Hi, I'm Avery Young, and this is the Nourished Young Podcast. From the subway train to the soccer field, everywhere I go, people have a story to tell me about their experience feeding and caring for their new baby, and so I decided it was time to amplify those voices so we can all know what's real and what's possible, and make those who are beginning their parenting journey feel a little less alone.
01:13 - Jahni
Hi, Avery, I'm really happy to be here.
01:17 - Avery
So why don't you start? Because you have a really interesting story. So why don't you just sort of start by giving us a brief rundown of where you started and then kind of where you ended up?
01:28 - Jahni
Okay, well, I had my baby six weeks early because of a partial placental detachment. We rushed to the ER and had him within a couple of hours of getting into the hospital. He was taken to the NICU where he spent about five days. So, it was a relatively short stay in the NICU, but during that time he had to be on a feeding tube and was bottle-fed throughout the entire time that he was there.
01:59
I did begin pumping and expressing breast milk, and we gave him breast milk through a bottle whenever possible. But because he was so underweight in struggling to meet his feeding quota, we were giving him breast milk through a bottle only and very minimal attempts at breastfeeding. And then we brought him home on day five. He was home with us for about five days before he returned to the hospital, needing another feeding tube. He was struggling to maintain his body temperature and he was struggling to maintain his weight, so we spent a week in the children's hospital after that, where again we reverted back to bottle feeding to make sure that he was getting enough food so that he could thrive. And so, because his first few weeks were so abrupt and scary, for everybody.
03:03
Yeah, it was gut-wrenching, not necessarily having him early was really easy to come to terms with but being separated from him while he was in the hospital.
03:13 - Avery
I cannot imagine the stress that that takes and the emotional toll that plays.
03:21 - Jahni
It was so severe that I ended up breaking out in shingles, which you only break out in shingles when your body is under severe stress. So, like my body was at war with itself because of how stressful this whole situation was, I say like every birth is traumatic. Being separated from a child is barbaric.
03:48 - Jahni
That's the only way I can describe our experience. Luckily, I am fortunate enough to have access to a therapist, and so I have worked a lot on processing the trauma, and so it's a lot easier for me to talk about this now than had you caught me 10 months ago when this first happened. There would not be coherence, since I spent a lot of time really struggling. So, Sebastian is 10 months old now and we worked with so many lactation consultants. I kept getting referred up the ladder. I ended up with the head of breastfeeding Madison in the Children's Hospital where we live, and we just couldn't get him to latch.
04:41
We had very minor, infrequent successes over the first six months of his life where once every three weeks or so, I would get a little bit of a suckle, and I was. I was just determined that we would have a breastfeeding relationship. I tried all the hoops and whistles. I tried taping feeding tubes to my nipples. I tried to sleep feeding him, I tried it when he was awake or playful, and, like every, every angle, every position, every consultant I could get to, I went to La Leche League meetings, and it wasn't until he was four months old that I actually attended my first La Leche League and that's when I met a lactation consultant outside of the hospital network that we had been working with and I didn't know that my hospital network refused to identify or treat tongue ties and he had four very severe tongue ties to the point that he wasn't able to even use a regular bottle. We had to buy bottles with these flat nipples because he was having to use his jaw to get the milk out of the bottle.
05:55 - Avery
It's amazing to me that you went through that many professionals and nobody noticed that compensation of feeding, not just that he couldn't latch from you, but that he couldn't feed from a bottle in any sort of functional way.
06:11 - Jahni
He was in such severe pain from the gas, that feeding the way he was feeding because he didn't have the motor skills his tongue needed to swallow effectively and so he was swallowing tons of air while he was eating. And so, he had such severe gas pains that I was on the phone with my doctor, like calling the doctor, bringing him in at least twice a week. They finally took him to have an abdominal X-ray and blood work to see if he had food allergies because it was so severe. I was also meeting with a new lactation consultant who specialized in nutrition to help me figure out what foods to cut out to help with his gas. As soon as we ended up having the tongue ties released, his abdominal pain went away instantly.
07:08
The doctor had prescribed us to do laxatives and rectal stimulation and all of that. It didn't feel right to me, so I wasn't doing it. I did the rectal stem once or twice the second time. Not, he didn't poop, and I was like, he doesn't have anything in his stomach to poop. He is using every single ounce of milk he gets from me. He's growing so fast. So, I ended up switching pediatric groups, but I'm really happy because I was looking so intently for help with breastfeeding. I was able to find help with a bigger problem for my child, which was the tongue ties and being in a hospital network that refused to identify a very, very common situation for newborns.
08:02 – Avery
I hope you give yourself credit for trusting yourself because my guess is that there was a lot of pushback against your thoughts along the way and there was just missing.
08:13 - Jahni
There absolutely was. I was actually with the head of the breastfeeding medicine, so this is the absolute top doctor specializing in breastfeeding in my area in my metropolitan area there is not a more decorated doctor who specializes in breastfeeding than this woman and I told her I'm going to go meet with a pediatric dentist to have them examine his mouth. And she said why would you do that? They're going to cut tongue ties, regardless of if they find them or not if you go there. And so, I shared that when I went to the way La Leche League and the woman who was hosting it she was a lactation consultant herself she said she wouldn't have said that if she didn't see them.
09:01 - Avery
Oh, she even assessed him. Did she look in his mouth at all?
09:06 - Jahni
All she did was she had him stuck on his her finger, her gloved finger, and she said I don't feel any issues with his, with his sucking, but he had, he had three buckles so he wasn't able to lift his top lip at all his.
09:26
He had a posterior tongue tie, so that's like a buried tie on the bottom back of his tongue. He wasn't able to touch his tongue to the roof of his mouth. So, he didn't have the tongue tie function. When we had the ties released, the dentist said had you not done this, he would have never been able to make the K sound like the hard C or the K sounds so this also helped his future with avoiding speech pathology. And it's crazy to me because I had also met with speech pathologists. I also met with occupational therapists everyone because breastfeeding was like the only thought I had once my baby got here was, I wanted to breastfeed him and, spoiler alert, he doesn't breastfeed, thinking like oh my God, I'm going to get the tips and tricks on how this woman finally got her baby to breastfeed it. It happened for five days. I got him to breastfeed five times in a row and that's it.
10:40 - Avery
We're at ten months, which is actually a remarkable story because let's flesh that out a little bit you got him to latch when he was nine months old. He didn't stay latching for a long time, but he hadn't latched for months and months, and months, and then he actually latched at that period of time. In hindsight, are you glad that you had that experience, or do you think it reset that emotional?
11:07 - Jahni
Both, both, absolutely both. I'm so glad I had that experience because I was desperate for it. I think I was so fixated on breastfeeding, and I know it's a very strong natural urge to want to feed your baby the way that mammals have historically been feeding babies, I know that there is some sort of biological urge that was fueling my desire. But I also think that my desire to breastfeed him also came because he came so early and I felt so guilty that my body had failed him, so I wanted my body to be able to provide for him, and I just had this very intent desire for this to happen. And so, when it finally did happen my husband has a video of a short video where he latches. I look up at my husband and I'm just in awe, shaking my head and I have tears down my face. It was magical and I would love for it to happen again.
12:21
But what happened during those five days was at the point where I tried again at nine months. My son and I were lying on the bed and we were having fun just talking to one another and playing, and I just sensed that he wanted a stronger bond and so I was like now's the time, just try it. And I tried it and he breastfed and that was when it started. And so, for the next five days, I offered my breast again once a day and he gladly breastfed for those five days and then on day six he started his severe breast refusal again and I had an emotional breakdown where I was devastated and crying so, so, so badly and I was like I cannot approach this again.
13:24 - Avery
Yeah.
13:25 - Jahni
I have too much of an emotional expectation of this tiny human and I don't want to feel let down because he's not doing what I want him to do, and he doesn't have a choice in this matter. He is not trying to be like suck it, mommy.
13:47 - Avery
Or not. Suck it, mommy.
13:49 - Jahni
Yeah, yeah so, I just came to the decision that, like for me and my son's relationship, I have to take breastfeeding off the table until I could approach it again level-headed. And so, he just turned 10 months old. It was at eight months old that he breastfed because I didn't try while we were gone for seven weeks. So, it has been seven weeks since I have tried. He just grew two teeth and I am not sticking my nipple near those!
14:24 – Avery
I think the fact that maybe you feel like you don't have to like is a huge step forward for you, that you don't need to anymore.
14:45 - Jahni
I don't have that urge anymore. I really enjoy the way we do feedings now. He started solid foods and that is just so joyful to watch him try new things. And then I pump. I'm still pumping, I'm actually pumping right now.
15:02
I don't know if you can hear the like zzzzzzz, zzzzzzz, zzzzzzz going on in the background, but I still express breast milk and so he gets not much because I don't produce much now, but we have a frozen milk stash as well, so we're combo feeding. He's getting it all. He's getting formula, frozen and fresh, anything we can give him, but he's taking it through a bottle. And it's just so sweet now that he's older because while he's eating, he'll put his hand in my mouth or like touch my cheek or play with my necklace, and it's a conversation we're having where, as when he was so little, I felt just so rejected by him and it took a lot of processing for me to even be able to talk about it like this. It used to tear me to pieces even to have conversations about our breastfeeding struggles.
16:05 - Avery
So yeah, I think the therapy that you've done is so important. I wanted to talk about that for a second because I think so much we tell new mothers that they don't need therapy unless they have postpartum depression or significant postpartum anxiety, and I think we like to minimize the trauma that really happens. But your baby's healthy. Yes, but your baby's fat, but right. And this is a real trauma response that we should acknowledge and give ourselves the grace and ability to get help for that because it's real.
16:45 - Jahni
It is so real. And if a mom is listening to this and they keep getting the yes/but from people, stop talking to those people. Just find someone who will listen. Because what's happening when people yes/but you, they're just missing what you're going through and they're not listening because, like, for example, I saw at least eight professionals in that one hospital network who don't diagnose tongue ties and I did not know? That hospital network refused to mention them. So had I not trusted my instincts and went outside of the network, I don't know where we would be right now with my son because he was really, really struggling physically. And so, if you're getting yes/but from anyone, just talk to someone else. You don't have to that person they suck, you just share your story with someone else who listens. But as far as therapy goes, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
17:51
But I also know that that's coming from a position of privilege Because I have health insurance and I can see, yeah, of a therapist and so I know that's not accessible to everybody yeah but what I've been doing with my therapist is learning a lot of grounding techniques because I had really severe PTSD. So, I worked a lot with grounding techniques because I was having such severe flashbacks to the NICU and to my baby being taken from me and nightmares like per month I had a recurring nightmare from the operating room that they take the baby out of the room and that's it's not my baby anymore and so, horrible, horrible nightmares. So my therapist taught me some grounding techniques, which you can look up on YouTube. They're really great strategies if anyone else is struggling. You feel three things, you hear two things, you smell one thing, you taste.
19:26
It was an amazing strategy. But then for the processing, a lot of journaling. That's why it helped me get through that and I've had a lot, a lot of therapy sessions talking about my breasts because I feel like they've really let me down, I'm really self-conscious about them and they've changed a lot since becoming a mother like they look and feel no different, everything, and so coping with my body image since becoming a mother, that's been really valuable, because I was having a lot of really negative thoughts about the way my breasts look and my therapist kept pushing like why is that? And it all came back to my inability to breastfeed my child and I thought it made the connection that my negative body image was connected to breastfeeding.
20:22 - Avery
So, it sounds like your sense of self is connected to your ability to have breastfed your baby.
20:39 - Jahni
Definitely. It really felt like a major failure for a very long time. I'm not sure when I started to come to terms with this situation and I'm not sure how to give anyone advice on how to come to terms with the situation, but, being on the other side of this, I wouldn't go back.
21:04 - Avery
So tell me about Sebastian, because it turns out that you have an amazing bond with him.
21:12 - Jahni
Yes, yes, he is such a sweet boy. He just started saying his first word and his first word was mama, and now he just spends all of his time when he's talking. Whatever he's doing, he'll play with a toy, or if he's fussing, or it doesn't matter. Happy, sad, angry, he's just sitting there, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama. We'll be driving in the car and he's just mom.
21:45 - Avery
He's also a trooper, like let's give him all the credit for like oh my God, this kid is amazing.
21:51 - Jahni
Right, he's such a trooper, he's been through a lot. He's been through a lot and a little bit of time, but my dad always says he doesn't care. My sisters and I were all pregnant at the same time and my niece was over the other day and she's a little bit younger than Sebastian. She breastfeeds. None of my other siblings had any struggles whatsoever with her kids. It's breastfeeding and latching which I was very jealous for a very long time. And I think I still am a little bit, I think I still have a little bit of a jaded tone when I say that.
22:35 - Avery
What if it's okay? I think that we expect ourselves to only have one emotion instead of giving yourself permission to have lots of them at the same time, and they don't negate each other, right?
22:49 - Jahni
That's, that's definitely true, and that's something that I learned. I'm 35 years old and I think I learned that when I was 34 years old. I still have to keep reminding myself. Well, you're ahead of when I was at the same time, but my niece was running around the house crawling and touching every single toy and I think that in one spot with one toy the whole time, like he's just not bothered by any as he's screaming.
23:23 - Avery
What I love more is that you're not running after him. His dad's got him, his co-parent’s got this, right? I think that's pretty cool too.
23:36 - Jahni
It is cool. It is cool and I think that's like, in the beginning, going from a newborn to a baby who's thriving, or going from a preemie to a baby who's thriving, and giving yourself the mental break, I'm much happier at this stage than I was in the early days.
24:04 - Avery
I'm so glad for you, and I'm so happy to see how your sense of self and boundaries about your body is coming from a place of self-advocacy, and I think that's amazing, thank you, thank you. So, if you have anything, words of wisdom or something you wish someone had told you to share with a new parent, what would that be?
24:33 - Jahni
When I was a new parent, no matter what anybody told me, I didn't want to listen to it, unless it was what I wanted to hear. So, I had a lot of people tell me just bottle feed him, just give up on the breastfeeding. It's not going to happen for you, and it didn't. But I wish that I didn't have those people say those things to me. So, I think my advice would be to just know what you want and be okay with wanting what you want.
25:19 - Avery
I love that. That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story, your wisdom, your struggles with new moms. I am deeply grateful and absolutely touched by your story, and I know other people will be too.
25:40 - Jahni
Thank you, thank you and anyone who's in the throes of it right now, you'll start really enjoying spending time with your baby and feeding your baby. However, your baby eats it may not seem like it right now, in this moment I promise you you'll start enjoying it.
26:00 - Avery
Thank you for being so open and honest and talking about the hard things, because there are so many women out there that feel the same way that you felt, that need help but, don't give themselves permission to get it, who don't feel like they deserve it, like all of those things are so true and I think it was really important and amazing for you to be so open about it. Thank you.
26:26 - Jahni
Thank you. Yeah, I was the only person I knew who struggled with breastfeeding until I wasn't the only person I knew. The way I became that was because I kept saying like I'm I am struggling, I need help, I need help, please, whoever. And I ended up reconnecting with an acquaintance from college who had a baby who didn't breastfeed until they were eight months old, and just meeting like hearing that story gave me like it helped me get through the hard days at months four, five, and six, like oh, it might happen for me later on.
27:11
And I didn't know that I didn't have that feeling. So, I hope, I really hope, that other moms hear this and are like oh, it might happen for me, and if it doesn't, I'm going to be fine.
27:25 - Avery
I love that ending because you're right, it doesn't. It doesn't end up mattering how we feed our baby, or our relationship with our baby has nothing to do with everything in the early days, it really felt so important.
27:44 - Jahni
Yeah, I don't know, is that very common, like with your experience?
27:51 - Avery
So my experience is that we don't trust women, and the reason we have the Breast is Best campaign is because we have this narrative that, like, if we don't tell women that Breast is Best, then they're not going to do it, as opposed to saying, like, women have an innate, a natural instinct for feeding and if we make that possible and support their desire, they're going to feed because they're naturally designed to do that. So, we don't have to convince them that they have to do it because it's best. We have to make it accessible, to support them because they're going to want to do it anyway. But we haven't done that. We've said this is best.
28:25
Every new parent can't do this. It feels like they failed right out of the gate. That's definitely my experience. I have a massive campaign against Breast as Best because I think it's deeply harmful and comes from a place where we distrust that women know their bodies and would feed their baby from their body if they can because they want to if it's right for them.
28:57 - Jahni
Yeah, I would listen to you talk all day. I want to hear so much more about the campaign.
29:07 - Avery
Well, I think I'm going to weave it into my podcast. I will let you go take care of your baby. This was I really, besides the fact that, like we taped it and I think it's super helpful, I deeply enjoyed having this conversation with you. Thank you so much again for your time.
Do you have a story to tell? If your feeding experience has been transformative for you and you'd like to share it with others, then please let us know. We're always looking for new stories to let other people know what's possible. Just send your name and a short overview of your journey, or even just your words of wisdom for new parents to stories at www.nourishedyoung.com and if you need support or want to connect with other parents who understand what you're going through, then make sure you head over to www.nourishedyoung.com and check out the Nourished Young Community so we can help support you and your journey too.