You can officially order a copy of Milk Boss 101: The Modern Breastfeeding Journal and Guide today. I’m also excited to offer you an exclusive 20% off discount that will last until August 1, when the book will officially launch. Use code “mbtribe” at checkout.
Before I tell you about how I came to discover the need for a modern approach to breastfeeding and serving today’s mother, I want to share with you a discovery I made as a mother of two and a passionate entrepreneur.
Our society places an enormous amount of pressure on women to “bounce back” after childbirth, physically, mentally, and emotionally without the necessary springboard in which to do so.
We have come to believe that achieving success all on our own is something to be proud of, no matter how exhausted, lonely, and disconnected it leaves us feeling. We believe the lies of glamorous social media photos and captions. Internally we compare our own struggles to someone else’s highlight reel. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a beautiful IG feed just like the next girl, but I also realize that the most successful women that we all idolize is not perfect and experiences the same struggles we do. Struggles with body confidence, taking time for herself, staying relevant, feeling confident as a mother, staying connected to friends, and simply not losing her every-loving-mind on the daily! But what I want to point out is that women who achieve greatness, whether they are a mother or not, do so with the help of a team.
She has a team of boss babes and bros standing behind her and strengthening her foundation so that she can do all the amazing things she was created to do.
She has someone taking “candid” photos of her, a sweet friend who watches her kids on short notice, a partner who is invested in caring for their child just as much as she is, a go-to take-out restaurant programmed into her contacts list, and the list goes on. She is a whole-being with a WHOLE LOT of help!
I want you to think about all of that for just a moment and reimagine the narrative that may have previously played out in your mind as you compared yourself to that insta-famous woman.
I want to create a new rhetoric around breastfeeding and motherhood, where women are reminded that they are just as powerful and capable of achieving their dreams as those women they follow on social media and that it’s all possible with kids, but we must reframe our understanding of success to include connectedness, which I believe begins with each woman building her own Tribe multi-talented champions.
About seven years ago when I first jumped into the world of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum mentoring I didn’t know that it would be the catalyst to creating a book and movement focused on serving the “whole woman”. I actually thought it was a part of my story to becoming an OBGYN.
Back in late 2010 I discovered an approach to supporting women as they navigated pregnancy and the postpartum period that was integrative and included one-on-one partnership between the pregnant mama and a female companion, cultural sensitivity, continuity of care with her health care provider and other allied professionals, as well as postpartum mentorship that lasted months after childbirth.
Fast forward three years to when I gave birth to my first daughter while living in Puerto Rico, I witnessed how rare yet vital this type of support was in the rest of our Western world. Though I was living in a place where family and community were central to practically everything, I realized that within the prenatal, birth, and breastfeeding world that connectivity had somehow been lost. If a woman did have prenatal education, labor companionship, and postpartum lactation support, the three were likely to be very segmented.
After that experience, I learned firsthand during my time on Guam that for women to truly overcome (but often times are able to completely avoid) the most common breastfeeding struggles like breast pain, cracked and bleeding nipples, low milk supply, incorrect pumping use, and feeling broken or incapable of producing enough milk, they each needed to receive one-on-one support from a committed lactation professional that they felt comfortable with and had built a report with prenatally. The women who expressed the most satisfaction with breastfeeding and comfort with doing it in her own way were those who had a knowledgeable person to call upon during inconvenient times and for quick answers to real-life questions here and there. These tiny nuances are what really make a difference for women when it comes to choosing between sticking with breastfeeding (how ever they do it) and completely disqualifying breastfeeding from their life.
I knew that this bit of wisdom was something that needed to be expressed and for a simple construct to be made that allowed mothers and communities throughout the West to come together on the same page and reimagine breastfeeding and the childbearing time period as a whole.
In Milk Boss 101 I hone in on the benefits of community I’d seen on the islands where I previously lived as well as the historic elements of women specifically supporting other women during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. I’ve also incorporated elements like how to choose an empowering lactation professional, lifestyle specific planning, mindful postpartum healing, and valuing your identity as both a woman and mother.
Each woman is invited to form her own Tribe and articulate for herself what this will all look like in detail. After all, she knows best what she’s hoping for in terms of success with breastfeeding, motherhood, and life overall. We should simply be champions, gentle guides, and servants to her mission as she needs us.
In Milk Boss 101: The Modern Breastfeeding Journal & Guide I’ve created a framework that allows any mother to curate her own Breastfeeding Tribe– a select group of like-minded individuals called up to help her thrive during the 4th trimester, meet her personal breastfeeding goals, and stay connected to her soul and passion as she navigates motherhood.
Each member of her Breastfeeding Tribe will have a different role, including her lactation professional who’s role is to meet her with culturally relevant breastfeeding education, stick with her through the highs and lows, as well as provide longterm support that is cognizant of her background, family, job, and personal aspirations. Other members of her Breastfeeding Tribe may be there to help her stay nourished during the initial weeks home, another may be there to scoop her up for an afternoon lunch-date while being mindful of the fact that she may need to stop and pump, another may be committed to encouraging her to get back into her yoga practice, another may be tasked with listening as she processes her birth experience. Ultimately this is a group of people who resonate with the mother and see her as a “whole woman”, not simply a woman who has chosen to feed her baby breastmilk.
If there’s a woman in your life who you think would find relief in reading such a book and creating her own Breastfeeding Tribe, I’d encourage you to be her catalyst to an empowered motherhood journey. A journey rooted in mindfulness and personal satisfaction determined by her alone.