This is Maureen Ferrall and Heather O’Neal and this is The Milk Minute, an inclusive evidence-based podcast hosted by midwives and lactation professionals. That’s us. Here to talk to you about all things, lactation and boobs, body positivity, mental health, all the Milky topics. Join us for another episode.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to our special holiday episode of The Milk Minute Podcast. Today, we are going to talk about mastitis, which if you didn’t know, increases around the holidays every single year. And we are also going to talk about self-care because those two pretty much go hand in hand. But first up, it’s our Milk Minute Alcove Award of the Week. And then we are going to field to holiday related listener question before we move into the meat of the show, because you don’t want to miss this.

And now for The Milk Minute Alcove Awards, we are going to shout out an award to our friend, April.anApril’s an all around bad-ass who just hit her one year of breastfeeding twins. Yeah. Twins, you guys. She actually did it and I couldn’t be more proud. And she posted in the group that she’s made it a year and that the community is the reason why.

And it made me cry. It really did make Maureen cry. She is so full of hormones right now. I mean puppy commercials make me cry too now, but it was a much more emotional crying for April. Yeah. I mean, because we’ve been there, it’s hard. It is so hard. And you defied the odds with twins and you did it. You made it a whole year of breastfeeding two humans. I mean, you’re a fucking rock star, so good for you April. So proud of you. We’re going to award you the double time award because you did everything double time this year, and we’re giving you two double high-fives. We’re super proud of you.

Let’s take just a minute to thank our sponsor Liquid IV. Heather, I want to tell you a little bit about this because I was skeptical at first, but when I really looked at it, Liquid IV offers highly effective functional hydration products that make you feel better, faster. Well, I mean, I guess my question is how does that differ from sports drinks?

This is way different. These guys function on premium ingredients and optimal flavor without all of the additives and sugars. Oh, okay. So you’re saying that you can balance your body and your hydration, get your vitamins and not pack your body full of sugar? Okay. Okay. Exactly. They work with a world-class team to create cutting edge functional beverages where science meets taste and the company focuses on giving back to the communities they work with and on sustainability. So click the link in the show notes and enter the promo code MILKMINUTE10 to get your first batch of a Liquid IV.

This question is from Elizabeth. And she says that she’s got a big family trip coming up, where they are driving a long distance to go see family for the holidays. And they are staying for an extended period of time. And she is concerned about her mother-in-law being overbearing when it comes to holding the baby and feeding the baby. And she always pressures her to bottle feed when she’s with her. So she wants to know how she can survive the holidays with that amount of pressure surrounding her feeding method.

Yeah. Well, first I’m going to say that we’re going to address a lot of that in this episode. So listen up, but I also want to say, give yourself some grace with this trip. With your car ride just automatically plan to stop every two hours. Even if you don’t have to great, you can be like, fuck yeah. Expectations exceeded. Yep. And with your mother-in-law, you know, I think our, our big thing is going to be boundaries honey. Decide, think, take that 12 hour car ride and decide what is important to you.

You could accidentally forget your breast pump, wink, wink, and be like, Oh gosh, can’t believe I left that at home. I guess we’re going to just have to breastfeed the whole time we’re here. Oh, well, and if she, I mean, if she’s going to go out to Target and buy you another $300 breast pump, I mean, that’d be a bit much, but yeah.

I mean, be creative in your solutions is going to be my suggestion. You know, if you’re the kind of person who can just say no and make boundaries, do that. But if you’re like, Oh God, I can’t do confrontation. I can’t do that. Be creative. Oh, looks like it’s a dirty diaper. Got to go change that and feed this baby. And oh, baby’s not hungry. It’s nap time. And, you know, ask your partner to help you because you should not have to be the only one saying, no, I’m not giving my baby a bottle. Yes, especially if it’s a mother-in-law situation, but most of all, listen up because this episode is going to be your manual to surviving the holidays without mastitis.

Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsor, Taking Cara Babies, sleep courses. Tell me about that, Heather. Oh, it’s awesome. I took it. Everybody needs to take it. Cara owns a company called Taking Cara Babies. She was a NICU nurse and her husband’s a pediatrician and she solves your problem of how to get your baby to sleep through the night and to nap and get on a good nap schedule while being breastfeeding friendly. I mean, you think it’s not possible, but it actually is. And she basically gives you permission to do these evidence-based, research-based things to get your baby to sleep better through the night without hurting your milk supply. Sounds great. So tell me, how do our listeners get there? Go to the show notes, click the link and sign up and that’s it. Go do it and enjoy your night’s sleep. Good night.

Happy holidays!  Today we wanted to talk about the Christmas present that nobody fucking asked for: mastitis. I was like, we already announced your pregnancy. Yeah. Well, in case you’re wondering what the heck does mastitis have to do with the holidays, a lot. We’re here to tell you we get calls all the time around the holidays from people that have gone to many, many parties, their schedules have changed and all of a sudden their breasts are just acting like a fool and they’ve got fevers and they feel like absolute dog shit. Yeah. And let me just sum this up for you. If you’re like, hm, what is mastitis? Now I’m scared. That’s that’s a reasonable feeling because mastitis is a breast infection and it sucks. It super sucks, and it happens quickly and then progresses quickly.

Right? So usually this is triggered by an interruption in feeding schedules or a clogged duct or something that’s stopping milk flow. How we see this progress is typically we’ll have a little bit of pain or soreness from a clog, or, you know, baby’s feeding schedule will change for whatever reason. And then very suddenly we have the breastfeeding parent go from feeling a little bit cruddy to suddenly feeling like they have a full-blown flu.

Fever, body aches, chills, all kinds of stuff. And usually that’s accompanied by redness and swelling on the breast. Um, sometimes both breasts, often just one. Sometimes it’s the whole breast, or sometimes we see this really characteristic, like pizza wedge shape. That’s pretty strange and it’s really hot to the touch and super tender.

Yeah. And what most people tend to do when that happens is avoid feeding on that breast. And that is the absolute worst thing you could possibly do. Right. It’s going to make that infection worse and it’s, it’s just going to cause your body to stop making milk there. So we do sometimes see that mastitis leads to a decrease in milk production when we stop expressing milk. Yes. And so we’re going to give you a couple tips to handle that mastitis right now, but the actual show that we’re doing today is five steps to surviving the holidays and preventing mastitis.

But we don’t want to leave you hanging. So if you do end up with mastitis at any point in time, holiday or no holiday, you are going to feed on that breast. You are going to call your provider and probably get antibiotics. And, and you know what, it is always fucking 11:00 PM when somebody realizes they’re getting mastitis and they’re not always able to get meds till the next morning.

So we have kind of a couple of things that you can do in the meantime, you know, and usually it’s not bad enough that you need to go to the ER, but don’t rule that out as an option because sometimes you feel that bad. But usually we’re going to do kind of our same protocol for clogged ducts. We’re going to do lots of expression, whether it’s with the pump or baby. We’re going to do warm compresses and breast massage.

And if you can’t tolerate the breast massage, you can always do like some kind of vibration externally on the area. So like even your electric toothbrush is good or your actual vibrator. Or your actual vibrator would be fine. Yes. Or, you know, my, uh, my friend’s mom has this giant back massager called The Thumper and she’s, yeah, and she is like super, very reserved. And the other day her husband was thumping himself and she yells from the kitchen, “hey Terry, when you’re done there, would you mind coming in here and thumping me?” And I lost my mind. Anyways, you can use your Thumper on your, on your breast to get that. Uh, what that does, it kind of breaks up the chunks of fat that have congealed in your duct and behind that congealed fat is the bacteria that is feeding off of your sugary milk.

And it’s moving into your lymphatic system and it circulates through your whole body, which is why you generally feel like dog shit everywhere. And it is safe to continue feeding baby because that bacteria just gets broken down in their gut. It’s not dangerous in that way, but it’s dangerous for you because if it’s in your milk, it’s also going to be able to get into your bloodstream. And like Heather said, your lymph and it’s going to be systemic for you. So with mastitis, we see systemic symptoms instead of localized symptoms. Yes.

Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsor Aeroflow. Oh, tell me more about that. You know, do you ever wake up in the morning and you’re like, I would love to call my insurance company today. Literally never once have I thought that, okay. So, people at Aeroflow knew this. Right. Good. And they decided that it would be in everybody’s best interest if they developed a business where they contacted your insurance company to order your breast pump for you. This sounds good. So you literally never have to call your insurance company to work out getting a breast pump, which is fantastic, because no one ever wants to do that crap when they’re postpartum. And the other cool part is they will text you and let you know when it’s time for you to replace your pumping parts and when your insurance will pay for new ones.

So maybe, you know, your pump parts are fine for now, but if insurance is going to cover a new set, great! I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m not really combing through my insurance benefits information postpartum to see when I qualify for replacement. Uh, no, not at all. Right. So we’re going to go ahead and put a link in the show notes for Aeroflow. And when you click that link, it’s super easy. You just put in all of your insurance information and then somebody from Aeroflow contacts you directly, and you have like a real person that you talk with. And then they do all the dirty work for you. It’s fantastic. I couldn’t recommend it enough, please.

Just do yourself a favor and get your pump through Aeroflow. It’s going to save you so much time and trouble. Right? And they have all the top brand name pumps, replacement parts, and accessories. You know, they’ve got cooling gel pads. They’ve got those pumping bras, all the stuff you need. One place. Yep. One place. So, um, I guess the only thing left to say about that is you’re welcome. Yeah, you’re welcome.

So let’s get into our five steps to surviving the holidays and preventing mastitis. Maureen hit us with number one. Alrighty, Heather, we are going to start with supporting your immune system. What? I know that didn’t sound fun. I’m so busy shopping and preparing the house and making Wassail. I do not make Wassail for the holidays. But seriously, if you can get healthy and stay healthy through this holiday season and really build some resiliency in your body, you’re going to be able to tolerate some of this stress and changes.

 You know, and I understand that right now, a lot of us are dealing with rising COVID numbers. Your holiday season is probably not going to be conventional for you, but, I can pretty much guarantee it’s still going to be stressful. Cause maybe you’re trying to organize six different zoom meetings with your family instead of seeing them. And you’re like, Mmm. Maybe I don’t want everyone to see my boob on zoom. Yeah. Or like your grandma’s yelling at you like Barbara, why did you turn your camera off? Barbara, turn your camera back on. And you’re like, listen, granny, I’m breastfeeding. What? Yeah.

So anyway, you know, we just, we just want to build that health before all this shit happens. So let’s, let’s think of some ways to do that. You know, a lot of you guys already know about taking things like zinc or vitamin C. Go ahead and do that. That’s breastfeeding, safe. Yep. It’s breastfeeding, safe. And also your diet tends to change around the holidays and we start eating a lot more garbage, so you know what, eat it. That’s great. But life is about balance. So, you know, if you know that you’re going to be eating like crap later on in the day, get yourself a really good breakfast.

Take your multivitamin. Take your multivitamin. Schedule weekly chiropractic appointments or acupuncture appointments or massages or whatever. You know, we just, some people celebrate many holidays at this point. It just starts with Thanksgiving. And you know, maybe you have this multicultural family and you’re going to do Hanukkah and Christmas and who knows what else?

And then New Year’s. And it’s just one thing after the other. It’s a lot of cooking. It’s a lot of stress. It’s a lot of expectations, even just in your immediate family. So we’re going to work on stress reduction and maintaining that throughout your holiday season. Let’s do some breathing techniques. You know, here’s what I want you to do in the morning when you’re like, fuck, I have to put the stupid turkey in the oven and somehow fit 10 other things in there.

I’m going to say, all right. All right. Shut your door with your kids on the other side. Look out the window, take a deep breath in. Let’s all do it together. Right? Do a collective breath, deep breath in. We’re going to hold it for four seconds. And then exhale. And I want you to do that about four times. I like square breathing, right?

Inhale for four, hold for four. Exhale for four, pause for four. Mm. I let you can do, you know, there’s a bunch of different breathing techniques that have been proven to kind of change the way your nervous system is working from fight or flight to that rest and digest. And all of them work pretty well. So I like the square one because I don’t have to for, you know, remember like, Oh, is it seven seconds in and eight seconds holding ?

I’m like four, four, four, four square. And I, and I think about the square in my mind. And I go up when I breathe in and over when I hold and down, when I breathe out and over when I hold and it’s great. So I want you to do that at least four times. This is all fours. You can’t forget it. Okay. But Hey do it with all fives. I don’t care. Yeah. And you look out that window at something that looks nice or look at the favorite thing that you have in your room. Nice plant. I have a lot of plants. My pothos is my favorite. And um, I want you to just tell yourself, like I am equal to the day that is coming. You’re equal to the day that is coming. I can do it. This day is not going to absorb me. I can do everything that I need to today. And if I don’t get it done, it didn’t need to happen. Yeah. Just do what you can do and the rest of it, let it go.

But again, this leads us right into number two, which is boundaries. Ooh, I’m going to give this one to you, Heather. Raise your hand if you are good at setting boundaries. Yeah. There’s crickets in the alcove. No one, no one. I mean, it takes practice. Let’s be honest. So if you’re the kind of person that is a circle, you know, you’re happiest when everybody else is happy too. I’m talking to you people here, you’re the problem. You are the ones that end up being the container that everybody shits in. All holiday season.

And then you end up with a serious illness in February. Once you’re finally able to breathe, your adrenal system just completely dumps. It’s like, you’re saying you’re the bed pan. You’re the, you’re the bed pan of Christmas. Yeah. So, you know what, here’s the thing, the best way I think about setting boundaries is to come up with specific goals. So setting boundaries is really ambiguous, right? Like, Oh, I need to be better at setting boundaries.