Julia - Jaundice, high needs feeding, milk coming in after the loss of a baby, antenatal milk expression

Julia Neale is a mum of three, with two living children, and originally from the suburbs of Toronto, Canada. She now calls Switzerland, home. She is a former international primary school teacher, and is now a prenatal educator.

Julia’s takes me through her three experiences with breast milk and feeding.  Her first baby was born at 36 weeks, hospitalized for jaundice and heavily supplemented with formula in the early days. Her goal initially was to breastfeed for 18 months but after the first few days that goal got moved to 6 weeks. Luckily things did take a turn for the positive and they breastfeed for 20 months, despite bouts of mastitis and thrush.
 
Julia gracefully shares with me the journey of her second baby, who sadly was born at 24 weeks due to a fatal fetal diagnosis. Julia chose to share this story of saying goodbye to her baby and to her milk supply. She describes the internal dialogues to choose what to do when her milk came in; take a medication to stop the milk or pump and donate it?
**Please note this discussion takes place at around 35mins in to this episode.
 
When Julia’s third baby came she was concerned whether her breasts would still be able to work after having taken the medication called Dostinex to stop her milk last time.  

Julia discusses how she decided to antenatally express colostrum after receiving a diagnosis of Gestational Diabetes, but found it to be a horrible experience, one that made her feel she had somehow, damaged her breast tissue by taking the Dostinex – she describes this as manufactured mom guilt which needed a lot of unpacking.  Julia tells me how in the end she went on to breastfeed for 18 months happily. 

Join us in this beautiful, emotional, but important episode on The Feeding Couch.

LINKS:
Julia's website 
Socials: @happy.day.ch

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