Mama's Milk, No Chaser

Conversations & More: Genital Integrity Awareness Week

hollymilkowski April 7, 2018

I just returned from a trip to Washington D.C. for Genital Integrity Awareness Week, which was March 28th-April 3rd. A week full of seed-planting, countless conversations with principled conclusions, minds changed, futures salvaged… This is my kind of activism!

The mission as stated on the web site is to raise public awareness of:

the basic human right to genital autonomy for all individuals, regardless of sex
the damage inflicted by forced genital cutting, of boys, girls and intersex persons
foreskin restoration options for those impacted by forced genital cutting
research based information on intact subjects to a large body of individuals in Washington D.C. – students, educators, tourists, lawmakers, politicians – who take this information home with them to their own circles of influence
the need for congress and lawmakers to grant boys and intersex minors equal rights under law with protection from forced genital cutting

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Live on Whole Mother Show: The Circumcision Decision

hollymilkowski March 26, 2018

Houston midwife Pat Jones interviewed myself and Amber Clark for the Whole Mother Radio Show on 90.1 FM KPFT to discuss circumcision. Check out the video above — audio file coming soon!

This was a great way to kick off Genital Integrity Awareness Week (March 28-April 3)!

Please support #GIAW, either by attending, sharing related posts, and/or donating toward the effort.

For more info:

Intact Houston / Intact Texas on Facebook
Saving Our Sons
The Intact Network
GIAW

Limited Time: Crunchy Wear Discount!

hollymilkowski March 12, 2018

So I’ve had this blog running since fall of 2014. My oldest child had just turned two, and I really wanted to share our experiences and what we’d learned about breastfeeding and this parenting thing (so far!).

If you’re a regular reader you may have noticed my blog posting frequency has slowed down in recent months. There are a few reasons for this.

First, life has gotten terrifically busy with the addition of another child and two rescued companion animals.

Second, I hope to work on other projects soon to get me closer to my goal of publishing a novel.

Third, I am still undecided about whether to continue blogging (and maintaining associated social media feeds) in the midst of the aforementioned First and Second. I’ve never been paid to blog. I’ve shared my writing entirely for free and, in fact, have been PAYING to do so because I’m so passionate about it. However, I’ve come to a point where I can no longer afford to keep renewing my domain and paying to maintain this site.

So, here’s the thing. If you have enjoyed my posts thus far and want to see more fresh content, OR even just to ensure the site remains accessible as is, please consider helping out.

It costs $208 per year to keep this site as you see it. As I mentioned, I’ve never made money from ads, affiliates, or fundraising to cover this annual expense.

Now I’m finally asking for a little help to meet that goal! And you get something rad in your mailbox, too.

Here’s what you do:

CrunchyWear is giving a discount for the launch of their awesome crunchy themed gear! Mama’s Milk, No Chaser followers can use the discount code for 10% off orders over $30, AND 10% of profit will be given toward MMNC to help cover costs to keep the site running.

It’s EASY and you get some cool new advocacy threads!

Visit CrunchyWear.com!
Shop your style! ~ Breastfeeding ~ Genital Autonomy ~ Positivi-Tees ~ Veganism ~ Vaccine Awareness ~ Woke Wear ~
Use discount code MMNC10 at checkout!

BOOM done! Offer ends 3/31 so don’t dilly dally if you see something you like!

THANK YOU for your support. ❤ It has been quite an exciting and moving journey over the past 3.5 years and I hope we can keep it up!

7 Tips For Nursing With Large Breasts

hollymilkowski February 14, 2018

Women with large breasts (and those who are also heavier all around) may face special challenges when it comes to breastfeeding.

Plus-sized women are less likely to breastfeed than normal-weight mothers, a study found. This may begin soon after birth as plus-sized mothers’ milk is often delayed to come in, causing these mothers to abandon it. Even if a mother is not curvy all around but simply has very large (DD-cup or bigger) breasts, she may struggle with unique problems that are typically not discussed in breastfeeding classes.

Unless you believe you might have gigantomastia (read about it in the links below), here are a few tips that can help.*

*Please note, I’m not plus-sized or large breasted. These tips were compiled from other sources that attest to their reliability, not from my own personal experience.

If You’re Haunted By Recurrent Mastitis: Help & Tips

hollymilkowski October 28, 2017

It comes on suddenly and leaves without a trace. I always forget how bad mastitis is until I get it again, then I’m surprised I’ve lasted this long with breastfeeding because I’ve felt hounded by those ‘quitting feelings’ during many a run with this illness.

I just recovered from my 8th (in 5 years) and hopefully final battle with mastitis; my second bout of the “boob flu” in two weeks.

Thankfully I’ve learned something new with each run of the boob flu madness… Read More

No More Babies: How I Really Feel (Last Child Grief)

hollymilkowski September 25, 2017

Thoughts at 4 Months Postpartum

I only have two children, and two will be my only. We always planned to have two kids for the usual reasons: financial resources, practicality, health reasons, familiarity, and so on.

This pregnancy and postpartum were much different than the first. I suspect it has much to do with knowing they’ll be my last.

I feel the postpartum slipping away. My youngest is now four months old, which means a little more than a trimester ago he was playing, breathing, wriggling, and listening in my womb.

For these past months I’ve watched my body turn into something blooming and abundant to swollen and rumpling to deflated and limp, stressed from constant demands upon it and weak from the the endless drill of late nights and early mornings. I’ve felt unmotivated to move into a new chapter, for I know once that happens, I won’t get to call myself ‘newly postpartum.’ In my case, not ever again.

This is now the body I’m left with. Rather, this is the body I get to keep. I’ve got more skin than I had before, a herniated navel, and my hair seems to be grieving with me as it sheds like a willow in the fall.

I think I’ll say I’m no longer ‘postpartum’ when my linea nigra disappears. The first time it took a year. I think that’s when I’ll stop telling people “I just had a baby…”

Right now my body is a signpost of declarations that say this shop is closed, be back soon. I know better because my intentions are steps ahead; I know the shop is closed indefinitely. Read More

Four Years Later, I Still Get Nervous Breastfeeding in Public

hollymilkowski September 17, 2017

“Bless you, ma’am.”

“What?”

“Bless you,” he repeated, with a nod toward my nursing baby. “Traveling with your family…”

Then a young woman on the train offered me her seat as I nursed baby Julep again. I smiled and declined with a thank you. She mouthed a silent “Okay,” hands clutching to her heart and a whispered “Aww, it’s just so cute!”

Later a United airline employee noticed Julep in the carrier busy with something. She peeked down at his face obscured by a chubby hand.

“I see you’ve got those fingers in your mouth, huh?” she cooed. “Oh!” She laughed as he moved his hand, revealing a tiny mouth latched to me and leaking breast milk. “I see you’ve got something even better.”

Mostly praise and endearing smiles in reflection of Julep nursing in public…

When You Feel Awkward Seeing Breastfeeding in Public

hollymilkowski September 16, 2017

For one reason or another, some people feel awkward when they see a woman breastfeeding her child in public. This does not necessarily make them bad people. Their feelings can be perfectly valid; it takes a unique set of nature and nurture to arrive at the point of feeling awkward with a specific trigger such as this.

For those who aren’t accustomed to seeing breastfeeding in public and are largely uninformed about how it all works, a little patience may be needed as they adjust. After all, few of us have been spared from American culture’s mixed messages about women’s roles and heavy promotion of both infant formula and breasts as sex objects.

That said, misunderstanding and ignorance are acceptable; projection of fears and lashing out with harassing or discriminatory behavior are not.

Here are a few ideas about what to do and not do if you’re not yet comfortable seeing breastfeeding in public (but you’re working on it, right?).

It Just Needs To Be Said About Full-Term Breastfeeding…

hollymilkowski September 10, 2017

I have two children, an almost 5 year old and an almost 17 month old, who both nurse. They both began nursing just moments after each was born and here we are, still nursing along. I often find myself in the position of explaining this decision (or fate, rather).

Why is an explanation needed and sometimes even demanded from those who choose to do (or simply end up doing) tandem- and full-term breastfeeding?

Now breastfeeding may be less frequent, quicker, less nutritionally vital, more physically active than it was in the newborn days when they had tiny gummy mouths and floppy bodies. Otherwise, it really isn’t much different. They’re the same people they were 17 months and 5 years ago. Still asking to nurse. And one day they won’t.

Continuing to nurse as age advances is no clue that nursing will go on forever, like an evergreen tree of connection to mother. One day, the child will feel differently about this connection and realize the shoe no longer fits. What is the rush or worry until then?

From the looks of many comments on August’s World Breastfeeding Month social media/news threads, it seems there are two kinds of people who weigh in whenever full-term and tandem nursing come up: those who truly fully support breastfeeding and those who don’t (though many kick off their commentary with “I support breastfeeding, but…”). Do the rest just keep quiet to maintain neutrality? I don’t know.

I don’t have the time or concern to respond to or even read every comment/message that aims to preserve the controversy, but I feel it’s necessary to address a few inspired by two videos I recently shared.

Mostly because there aren’t too many tandem nursing, full-term weaning videos and I hope to bust (see what I did there?) some of the myths for other mothers. Also because breastfeeding mothers hear/read these same comments all. the. time. I hope my explanations (not to be mistaken for defenses) will satisfy the wannabe mic-droppers and the apparently ever-curious.

(Links to videos at end of post)

Breastfeeding Concerns During a Natural Disaster: Babies Still Need To Eat

hollymilkowski August 30, 2017

Via Associated Press

As I write this*, I’m taking note of the tornado warnings that have made my phone beep seemingly every hour for the past few days. The sound of rain pelting the windows. Bayous and reservoirs cresting over. I’m watching friends’ and neighbors’ homes flood in real time. Reading about pleas for rescue as families seek refuge from rising water in their attics and on their roofs. You could say things are out of control.

Amid all of this, babies still need to eat. Newborn babies who took their first breath at a Houston area birth center after tropical storm Harvey made landfall. Older babies who nurse around the clock or drink expressed or powdered milk or formula supplements.

The stores are closed and roads are crumbling or underwater. Formula is now largely inaccessible. But babies still need to eat.

Pumping moms need to continue pumping to avoid mastitis, supply issues, and maintain production. What about when the power goes out? Or when the house floods and the circuit board must be shut off? Hopefully they have a manual pump or have been taught how to hand express… because babies still need to eat.

New mothers, welcomed into motherhood with all the terrific drama Mother Nature herself could muster: I hope you have a (relatively) easy time getting started. The well-trained eye of a lactation consultant in your home, personally assessing latch and other tricky spots, cannot compare to scouring the internet for emergency breastfeeding help in the early days. But no one is risking travel across town for ‘work’ in a deluge. A lucky mother has her phone fully charged and ready to go with breastfeeding apps right now because, of course, babies still need to eat.

*(Flood waters have since receded from my neighborhood and we’re doing fine now. However, eleven million people in the southeast counties of Texas are still trying to get a grip on the continued consequences of this historic flooding). Read More

Is Nursing in a Beautiful Field at Sunset a Natural, Realistic Depiction of Breastfeeding?

hollymilkowski August 14, 2017

I’ll cut to the chase right now: the answer is both yes and (sometimes) no.

It’s been said that breastfeeding is an art. The art of photography highlights the importance of this honest statement about breastfeeding.

Here we begin to view it as the beautiful, innocent, inherently harmonious and peace-giving activity it is (if we don’t do so already). And we notice it’s more than an activity, really. It’s a relationship.

In this way breastfeeding photos (and other art forms) reflect the many nuances involved in the relationship between a mother and her nursling. One that can’t be negated even when a mermaid costume, computer-generated rainbow, endless fields of lavender, or fog machines help set a more surrealistic scene (I know you’re curious, so just go ahead and Google those already!).

The subject matter is the same regardless of the brand of camera that captured it, or whether natural or artificial lighting was used. What we’re looking at is simply breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding photos are always candid and improvised even if attempts are made to pose. If you watch a breastfeeding photo shoot happen firsthand, you’ll understand the only one directing the scene is the nursling! Read More

How Adam Tries To Ruin Breastfeeding

hollymilkowski July 31, 2017

In Adam’s supposed attempt to ruin mom shaming, he was in truth aimed at ruining breastfeeding.

Why not Adam Ruins Everything: Formula Marketing, or Adam Ruins Everything: Mommy Wars?

The episode Adam Ruins Everything: Why Formula Isn’t Poison (which originally aired on July 9th but you can watch it here) plays much like a formula advertisement. It reminded me of the infamous Similac one that aimed to dupe us into receiving it as some cute public service announcement when really, illusions dissolved, it was just a smartly manipulative attempt to sell formula.

A few questions raised by this episode: is it really necessary to degrade breastfeeding in order to prove formula isn’t poison? It’s true that formula isn’t poison, but can’t this fact stand on its own merit without comparing against breast milk?

Overall, Adam’s episode focuses less about how formula isn’t poison and more about how breastfeeding really isn’t all that great, apparently. The information here is incomplete at best, biased and inaccurate at worst.
Read More

Break The Ice About Circumcision: For Birth/Medical Workers & Their Clients

hollymilkowski July 10, 2017

Gather Your Bravery

Whether you’re a midwife, OB/Gyn, doula, childbirth educator, nurse, or pediatrician, you need to have this talk. You need to bring up circumcision and facilitate an honest, complete, educational discussion about it, just as you would any other birth or newborn procedure.

You routinely provide updated information about, say, epidurals and exclusive breastfeeding, right? Then you must give as much attention to this other elective birth ‘option’ of neonatal genital cutting.

I’m sure it can be difficult to balance the various aspects of your job description: unconditional support of a mother’s choices, preserving her and her baby’s well-being, matter-of-factly offering guidance with minimal personal bias.

Though it may seem that a neutral stance of ‘pro-parent’s choice’ (PPC) is the path of least resistance here, it is certainly not ‘pro-baby.’ As a birth worker, your responsibility of care covers a client’s child as well.

Think about this: Would you discourage a parent from circumcising a daughter if they expressed interest to do so? Or would you refer a pro- female circumcision parent to someone who’s willing to perform the procedure, locally or overseas?

Many PPC birth workers refer pro-male circumcision clients who are expecting sons to what they nickname ‘holistic circumcisers’ (though the very definition of circumcision absolutely defies the concept of holism), which deprives these parents the support and encouragement they need to make a better choice — that is, the choice to give their son HIS own choice.

Remember you might be the only person to ever bring this up with your client during her pregnancy. If she cannot count on her care provider to open up this relevant discussion, who can she count on?

What to Consider Before Sharing Your Birth Photos

hollymilkowski June 1, 2017

Thinking about sharing your birth photographs with friends, family, on social media, hanging them up in your foyer, perhaps printing them in a coffee table book for home visitors to peruse?

Here are a few worthwhile things to consider first.

For the Breastfeeding ‘Butters’

hollymilkowski May 13, 2017

If you’ve ever said “I support breastfeeding, but [insert almost any phrase],” I must break it to you:

You don’t truly support breastfeeding if you need to put a condition upon it. (This goes for the reluctant “supporters” and passionate advocates alike).

Examples: Read More