Birth Strong

12/21/2025

A little holiday reminder from your friendly lactation professional 🥰 beware Christmastitis:

Did you know that rates of mastitis go up around holiday periods? Why?

It's your first Christmas with your baby. You're mega excited and so is everyone else to have this gorgeous bundle in their lives. Christmas is going to be AWESOME.

Lots of travelling around in the car visiting friends and family! And that is genuinely fabulous.

But all that travelling leads to lots of time in the car seat, and for most babies the car seat sends them to sleep. And long sleeps mean long gaps between feeds, which leads to full breasts with potential for blockages...

Then the parties, the gatherings, celebrations! Lovely right?! Yes! Except everyone wants a hold of little baby Rupert and once again he has longer stretches between feeds. And when he does come back to you he's over stimulated and over tired and only takes two minutes on the breast before he falls asleep leaving you with, you guessed it, full breasts....

Or the guests seem to think they know better than you do about baby Josie's feeding cues and tell you she doesn't need feeding, they can settle her for you. You're then stuck because you would like to feed your baby, but you don't want to upset family or the way they did things, and maybe they're right?

So your breasts don't get 'emptied' like usual and can you guess what happens next? Yep....

Maybe you're sleeping somewhere different, the bed is different, you can't quite get the angle of the feed right on this squishy mattress and the latch goes a bit dodgy, but you put up with it because you don't want the baby to cry and wake everyone. Dodgy latch leads to breast not emptying efficiently...and you know the rest.

Christmas is lovely, but for a huge amount of people it's also very stressful. Stress hormones can impact on oxytocin, which is the hormone needed to let your milk flow.

So plan ahead now to make sure this holiday season is one where you can feed whenever and wherever you need to. Be led by your baby. Don't stretch out or cut short feeds.
Listen to your body, not Auntie Denise.

🖼️ and ✍️

12/21/2025

👣 Another beautiful Birth Strong Doula Services baby greeted the world this weekend. Welcome sweet baby girl. (And another repeat family to boot) 🩷 👣

12/08/2025

I went to college the 1st time and graduated in 2007. Then I did something crazy and went back to school 15 years later for a very specialized additional 4 year degree.

Guess what just came today?!?! My diploma for 4 hard years of full-time school and simultaneous clinical placement. And graduated Summa Cum Laude. I worked hard for this!!! My guys really supported me through it. I have prayed for more safe options in S.D. and then God called me. Thank you Jesus for the bravery, ability, strength, finances, support, Holy Spirit nudge, opening just the right doors. thank you First Presbyterian Huron for the help of scholarship 🥹 121.5 midwifery credits ✅, finished 1400+ hours of clinical placement ✅ (i stopped counting), passed national NARM exam ✅, CPM granted ✅, diploma granted & official transcript ✅✅, paid $1000 licensing fee to S.D. ✅, now waiting on the state of South Dakota/FBI!!

Thank you to ALL the families that allowed me to come along side you thru your pregnancy/birth/postpartum journey!!!! Could NOT have done it without you. 🥰

12/02/2025

No prenatal/gentle yoga 12/2 or 12/9 due to kids Christmas concerts. Thank you!

11/21/2025

Another sweet baby 💙 born yesterday with Birth Stong Doula Services. This is not the 1st family who has had 3️⃣ babies that I have doula-ed 🩷🩷💙. What sweet, sweet moments we had. Thanks for asking me to be part of your story 🥰

10/29/2025

I am in 3 of the photos in this montage 🥰 can you find me?!?

10/28/2025

Breaking your water has been used by many providers with the encouragement that “this will help labor along or speed up labor”. This interesting demonstration explains why breaking the bag of waters may not help the situation.

10/16/2025

What a beautiful tribute from 1 community. 🏮 🏮 🏮 The whole month of October is really all about loss remembering and honoring. I have walked the path myself 3x as well as walked the hard journey alongside others. You are not alone. They are not forgotten.

10/15/2025

Sometimes, after a particularly physically demanding birth, comfort baking and cooking is therapeutic… especially when the 🍁 change and the temperature is dipping. 🩷

10/14/2025

See you at Prenatal/gentle yoga tonight @ Faith Family Chiropractic 7:15-8:15pm

09/09/2025

Did you know midwives can do the blood spot screening in your own home? This is the part of my job that I don’t love, but this lego video kinda captures the rediculousness of getting a good sample 😊 and how we are pretty sure the people who invented it didn’t actually ever have to DO it. 🤣

09/09/2025

Is your baby struggling with getting a deep latch? There can be various reasons for this, but some babies just need a bit of practice 💕. Here is a way you can help encourage that little mouth to open a bit wider.