Nourish, Holistic Lactation and Infant Feeding Support

12/05/2025

I can’t even believe that somebody made this for me. I feel so appreciated.

12/02/2025

Announcement from TLN for TLN covered BCBS patients:

“As we approach the end of 2025, this continuity-of-care allowance is coming to a close, and December 31, 2025 will be the final date of service for patients who were approved under this exception. While we only have a small percentage of patients who have not yet wound down care, unfortunately, TLN will not be able to accept submissions, nor will we be able to accommodate any exceptions, for visits with dates of service beginning January 1, 2026.

Please note that this update applies even if a patient still has visits remaining toward the cap instituted by TLN, or if their eligibility email or myTLN portal reflects a service end date after January 1, 2026.”

Of note, BCBS usually *does* reimburse when a claim is submitted after the visit, so they *should* still cover, just not through TLN.

TLN is still covering United, Aetna, and a slew of other smaller subsidies.

Wildflower is still covering Cigna.

11/27/2025

A friend sent this to me and I just had to share with all of you how amazing lactating bodies and human milk are! This is all true!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1D1pR8s8Jb/?mibextid=wwXIfrsont ng

In 2008, Katie Hinde stood in a California primate lab staring at hundreds of milk samples. Male babies got richer milk. Females got more volume. Science had missed half the conversation.
She was a postdoctoral researcher at the California National Primate Research Center, analyzing milk from rhesus macaque mothers. For months, she'd been measuring fat content, protein levels, mineral concentrations. The data showed something she hadn't expected: monkey mothers were producing completely different milk depending on whether they'd given birth to sons or daughters.
Sons received milk with higher concentrations of fat and protein—more energy per ounce. Daughters received more milk overall, with higher calcium levels. The biological recipe wasn't universal. It was customized.
Hinde ran the numbers again. The pattern held across dozens of mother-infant pairs. This wasn't random variation. This was systematic.
She thought about what she'd been taught in graduate school. Milk was nutrition. Calories, proteins, fats. A delivery system for energy. But if milk was just fuel, why would it differ based on the baby's s*x? Why would mothers unconsciously adjust the formula?
The answer shifted everything: milk wasn't passive. It was a message.
Hinde had arrived at this question through an unusual path. She'd earned her bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of Washington, then completed her PhD at UCLA in 2008. While most lactation research focused on dairy cattle or developing infant formulas, Hinde wanted to understand what milk actually did in primate mothers and babies.
At UC Davis, she had access to the largest primate research center in the United States. She could collect milk samples at different stages of lactation, track infant development, measure maternal characteristics. She could ask questions that had never been systematically studied.
Like: why do young mothers produce milk with more stress hormones?
Hinde discovered that first-time monkey mothers produced milk with fewer calories but higher concentrations of cortisol than experienced mothers. Babies who consumed this high-cortisol milk grew faster but were more nervous and less confident. The milk wasn't just feeding the baby's body—it was programming the baby's temperament.
Or: how does milk respond when babies get sick?
Working with researchers who studied infant illness, Hinde found that when babies developed infections, their mothers' milk changed within hours. The white blood cell count in the milk increased dramatically—from around 2,000 cells per milliliter to over 5,000 during acute illness. Macrophage counts quadrupled. The levels returned to normal once the baby recovered.
The mechanism was remarkable: when a baby nurses, small amounts of the baby's saliva travel back through the ni**le into the mother's breast tissue. That saliva contains information about the baby's immune status. If the baby is fighting an infection, the mother's body detects the antigens and begins producing specific antibodies, which then flow back to the baby through the milk.
It was a dialogue. The baby's body communicated its needs. The mother's body responded.
Hinde started documenting everything. She collected milk from over 250 rhesus macaque mothers across more than 700 sampling events. She measured cortisol, adiponectin, epidermal growth factor, transforming growth factors. She tracked which babies gained weight faster, which were more exploratory, which were more cautious.
She realized she was mapping a language that had been invisible.
In 2011, Hinde joined Harvard as an assistant professor. She began writing about her findings, but she also noticed something troubling: almost nobody was studying human breast milk with the same rigor applied to other biological systems. When she searched publication databases, she found twice as many studies on erectile dysfunction as on breast milk composition.
The world's first food—the substance that had nourished every human who ever lived—was scientifically neglected.
She started a blog: "Mammals Suck...Milk!" The title was deliberately provocative. Within a year, it had over a million views. Parents, clinicians, researchers started asking questions. What bioactive compounds are in human milk? How does milk from mothers of premature babies differ from milk produced for full-term infants? Can we use this knowledge to improve formulas or help babies in NICUs?
Hinde's research expanded. She studied how milk changes across the day (fat concentration peaks mid-morning). She investigated how foremilk differs from hindmilk (babies with bigger appetites who nurse longer get higher-fat milk at the end of feeding). She examined how maternal characteristics—age, parity, health status, social rank—shaped milk composition.
In 2013, she created March Mammal Madness, a science outreach event that became an annual tradition in hundreds of classrooms. In 2014, she co-authored "Building Babies." In 2016, she received the Ehrlich-Koldovsky Early Career Award from the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation for making outstanding contributions to the field.
By 2017, when she delivered her TED talk, she could articulate what she'd discovered across a decade of research: breast milk is food, medicine, and signal. It builds the baby's body and fuels the baby's behavior. It carries bacteria that colonize the infant gut, hormones that influence metabolism, oligosaccharides that feed beneficial microbes, immune factors that protect against pathogens.
More than 200 varieties of oligosaccharides alone. The baby can't even digest them—they exist to nourish the right community of gut bacteria, preventing harmful pathogens from establishing.
The composition is as unique as a fingerprint. No two mothers produce identical milk. No two babies receive identical nutrition.
In 2020, Hinde appeared in the Netflix docuseries "Babies," explaining her findings to a mass audience. She'd moved to Arizona State University, where she now directs the Comparative Lactation Lab. Her research continues to reveal new dimensions of how milk shapes infant outcomes from the first hours of life through childhood.
She works on precision medicine applications—using knowledge of milk bioactives to help the most fragile infants in neonatal intensive care units. She consults on formula development, helping companies create products that better replicate the functional properties of human milk for mothers who face obstacles to breastfeeding.
The implications extend beyond individual families. Understanding milk informs public health policy, workplace lactation support, clinical recommendations. It reveals how maternal characteristics, environmental conditions, and infant needs interact in real time through a biological messaging system that's been evolving for 200 million years—longer than dinosaurs.
Katie Hinde didn't just study milk. She revealed that the most ancient form of nourishment was also the most sophisticated. What science had treated as simple nutrition was actually a dynamic, responsive communication between two bodies—a conversation that shapes human development one feeding at a time.

11/14/2025

ByHeart recall information:

Note: This recall has expanded to include all ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula products, including all unexpired lots of formula cans and single-serve “anywhere” sticks. Parents and caregivers should stop using any ByHeart infant formula products. Visit the FDA website to learn more.

10/23/2025

There is a lot of truth to this!

Many breastfeeding challenges today aren’t because something is “wrong” with the mother or baby…it’s often because of how modern birth practices interfere with biology.

In an ideal, uninterrupted birth, a newborn instinctively crawls to the breast, roots, and latches within the first hour, guided by powerful hormonal cues from both mother and baby. But in the 21st century, birth is often heavily medicalized, and even small interventions can disrupt this natural sequence.

💊 Medications During Labor and Birth

Epidurals, IV fluids, Pitocin, and other medications can affect both mom and baby. For the baby, they may cause temporary drowsiness, weaker muscle tone, or difficulty coordinating suck-swallow-breathe. For the mother, they may interfere with oxytocin release, the same hormone responsible for milk ejection and bonding.

💧 Overhydration of the Mother

Excess IV fluids given during labor can lead to swelling in mom’s breasts and baby’s tissues. A swollen ni**le or ar**la can make latching physically harder for a newborn. Babies may also lose more “weight” after birth as they naturally shed the excess fluid, which can be misinterpreted as poor feeding.

👶🏼 Suctioning the Baby After Birth

Routine suctioning is no longer recommended for vigorous babies, yet it still happens. This can irritate the baby’s airway and mouth, making them reluctant to latch or feed right away. Babies use oral sensations to find and latch onto the breast, so discomfort can set them back.

💔 Separation of Mom and Baby

When the baby is taken away for weighing, cleaning, or observation, even for “just a few minutes,” it interrupts the hormonal dance that triggers breastfeeding behaviors. The first hour after birth, known as the golden hour is crucial. Skin-to-skin contact stabilizes the baby’s temperature, breathing, and blood sugar, and dramatically increases the likelihood of successful latching.

🍼 Swaddling Too Soon

Wrapping a baby tightly before they’ve latched removes their ability to use their arms and hands to find the breast, something newborns instinctively do. Babies need their hands free to help guide themselves and stimulate the breast.

Breastfeeding success isn’t just about “trying harder”… it’s about setting up the environment nature intended. When mothers and babies are allowed uninterrupted skin-to-skin time, when medications are used judiciously, and when support is provided instead of separation, breastfeeding outcomes improve drastically. 💛

09/24/2025

I will be away and unreachable from Friday Sept 26 through Monday Sept 29. Please contact your local hospital lactation department or one of my colleagues at www.nhlactation.com for assitance while I am away. If it is an emergency please contact your pediatrician or obstetrician.

New Hampshire IBCLC Board Certified Lactation Consultants in Private Practice. Home Visits. Office Visitis. Telehealth.

09/23/2025

ACOG reaffirms the safety and benefits of acetaminophen use during pregnancy.
More than two decades of research have found no causal link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability in children. Acetaminophen continues to be an important and safe option for managing pain and fever in pregnancy—conditions that can pose serious risks to pregnant patients and their fetuses if left untreated. Learn more about acetaminophen use during pregnancy: https://bit.ly/4mqIzWr

09/14/2025

Health Rounds: A mothers’ breastmilk supply may partly depend on genetics
By Nancy Lapid Updated September 12, 2025

Sept 12 (Reuters) - "Three genes have been identified that may influence a woman’s milk supply when she is trying to breastfeed, researchers say.
While the precise role of the genes isn’t clear yet, the findings “will pave the way for more research in the area of milk production… and future studies will assist in our understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of breastfeeding difficulties,” they wrote in a report published in Science Advances, click link here to access: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr7174

In fresh breast milk samples donated by nine lactating people with low milk production, seven with high milk production, and 14 with normal milk production, the researchers analyzed the genetic makeup of milk fat globules and of cells that had come from the lining of the milk duct.
Low and high milk producers had differences in cell types and in levels of three genes called GLP1R, PLIN4, KLF10.
Because breastmilk delivers the mother's beneficial bacteria to the infant's intestines, the researchers also wanted to know whether genes affecting milk volume would also affect the health and variety of the baby's gut bacteria, which play a key role in immune, metabolic, and nervous system functions.
Mothers’ milk supply levels did not impact the babies’ intestinal bacteria, or microbiome, they found.
“These findings further support the messaging that individuals with low milk supply should be encouraged to continue partial breastfeeding to support healthy infant microbiome development,” the researchers said.

Reference:
Genomic characterization of normal and aberrant human milk production
Yarden Golan et al. ,Genomic characterization of normal and aberrant human milk production.Sci. Adv.11,eadr7174(2025). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adr7174

Abstract
Breastfeeding is essential for reducing infant morbidity and mortality, yet exclusive breastfeeding rates remain low, often because of insufficient milk production. The molecular causes of low milk production are not well understood. Fresh milk samples from 30 lactating individuals, classified by milk production levels across postpartum stages, were analyzed using genomic and microbiome techniques. Bulk RNA sequencing of milk fat globules (MFGs), milk cells, and breast tissue revealed that MFG-derived RNA closely mirrors luminal milk cells. Transcriptomic and single-cell RNA analyses identified changes in gene expression and cellular composition, highlighting key genes (GLP1R, PLIN4, and KLF10) and cell-type differences between low and high producers. Infant microbiome diversity was influenced by feeding type but not maternal milk production. This study provides a comprehensive human milk transcriptomic catalog and highlights that MFG could serve as a useful biomarker for milk transcriptome analysis, offering insights into the genetic factors influencing milk production."

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/health-rounds-mothers-breastmilk-supply-may-partly-depend-genetics-2025-09-12/

08/11/2025

This is an excellent demonstration of latch positioning!

07/21/2025

From July 25th until August 10th I will be away on my annual family camping trip. I will not have cell phone service during this time. If you are in need of assistance please reach out to somebody from www.nhlactation.com, or you can call any local hospital lactation department. Peace, Love, Hermit Island!

07/14/2025

Today is the LAST DAY to get pre-approved insurance coverage for lactation services if you have BCBS/Anthem. If you are pregnant please sign up now. After today, all BCBS/Anthem patients will have to pay out of pocket for services, and then seek reimbursement.

I am still accepting United, Aetna, and Cigna plans- as well as any subsidiaries. This change was not my decision... BCBS dropped us ALL.

The Lactation Network

07/12/2025

I am overbooked and firmly closed to new patients through August 18th. Please go to www.nhlactation.com to locate an alternative provider. Repeat clients please email for availability.

New Hampshire IBCLC Board Certified Lactation Consultants in Private Practice. Home Visits. Office Visitis. Telehealth.