Becoming The Physician I Needed and Couldn’t Find
I often say that I “fell into” Breastfeeding Medicine. It is not a medical specialty I planned to pursue - in fact, I didn’t even know this specialty existed until years after completing my medical residency and becoming a primary care physician. I, like many physicians, received minimal lactation specific education in my training. Therefore, I assumed breastfeeding must not be that difficult. After all, I had many lectures on pediatric nutrition and other medical topics related to all the body’s organ systems, physiology, and disease processes. If lactation was complicated, that would have been covered at some point. Little did I know, my own ignorance was not to end blissfully for me. I became a mother and stumbled straight into a complicated lactastrophe (credit to D.r Alison Stuebe for the best word I’ve ever heard to describe the situation many parents find themselves in). I sought every resource I could find for care, but things did not resolve quickly or easily. This was a very bitter pill for me to swallow, and it left me wondering how I could have been so ill prepared.
Upon returning to work after maternity leave, I began to use my newfound breastfeeding knowledge to assist patients. A week after my return to work, a new mother presented with bleeding, cracked, painful nipple due to shallow latch. I took a deep breath, decided I couldn’t possibly make things worse, and offered to help her latch - using techniques I learned in my own breastfeeding support group, not during my medical training. The mother understandably looked nervous - she was already in a great deal of pain and scared to latch the baby again - but she agreed. A quick hamburger hold and flipple technique allowed a deeper latch, and she started to smile in disbelief, her shoulders relaxed and she sat back in the chair. In primary care I don’t often get rewarded with such immediate results - it was exhilarating seeing the impact this simple intervention had on her.
Over the ensuing months I helped more mothers, and also ran into situations I did not yet have the knowledge to tackle. I began to realize breastfeeding medicine was, in fact, a nuanced and complex field. I started signing up for online lactation CME, joined a Facebook group of fellow physicians interested in breastfeeding care called Dr MILK, and then discovered in person conferences through the Institute for the Advancement of Breastfeeding & Lactation Knowledge (IABLE). I discovered many other physicians are practicing Breastfeeding Medicine - it turns out this is an actual medical specialty!
Over a decade later, I find myself a true specialist in Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine. I may have accidentally stumbled into this field, but I discovered a deep passion for helping lactating parents have a better breastfeeding experience than I did. When I was deep in the midst of my own lactastrophe, I never imagined it would start me on this journey. I look forward to meeting many more babies and their families and am excited to see how we grow as a community to improve local breastfeeding care.
If you are in need of skilled lactation care from an experienced Breastfeeding Medicine physician, then head to the scheduling section of the Lindsay Moore MD website.
