Johanna - Two feeding journeys which ultimately led to becoming a sucessful Lactation Consultant

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Born and raised in Perth, Australia, Johanna unexpectedly made Switzerland her home in 2010. Johanna has studied biomedical science, occupational therapy, English literature, philosophy and education… and yet tells me how nothing prepared her for the tumultuous early years of motherhood. 

Johanna shares with me her experiences of feeding her two boys, who are now twelve and nine years old, and how her own breastfeeding grief and mental health struggles throughout the perinatal period fueled her desire to make this time easier for others in a similar situation, and to provide the kind of support that she wished she had received. Joh went on and trained to become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and is now passionate about providing non-judgemental, evidence-based information alongside compassionate support with her practice Milk and Motherhood. She founded and runs Breastfeeding Mamas in Switzerland, the 3500 member English-Speaking breastfeeding support group, and started Switzerland’s first informal milk-sharing network, Human Milk 4 Human Babies. She is frequently invited to speak at international conferences on a variety of infant feeding and counseling topics, and recently finished writing the new education module for the European Society of Neonatologists. 

I am so thrilled to have Joh join me in this episode especially as she tells her story from a perspective of having lived through it, but now with several years in between to see her boys grow and develop, as well developing her knowledge much further into the rather fantastic Lactation consultant that I am proud to call my friend. 

Some of the themes we discuss in this episode are:

·      Dealing with low supply 

·      Triple feeding. 

·      How being in this new world of motherhood led, at the time, to deep grief, obsession, and social isolation

·      Navigating her second baby’s feeding journey with a deep fear of repeating the first experience. 

·      Aversion to  pumping or expression

·      Discovering the supply line feeding device to help with low milk supply 

·      Using donor milk

·      Eventually having a lovely breastfeeding experience, followed by breast aversion and weaning at 2.5y

LINKS:

Facebook: Milk and Motherhood 
Website

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