150. The ON Switch For Milk Making. Create, Protect And Regulate Your Milk Supply By Knowing THIS with guest Holly Hill

Want to tell your body how and when to make milk? My guest today will be a familiar name because she's on the Breezy Babies team. Holly Hill is a Registered Nurse and IBCLC Lactation Consultant who's spilling the tea on how to have a rocking milk supply, from the beginning. 

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Read the full transcript here:

Welcome to the breezy babies podcast. This is episode 150. the on switch for milk making.
Could you use more confidence as a parent? Welcome to the happy place for boobs and babies. You're in good hands. Breezy babies is where we ease your transition into parenthood because it's a bumpy road. Am I right? I'm your host Bri the IBCLC. And if you'd like to make life as a parent more breezy, you're in the right place. I'm here to deliver small bite sized tips and tricks so you can crush your parenting and lactation goals. I'm honored to be on this journey with you. Let's go.
Hello, so good to be back with you for another week of the podcast episode. I have a great guest for you today. She has not been a guest on the raising babies podcast before, but you may recognize her name because she is an IBCLC. On the breezy babies team. Her name is Holly Hill. I can't wait to introduce you to her and have her share a little bit of her expertise with you. Today we are talking about the on switch for milk making. Holly's gonna share some tips for creating, protecting and regulating your milk supply by knowing this one thing, so it's gonna be really good. If you have ever been nervous about your milk supply before, you aren't sure
how to put in an order for a good milk supply, then this podcast episode is perfect for you. Especially if you are listening to this before your baby is born, then you're really going to pack a good punch of being prepared for when your baby gets here. If you know of someone who is pregnant with their baby right now and they are nervous about having a good milk supply them Will you do me a favor and share this podcast episode with them. It is going to be packed with good information about how to set up a good milk supply from the very beginning.
I want to share a review with you. And I picked one specifically, I picked one of our Google reviews that has come through recently. And I thought How perfect is this video because this review was left for Holly which again, she is going to be today's podcast guest. So I thought How perfect is this? This Google review was left by Dorothy and this is what she said under her five star review. Holly was very informative and made sure every base was covered, including things I didn't realize she could help with. I highly recommend anyone who has breastfeeding schedules or consults with breezy babies. Isn't that so kind to those Google reviews, podcast reviews, all of these reviews help out a small business like ours so much. Are you the same as me that when you are looking at a new business, you look at the reviews? Or maybe you want to I don't know book,
something on your trip and
maybe like a tour? Do you rely heavily on reviews like I do, maybe even like a hotel that you're choosing? Reviews are everything to a business and we so appreciate it every time that one of those are left. So Thank you Dorothy for taking the time to leave that awesome Google review for Holly. And for breezy babies. I just got off a telehealth consult right before I switched over and pressed record for this podcast episode. I don't normally do consults and podcast episodes on the same day. But that's just kind of how it turned out this week. I was had a long weekend visiting my brother and his family in Wyoming. Tomorrow, me and my team are going to a really cool lactation conference that I have had my eye on for years. And I've thought about traveling to it. It's just it's been tricky, you know, to plan travel and budget and travel when you have a young family. There's so many good lactation conferences that are all around the United States that I would love to go to them all but generally I just pick one per year. And I try and do one lactation conference. I don't always travel sometimes I just do the online is called Gold conference. Sometimes they'll just do that and I watched from my home and I get some ca credits and I will
are in the latest and greatest in lactation and it works out great. So anyway, I've had my eye on this specific workshop for a while.
That is taught by Maya Bowman and Lisa Leahy, which are two of the OGS and lactation. But it just the stars have been aligned to go to it. And a couple months ago, I realized that this workshop was coming literally to my friend doorstep. Well, basically my friend doorstep
10 minutes from my house, this workshop is going to be held and I am so excited. It starts tomorrow. It's an all day workshop all day Friday, all day Saturday, Holly on my team and Lex on my team are also coming along with last I checked it was 22 ibclcs. Some are even traveling from far enough away that they're staying in a hotel to come to this workshop. And we're just going to learn about oral function, and breast massage and breast gymnastics and really just uplevel our skills. And I am so excited for it. So anyway, with traveling and going to that workshop this weekend, my time for consults this week just quickly filled up, because you already know that I work while my baby's napping. And that's pretty much all the time that I get every day. So I'm coming off doing a console today, hopefully, my brain can transition to podcast mode from lactation consulting mode.
And luckily, Holly is going to be sharing with you today. So it's not going to just be me talking.
She is going to be sharing again, the on switch for milk making. She's going to talk about creating, protecting and regulating your milk supply by knowing this one thing.
Holly is going to start out by introducing herself. But I thought it would be fun to just tell you a little bit from my point of view as well. Because what Holly doesn't share is that we have known each other for years, I'm trying to even think about how many years we've known each other.
Probably like nine years, if I had to guess off the top of my head, we actually worked together on a postpartum unit for five years, we were both nurses.
We worked together for five years, I left to do lactation and then she left to do lactation a little bit later. And it's been so fun all these years later to reconnect and private practice and work together on a team to really just dive deep into lactation and helping families all over the world. And it's so fun to be able to work together again. She truly has been an amazing asset to the breezy babies team and she has so much knowledge to offer. So today she's going to talk about the specifics, she's gonna go deeper than my brain usually likes to go. Honestly, I'm just more of a simple girl. But knowing these pathways of milk making in your body is actually really amazing and really cool to learn. So, I'm grateful that Holly took the time to record this episode of how those pathways work for your body to make milk, because it really is amazing. So without further ado, I'm going to turn the time over to Holly.
Hello there. I'm Holly Hill, and I am one of the lactation consultants in the Bracey babies group. I joined the team just last fall of 2022. You can also find me on the breezy baby's website at breezy babies.com or on my instagram at lightup lactation. While I'm new to breezy babies. I'm not new to lactation. I've been a postpartum nurse since 2005, and a lactation consultant since 2017. I love working with and connecting with families and helping them understand the details so that when they put it all together, then they can better understand the bigger picture of feeding their baby. So, way long ago, when I was in college, I had the opportunity to be a supplement teacher for the anatomy and physiology class, which was really fun. And that love for teaching how bodies work stayed with me throughout the years. Then fast forward to when I was with the hospital system that I last worked in. I had the chance to teach at their 3d lactation conferences for a few years and that is for nurses and other professionals.
What I loved teaching the most and what continues to fascinate me about lactation is the feedback systems of the anatomy and physiology in the parents body.
To create, protect, manage and regulate a milk supply,
there is a positive feedback system to make more milk. And then there's the feedback inhibitor of lactation, also known as Phil fit Oh, that regulate the milk supply. And if you've listened to the other topics and the breezy babies podcast, you may remember Brea talking about this part.
Okay, so I love how in the beginning, it's all about hormone control, which is called the endocrine system. And then it changes to supply and demand from nerve stimulation at the nipple, which is called the autocrine system. And then both systems continue to work well together. All this means that the more stimulation of the nipple, and the more milk is removed them, the more milk is made. First, the bodies get the hormone signals during the pregnancy to recognize that it's time to make more cells and make milk or get ready to make milk. So chest or breast growth is commonly felt as a first sign of pregnancy. And then colostrum is made during the second trimester, and then the baby is born. But more importantly to lactation, the placenta detaches and is delivered, which then causes a drop in progesterone and estrogen. So remember, it all starts with the hormone control. And this, this is the trigger, which is like the on switch to tell the body to really get into milk making mode. And as we know, colostrum is the first milk that's made for the baby. It's available in small quantities that match the size of a baby's tummy. So the more a baby latches in those first couple days, or the more apparent removes milk by either latching or hand expressing or by pumping, then the more of the parents body responds to this and makes more milk. And then later on, that's when we say my milk came in. So that's how it changes into an abundant supply. The stimulation at the nipple goes up the nerve pathway to the brain, it first activates the anterior pituitary. So this is the front part to make and release prolactin, which is the main milk making hormone. It then signals the posterior pituitary, which is in the back to create oxytocin. And again, if you've listened to other topics in this podcast, you've heard Bree describe oxytocin as the love hormone. It's also called the bonding hormone. So it has so many actions.
One of the things that happens when oxytocin is released is a squeezing action. And that squeeze action affects the mile epithelial cells. And they tighten around the milk making cells and those ones are called the lactose sites. And it essentially pushes it all to collect inside what's called an alveoli. And then it essentially pushes the milk out to the baby. So this is what we know as the letdown or the milk ejection reflex.
So again, the more the milk is removed, and the more the nipple is stimulated, the more the brain gets the message or the signal to keep on making more milk. Then conversely, there's the self regulation system of the feedback inhibitor of lactation, that's that fill again. So when there is nothing isn't removed, then the parents body gets the message to slow down milk production. It's like it's saying, Whoa, okay, we made too much milk here, and it wasn't needed. So it's time to pull back and maybe not make as much milk. So Phil can become a problem early on, when there's nipple pain and damage, which creates its own negative cycle of a feedback loop. For example, a parent wants to latch and feed their baby, but there's nipple pain and or damage from repeated shallow latches or using the wrong size of a pumping flange. Or maybe they gave a lot of bottles in the beginning but didn't use that pump or didn't hand Express, then the signal to make more milk just isn't there. But the feedback inhibitor Sure is. And this is usually when we hear like, quote, my milk just never came in, or my milk went away really soon.
So that's much more about the management of it in the beginning. Well, then we get to the times of encouragement, and this is where it can get tricky, especially during the first wave of encouragement. When a parent is at the stage of initially building a milk supply. The goal is to get the baby to determine the milk supply. So too much either direction, meaning not removing enough milk or removing too much milk creates an Under or an oversupply, and both of those have their own challenges as the baby latches or as the parent pumps to the
pattern of the baby's feeding times, then the parents body knows just how much to make. So if there's a little leftover that the baby didn't need, then the parent body will adjust the supply through that feedback inhibitor. So it's not always a negative thing and ultimately regulates imbalances to the baby's feeds.
Alrighty, so how do you use this information? What do you do with this knowledge? Well, here are my top three takeaways. Number one,
aim for a comfortable latch, and use the correct size flanges when pumping to protect the nipples all the time. If I had a soapbox slogan, it would be this protect the nipples all the time. If having a good milk supply is the goal, then nipples need to feel good. This helps the positive feedback loop. If nipples feel good, then more latching or pumping is happening. So that helps the supply. But if you're experiencing any nipple pain, then definitely see a lactation consultant.
Okay, tip number two, supply and demand is what keeps a milk supply balanced latch or pump with the baby's feeding patterns to tell your body how and when to make milk. And if too much milk is made, like with an oversupply, then don't remove as much so your body gets the signal to gently decrease the supply. And do make sure that you work with a lactation consultant at this point about how to do this appropriately for you.
And lastly, tip number three, milk production goes in waves, especially during the times when your baby is going through a growth spurt. And during those cluster feedings. That time signals your body to make more milk and match the baby's needs. It'll increase and then plateau and kind of ease off and kind of settle in and then it'll increase and then plateau again. So ultimately, remember that your body is amazing. And it knows how to do this self regulation.
I hope that all of this gives you a better understanding of how these details go together so that you can better understand the bigger picture for you and your baby. Thanks so much for listening. If you'd like to work with me, you can schedule online at breezy babies.com. Or check out my Instagram at lightup lactation. And I'm going to end with you are amazing. Right where you are today. And I'm so proud of you.
There you have it, can you tell that Holly is just providing amazing information for the families that she's working with. And now for the families of all of you who are listening in to this podcast. So again, Holly's top three tips that she shared today was number one, aim for a comfortable latch and use the right size flanges to protect your nipples at all times. Her second tip was tell your body how and when to make milk. And her third tip was milk production goes in waves ride that wave through cluster feeds and growth spurts. So grateful to her for sharing that information. I know that this is going to help all of you who are listening out there and again, if you know someone who is struggling with feeding their baby or is maybe getting ready and preparing to feed a new baby, then would you please share this podcast with them. We love all of you who listen in and a lot of you who do listen in end up booking consultations with us. The majority of you are also covered by your insurance for free consultations with us. So that's so fun because we meet multiple times with our clients. In fact, the the telehealth that I had right before recording this episode I also met with her yesterday we had consults that were within 24 hours of each other. And we talked about so much not only yesterday, but again today we filled up a full hour of chatting during her lactation consultation. So thank you so much for listening in. And of course I'm gonna leave you with you are strong, you are smart, you are beautiful. You're a good friend to all buy.
If you would like more help, check us out at breezy babies.com. It's the happy place for boobs and babies, where you can take an online workshop on topics from breastfeeding to be gas. Learn baby massage, get a pumping plan before returning to work and even get one on one lactation help from our ibclcs we meet with families both in home and also all over the world via secure video and guess what? These lactation consultations might even be covered by your insurance. Click the link in the show notes or visit breezy babies.com to see if you qualify. Also connect with us at breezy babies on Instagram and YouTube.

Intro to the episode.
0:00

Google Review of the day.
2:20

Lactation Conference Details.
4:09

Introduction to Holly’s topic.
6:33

Hormone control and lactation.
10:44

Feedback Inhibitor of lactation.
13:18

How to use this information?
15:18

Please share this podcast with your friends.
18:12