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Scott Webb: Breastfeeding is a tremendous bonding opportunity for new moms and their babies. And there's also many physical and mental health benefits as well. And here today to discuss the many benefits of breastfeeding is Holly Shannon. She's a registered nurse and the lactation program supervisor with SVMH.

This is Ask the Experts, a podcast from Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. I'm Scott Webb. Holly, thanks so much for joining me today. I know you've been at this a long time, right? And I know you teach classes and it's such a great topic breastfeeding. And I also know that Salina's Valley Memorial Hospital is a baby friendly designated facility. What does that mean exactly? What is baby friendly and why is that important?

Holly Shannon: Well, baby friendly is very important. It was actually established by the World Health Organization and UNICEF in 1991. And they came together to encourage breastfeeding,, throughout the world. And their goals were to inform mothers of the benefits of breast milk to remove commercial interests from hospitals. To receive the baby friendly hospital designation, hospitals and birthing centers must meet 10 different criteria, including staff training, educating mothers about breastfeeding and allowing infants to room in with their mothers 24 hours a day.

Baby friendly assist hospitals and giving mothers information, confidence and skills necessary to successfully initiate and continue breastfeeding their babies. But in cases where patients have a medical indication or have made the informed decision to use formula, we provide information about safe preparation and feeding a formula to these moms. And Selinas Valley Memorial healthcare system is super proud to be one of only 595 baby friendly designated facilities in the United States. So it's a really big thing and we're really proud of our designation.

Scott Webb: Yeah, it is a really big thing. That's a great way to put that. So let's talk about this and we're gonna go through, you mentioned formula versus breastfeeding and so on. And my kids are older, but I do remember having these conversations about them with my wife. And give you the really important one here upfront. Why do you believe it's so important to breastfeed?

Holly Shannon: Well, breastfeeding or human breast milk, to be specific. It is the perfect food for most infants. It provides so many benefits for babies, for mothers, actually for the environment, for our society, for employers. A few of the benefits for babies, are it, Develops a stronger immune system protection against asthma obesity, diabetes, ear infections, respiratory infections, species specific. So it's very easily digested by babies. It's been linked with better vision, higher IQs and better behavior as adolescents and in school.

So obviously the perfect food for most babies, for moms, there are also many benefits. It can help lower her risk of hypertension, type two diabetes, postpartum depression, and even different cancers, including breast, uterine, cervical, and ovarian. So it's really important. It's free. It saves.

Scott Webb: That's a great way to put that it is it's free. Yeah.

Holly Shannon: Formula is expensive, on average it costs 1200 to $1,800 a year, depending on the brand. It's about five to $6 a day to formula feed a baby. Whereas breastfeeding is free. It's always available. It does not carry the risk of contamination, shortage or needs special warming handling or equipment. So it's the easiest way to feed a baby.

Scott Webb: Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned about infections and protecting against infections. Babies can't be immunized, right? Not for a while anyway, so that breast milk and the breastfeeding is so important. And I'm wondering, how soon after a baby is born, can breastfeeding begin? How often do babies need to be breast fed and so on?

Holly Shannon: So ideally babies should, breastfeed within the first hour of being born. Here at SVMH for our healthy term infants, we place them skin to skin as soon as possible after they're born and we help them with breastfeeding. Most newborns eat about eight to 12 times in 24 hours. So we recommend cue-based feeding, which means that we teach moms how to identify feeding cues, and we encourage them to breastfeed their babies when their babies are showing these feeding cues.

Scott Webb: Yeah. And for all of us parents, in the group, we know what those cues can often be. Sometimes you get those cues at three o'clock in the morning and you know exactly what the baby wants. And we have touched a little bit here about formula and there may be times where that's the only option or the best option despite the cost and so on. So can babies get the same nutrients with formula? Can you give formula and breast milk? Can you kind of mix the two? How's that work?

Holly Shannon: I don't think you need to be black and white, either breastfeed or formula feed, any amount of breast milk or breastfeeding is beneficial for the baby. And whether it's one feeding a day or, you know, for two weeks or two months or however much breast milk a mother can give her baby is going to be beneficial. Now, formula is different than breast milk, both breast milk and formula provide energy, hydration, nutrients, but breast milk does provide a lot more than formula.

Store bought formula tends to be made from processed skim cows milk, with added nutrients vitamins minerals, they add sugars and oils. And so it isn't exactly the same as breast milk, but they certainly try to make the product get similar as they can. Breast milk just has so much more protective qualities, the antibodies and hormones and stem cells and white blood cells, and the good bacteria that isn't present with formula.

Scott Webb: I mentioned upfront there about you being a teacher and different services offered. So what programs does SVMHS have for expecting moms, lactation services before after birth, and so on?

Holly Shannon: So we have inpatient and outpatient lactation services. We offer childbirth education courses, prenatally and we offer breastfeeding classes, prenatally. And so we see patients throughout the hospital who are lactating and patients from all over the community, whether or not they deliver here at SMH can come in and see us in our outpatient lactation clinic.

Scott Webb: Yeah. And a mom is having difficulty producing milk, what do you recommend that she does? What type of support is available and especially the emotional support?

Holly Shannon: New moms need support. We are one of the only societies who really expects moms to do it on their own. And I really, really believe that it takes a village to support the baby and the mom, this couplet. And so for a woman who's struggling with her milk supply, the first thing I would recommend is that she seek out a lactation consultant to help her. What we're going to do is we're gonna determine kind of what's going on, get some history. Is it that the baby's been sleepy?

Is it something with mom? We're gonna try to figure out what the root cause of her milk supply issue. And then we're going to set up a plan to help her make more milk and hopefully meet her feeding goals. And so I think the most important thing would be for her to contact that specialist to kind of help her set up the plan so she can eventually be successful.

Scott Webb: Yeah. And a follow up here. Does SVMH have donated breast milk for moms? I hadn't heard of that, but I was kind of reading through here. I just wanna verify, do you have donated breast milk for moms who cannot produce their own?

Holly Shannon: We do use donated breast milk in our NICU. Yeah.

Scott Webb: Along those lines, then, do you provide pumps? Are they free or, or maybe, low charge to, low income mom?

Holly Shannon: So pumps are considered medical devices and through the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies will provide a breast pump for their patients or our patients. And so we do help moms in obtaining a pump. We do not give away pumps here. And so what we do is we refer them to their insurance provider. If a mom is low income, she may be a WIC participant. We give our moms information about WIC and WIC can provide a hospital grade pump as a loaner, or they can help her obtain a pump through her insurance, whether it be private insurance or MediCal.

And so we do help the moms in getting a good quality pump for home use. We have hand pumps here that we can give any mom who wants one, but we really recommend that she get a very good quality double electric pump, and her insurance will help her cover that cost. We have hospital grade pumps here at the hospital that will set up for our moms, but those are for inpatient or if her baby's in the NICU.

Scott Webb: This has been really educational and fun. I'm sure it has been for listeners as well. And I'm also sure that there's a lot of resources out there. So wondering if you can share at the end here, where can expecting mom go or a number they can call for more information about lactation services? Anything else?

Holly Shannon: Absolutely so they can call our lactation department directly at area code 831-759-3060. Or they can access information, our classes, our phone number, contact information through the SVMH website as well. And so, if someone leaves a message, we'll call them back as soon as possible. We do have lactation specialists seven days a week here, and we see outpatients five days a week by appointment.

Scott Webb: That's perfect, Holly. It's been really pleasure to have you on today and learn more about this. Thanks so much. You stay well.

Holly Shannon: Thank you so much. It was nice talking to you.

Scott Webb: For more information on all the services and specialties Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System offers. Please visit our website at svmh.com. And if you found this podcast to be helpful, please be sure to tell a friend, neighbor or family member and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and check out the entire podcast library for additional topics of interest. This is Ask the Experts from Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. I'm Scott Webb. Stay well, and we'll talk again next time.