and as I worked through both programs, I immediately started to see the gaps in postpartum care.
Patients were not being followed up with when they were supposed to. Some were driving more than 4 hours with a newborn just to find a clinic that could help them. And they weren’t just struggling with lactation, but also sleep, mood, fatigue, nutrition, weight retention, hypertension, the list was endless. So while I sat there focused on the lactation piece, I knew we could do so much more for these patients. I thought if only I could combine both of my internships into one practice, and start to create a community of evidence based practitioners who are trained in both, we could raise the standard of care postpartum. I knew I was onto something because before I could even open the doors to my physical location, I saw my first patient, for an in-home lactation visit and never looked back.
Fast forward to my own postpartum experience at the onset of the pandemic, pivoting my small business, with my partner as an essential worker, no help, and now having 2 kids under 2. I began to see myself in all of my patients. Exhausted, sleep deprived, skipping meals, not exercising, struggling with my mood, difficulty losing weight. No one followed up with me, no one asked me about my mood, or if I had eaten, or if I slept more than 3 hours, and no one cared. At first I wanted to give up, if I knew so much about this topic, but couldn’t even execute it myself, how could I expect my patients to?
Instead, I became the practitioner that I needed. I had to care, because no one else was doing it. But I couldn’t do it alone. Being told “that’s just what it’s like being a mom” is B.S. The research tells us what we need to do here, we’re just not doing it. It’s time to change the narrative around postpartum care, and we need YOU!