Leading Lactation Insights - August 2023

What is Your Why? 

Maria Lennon, MSN, CNM, IBCLC

August is National Breastfeeding Month in the United States! This year’s celebration theme is, “This is Our Why”. What does this mean to us personally? What is your WHY? 

Each of us has a personal reason for passionately promoting, protecting, and supporting breastfeeding, chest feeding, and human milk feeding on an individual level, a system-wide level, the community level, a government, or even a global level. The need is multi-faceted, and our personal WHYs help make a difference for all.

Some of us care for NICU families and understand that mothers’ milk can be essential for survival. Mother’s own milk and donor human milk is being used as medicine for these tiny infants, and we spend many hours helping parents pump and express the milk their babies so desperately need. Research guides our evidence-based practices as we continuously strive to learn all about how the human breast makes milk and how we can best assist parents in the process.

Others care for parents and babies during labor and birth and in the postpartum period that follows – a time when we see first-hand the magical bonding that occurs when parents hold their babies skin-to-skin and gaze into the eyes of their newborns as they start their lives as parents. 

Some of us may have experienced the empowerment that breastfeeding provides in helping us grow into motherhood. This fuels our passion for helping others who need our support in developing confidence and proficiency in their abilities to feed their infants and learn their roles as parents.

For others who experienced overwhelming challenges and may not have met our breastfeeding goals, we now strive to make changes that will enable all breastfeeding parents to overcome barriers and meet their goals.

We celebrate breastfeeding in our unique and various cultures. Some of us work to raise awareness of racial disparities in breastfeeding statistics and work towards reducing inequities by providing culturally sensitive support, education, and resources to communities that face significant challenges. During the month of August, various campaigns, events, educational programs, and themed weeks are organized to promote breastfeeding, chest feeding, and human milk feeding for all.

 For some, myriad health benefits are the WHY . . . 

We know that mother’s milk is a living fluid, loaded with thousands of components that are made exclusively for human infants and even changes according to the ages and needs of those infants. Human milk provides not only nutrients for growth but helps protect against illnesses in both the short- and long term. Risk is reduced for the development of diabetes, certain childhood cancers, SIDS, gastrointestinal disorders . . . and much, much more!  

In the past few years, research studies have demonstrated that lactation benefits women’s long-term health. It reduces the risk of developing diabetes, breast, ovarian, and endometrial cancers, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, strokes, and more! 

According to The Lancet Series on Breastfeeding (January 29, 2016), breastfeeding is an investment in people and provides unrivaled health benefits for mothers and children. On a global level, increasing breastfeeding can prevent 20,000 maternal deaths, 823,000 child deaths, and $302 billion in economic losses annually!

These are just a few of the WHYs.  What is your WHY?

We would love to hear what your why is. Email us your why with #thisismywhy education@medela.com. 

This month we are spotlighting Angela Plunkett, RN, BSN, IBCLC

Megan Quinn

Angela Plunkett, RN, BSN, IBCLC, grew up south of Houston, Texas and graduated with a BSN from nursing school at Texas Woman’s University in 1996. She subsequently worked as a pediatric RN for 15 years, with time also spent on the postpartum floor of her hospital. During this time, she became a La Leche League Leader in 2000 and then an IBCLC in 2002. With strong expertise in lactation, Angela also began working in a breastfeeding center at her hospital and as a floor IBCLC. 

In 2009, Angela and her family moved to Tennessee, where she now resides south of Nashville. In 2020, she began her private lactation practice, which she notes has always been her eventual goal. “It had been my goal since the beginning,” Angela shares. “I was waiting for the youngest to get old enough to stay home with Dad or a sibling.” In 2021, she helped start the Mothers’ Milk Bank of Tennessee and continues to work and volunteer there as the Director overseeing the screening team. Angela also remains a La Leche League Leader, as the Professional Liaison for Tennessee and Kentucky. 

As the original RN, IBCLC, at the founding of the Mothers’ Milk Bank of Tennessee, Angela has helped build the foundation for this organization, including designing the donor screening program, training the volunteers, and leading the team. She shares that they have recently hired several additional team members, including more RNs/IBCLCs, which allows her to oversee the team and ensure everyone is up-to-date on HMBANA standards instead of doing all screenings herself. They also take care to nurture excellent relationships with donor moms while ensuring these moms understand how much they value, appreciate, and honor their milk donations. 

Angela shares that she decided to become an IBCLC after finishing nursing school and welcoming her first child. “I took the hospital’s breastfeeding class and went home knowing I wanted that RN’s job one day,” Angela says. “Everyone seemed so excited and happy about breastfeeding!” Today in her private practice, Angela shares that she recently hired another IBCLC due to an influx of requests for lactation consultants. She is always working to continue expanding her lactation expertise in many ways. “I’m always studying to learn the latest in the lactation field in areas such as ties, sleep, starting solids, and breastfeeding medicine itself,” she notes. “I’m also working towards becoming a Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner so I can better help families continue down the healthy lifestyle path during pregnancy and after the baby arrives, which means helping them learn how to improve nutrition, exercise, sleep, and decrease stress and other unhealthy habits.” 

Angela understands that new moms often put themselves last and looks forward to helping them better themselves and their families in ways that will have positive lifelong effects – while also helping them with the beautiful skill of breastfeeding. Each year, she enjoys choosing a few breastfeeding-related subjects to dive deep into and then integrating findings accordingly into her care. Doing so allows her to best serve her clients with a deeper understanding of common challenges, concerns, barriers, and other lactation-focused topics. Additionally, her private practice now accepts TNCare, which will allow them to reach even more new moms.

In her free time, Angela loves reading, crocheting (including publishing crochet patterns!), gardening, traveling, and playing her piano and violin. Thank you, Angela, for your passion when it comes to helping families learn how to breastfeed and for dedicating your career to ensuring these babies have strong starts!