they're not getting out of bed, they're sleeping in, they're just having a lot of naps. We say, Have you just had a baby? So our expectation is that when you're in labor, you're upright and walking and mobile. When you have a baby, you're in bed. Now, can you see any similarity here? It's exactly the other way around. How many new moms do you see that up and running and walking and doing everything and not in bed with their baby or just recovering from birth, even if breastfeeding is whether they're bottle feeding formula, even if they plan formula feeding, you still have to. I mean, I love the English word for labor, labor. It's hard work, probably the hardest work anyone would do. And uh, but if they had cesarean, they're recovering from major surgery, and yet they're you know walking and doing things and picking up stuff. And so it has to, I mean, the amount of money people spend on vacations, on wedding planning and photography and even newborn photography, I think we should, you know, if focus it on, for example, that postpartum doula that provides care to you. I mean, if you can do all of them, that's perfect. I'm not against anyone spending spending, don't spend money on vacations. But if you have a limit, wouldn't you think that would be priority when people ask me, is your is your services covered by MSP, which is our our you know government funded insurance? And I say unfortunately not. And some people, well, don't they can't afford it. But uh, but no one asks wedding wedding planner if their services are covered by any kind of insurance, no one asks the uh baby store if the stroller is covered by MSP in our case, by insurance. It's a given that you need it, you buy it, you pay for it. You want your wedding to be beautiful, go ahead and expend, spend so much money and make it beautiful. That's your dream. But we want to do the same, like bring change the mindset that really you shouldn't be paying for the most important person in your life or your own, like a woman who out of 10, her pain level on her nipple is 11. That's so sad. Or every time she feeds, she she breasts, she nurses her baby, she's biting on something so that she doesn't scream to scare the baby. That is not a healthy relationship. I would encourage that mom if she can't fix the problem, wean and even go to formula feeding because her mental well-being is much more valuable for her own sake, but also for her baby.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's just, I think it's just so sad because everything is so intertwined as as it is with the whole pregnancy birth. And really, I I mean the dyad is really that first whole year at life. Yes. But it's it's so intertwined, and we just need to get back to that beginning. And that's, I mean, that's why I love prenatal visits, right? I mean, when you have a prenatal, it's so nice to be able to talk to them before. And I had this client earlier this year that we did a prenatal, and then I saw her postpartum, and she had insurance-covered visits, and so I saw her multiple times, but literally after the first visit that I saw her, I was like, you know, I everything's going really great. Yeah, it's okay if you don't use all your visits right now. And she's like, Well, I just want to see you again next week.
SPEAKER_00And I was like, Okay, yeah, well, it helps with confidence. That's the most important. And I had a dad, I had a dad once say, I think I one of the best feedbacks I got was from a dad who, when the visit was finished and I was leaving, he said, You know, Shaz, you're not a lactation consultant. And I was just like, I was surprised I said, I'm sorry, why what? And he goes, Yeah, we've seen other lactation consultants. That's what they do, they consult. You don't consult, you you're a lactation enabler. And God did he make my day. God, I it was amazing because that's my mission, right? I don't want to, I want to teach them fishing. I don't want to give them a fish, hand them a fish.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. I mean, their goal is never, I tell moms that all the time. Even if I'm seeing someone once a week, I'm like, that's one feed out of what, like 80, which is why I can see clients virtually, and people say, really? And I'm like, of course, because I don't need my hands. They don't need me to come over and move the baby. That is not my job. My job is to teach the parents what to do. I use my words, I talk to them, I teach them about reflexes and positioning and how to let the baby do all of this. But honestly, it's easier for me in some ways virtually because I'm too tempted to help when I'm in person. Yeah. Right. And I'm too tempted to move that baby, and that'll help them, this feed. But what happens when I'm gone? What happens for the next eight years?
SPEAKER_00That's what I teach my students when I have a mentorship program and I teach them, or when I was teaching at the college to nurses, it's like no matter how well you support a mom and you latch the baby beautifully for them, are you going to be able to do that every feed? Are you going to go home with them? Right.
SPEAKER_02I mean, the goal is to help them so that they feel better, that they can do this, that they have the skills. It's not our job to get the baby on for them.
SPEAKER_00Another uh misinformation that is like constantly going around is one of was it about one of it was about time, like duration at the breast. Well, first of all, about that also I forgot to mention like if you take a cup of if you take a cup to fill and the tap is dripping, you just get and it takes like two minutes to fill that cup. And then if the flow is regular, you just take two seconds and fill that cup. Does that mean the two-minute one was better than the two-second one? It's about transfer. It's all about transfer. I have when with my students, I take like I show them about like I give them actually a cup of water, one with a straw, uh, you know, that is not, you know, a regular straw, and another one that I've cut a hole in it, and one that is, you know, intact, the student just sucks up, you know, drinks all the drink, all the water. The other one is just struggling. And you know, say, yeah, you said you had the same amount of water, but why did yours didn't that tire you? How's yours? Your lips feel uh after all that. So that's one thing about duration and then intervals. Feed your baby every two to three hours, and a lot of the times three hours, that's what is told. But when do we ever do you drink water? I mean, they come to the breast to quench their thirst as well. And do you always drink water in a specific interval? Another time they might come to warm their body, they're cold, they come to the breast, the nipple acts like a thermometer, picks up their temperature, regulates their temperature. They might be cold, they might be warm, they might need antibodies. Can we put a time restraint on that? Oh, you're like if a three-year-old comes to their mom and says, I'm thirsty, do you look at your watch? You just give them the water. You can't say it's not time for water. I understand. If they want a cookie right before in lunch, that's different. But if we're thinking of the breastfeed, the breast quenches their thirst as well. That's very important to consider that there is really no fixed interval and fixed duration for feedings. Another one is how the latch looks. Oh, the latch looks amazing. Asymmetrical flanged lips, but it's hurting. Oh, that's okay. You'll get used to it. You'll, you know, your nipples will toughen up. This is wrong. I beg lactation consultants, nurses, midwives, doctors, stop saying these things. The moms who have the worst damaged nipples are the ones who have been told the latch looks perfect. And it did look perfect. I see it, and it looks perfect to that standard. But how it looks does not tell us what it's doing. It's how it feels. If any expecting mom or new mom is listening, you want it to not hurt, actually be enjoyable, not just not hurt. Oh, it's tolerable. No, enjoyable because that's when your oxytocin and everything flows and and baby is actively jaw movements, regardless of what it looks like.
SPEAKER_02Right. I mean, I tell moms all the time because they'll say the same thing. Well, how's it look to you? And with video, they'll be like, Can we bring the camera in real close? And I'm like, you know, it's okay. It really doesn't matter how it looks. I'm, you know, you tell me how does it feel? What does it feel like their tongue's doing? Is the tongue doing this little tiny flutter? You know, are we compressing the jaws on you? Are we having a deep tug and pull? Like, do you feel a letdown? Some moms do, some moms don't. You know, I never feel following. I didn't either. And I nursed for over four years combined, and I never felt a single letdown. So I tell moms that too. I say it doesn't matter. I'm just curious. Um, but you know, it's all about mom and baby. And it's all about how does it feel for the mom? And then I'll ask them too, how do you think it feels for baby? Do they look relaxed?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, you see babies sometimes with their eyebrows raised and they're just like, you're trying very hard. Or yeah, I once went to a client. I had to take my son. I asked them, he was he was younger, and again, he has Down syndrome. So most people are fine with bringing him uh to sessions with me, uh, before COVID, obviously. But he was maybe about eight or nine, and we went to uh a mom, the baby was having a very hard time transferring milk, and his eyes were wide open, eyebrows you know, completely up and rise. And then my son, the first thing, so now as soon as that happened, and I haven't even started asking if how it feels or anything, and my son, with limited words and language, he says, Oh, he looks surprised. So he noticed the baby because he has seen other babies breastfeed. He can be a lactation consultant. He has seen other babies breastfeed, and so when he saw that this baby's face looked, as he said, surprised, to him, it was different. And that's one of the things that I always teach my students is that you have to know what a normal breastfeeding looks like, feels like, how it behaves in order to find the abnormal. Like if Katie, you're special you're an expert in tongue tie. If you don't know how a normal tongue functions, how can you find a tongue that doesn't work normally? Right. You have to start with the normal. We should all start there. Exactly. And if you know how what the normal is, then whenever I and I teach in my just last night, I have a prenatal class, and I say, well, you don't need to be a mechanic to drive your car, you don't need to know about all the you know, mistitis, the uh antibiotics, the block ducks, all these things. You don't need to be a mechanic to drive your car, but you have to know what a good running car feels like, sounds like, works. And then when it doesn't sound right, I mean, now with newer cars, you know, lights and everything will tell you what's wrong, what, but before, uh, you know, you'd know that, oh, this is a sound right, this doesn't feel right. And you take it to the mechanic and hopefully they can diagnose it. Right. But if we don't know the norms, when are we going to well?
SPEAKER_02I just loved your documentary. And I think that the more providers we can get to watch that, the more we are going to get back to that finding that normal and starting from a place of normal instead of starting from a place of abnormal. And if we do that, we could really cut down on these numbers and really, you know, maybe see enough clients and give enough support and help. But if we started with the idea that babies know what to do, let's just give them a chance and get out of the way.
SPEAKER_00You know how much money that will save hospitals and insurances of longer stays because of jaundice or re-admitting because of dehydration.
SPEAKER_02Um I mean, that's not even all the other things that we can't quite calculate in terms of, you know, kids that don't get the benefits of breastfeeding and you know, have other childhood issues and health issues and different things. It's like we can't even you can't even calculate all of that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, no. I mean, I wish someone would the effects of bottle feeding and uh uh the form form of the palate of all that, and how much dental you know, braces and all that will cost families. And and it's just there's so much, there's so much. And the funny thing is that we have to sell this idea, basically, that breastfeeding is normal, which is kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_02Again, we'll go back to your theme. We are mammals, we're mammals, we know how to do this. So I thank you so much for your time. I think not only for your time joining me today, but the time and effort you put into making that. And I just hope that we can get more and more providers watching that and learning from it and getting them thinking, really just open up that thought process in them to where they're gonna start going, oh, yeah, kittens and dogs know what to do. That's true, huh? You know, and I just think that the more we can do that, the better we can serve families and decrease, you know, obstacles in their way. So I'm just so eternally grateful for you joining me today to get this word out.
SPEAKER_00You likewise. I'm very happy. It was an honor. Thank you. And I appreciate the opportunity to spread this word.
SPEAKER_02When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change you. I hope that you enjoyed the podcast today and learned something new. If you know someone who would benefit from this podcast, please share.