“Jodi’s Story, Part Two: My Third Birth – Time for a Change” – with Jodi Nussbaum RN, BSN, IBCLC

In part 2 of Jodi’s story, Dr. Fox speaks with Nussbaum regarding her third pregnancy. After her second birth, Jodi began contemplating a different approach for her next pregnancy. She explored options between a hospital birth with her OB and a home birth with a midwife. Through research and self-reflection, Jodi shared the driving forces behind her decision to have a home birth and her experience with this process.

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Dr. Fox: Welcome to today’s episode of “Healthful Woman,” a podcast designed to explore topics in women’s health at all stages of life. I am your host, Dr. Nathan Fox, an OBGYN and maternal fetal medicine specialist practicing in New York City. At “Healthful Woman,” I speak with leaders in the field to help you learn more about women’s health, pregnancy and wellness.

All right. We’re back with Jodi Nussbaum, who last week told part one of her birth story, which was the story of her first two births. And where we left off in a cliffhanger last week was right after the birth of her second child, her son, after the vacuum. Thank God he was well. And what I asked you at the time, because I sort of know where this is headed, is there was something about those experiences that either changed you or changed your thought process about this. So I want you to start with that, you know. You just had a birth of your son. Everything went well. When was it that you started to think sort of retrospectively about what happened and how you may want to do things different moving forward?

Jodi: Yeah. That’s a good question.

Dr. Fox: We’re starting off hot. I’m coming in hot with question number one.

Jodi: It’s a big question because, man, I had a lot to process, I think, from my first two births. And I recall having a conversation with one of my fiends, who was also a nurse. We had, like, nine nurses on our unit pregnant at the same time. And so, one of my…

Dr. Fox: Oh, my God.

Jodi: …best friends. Yeah. One of my really closest friends at that time had just had her baby with the same OB that I had. And we both kinda felt like we were looking for this mother figure in our OB and both felt disappointed by her, in certain ways. And we really processed this together and throughout our first postpartum that we had together, and then my second pregnancy and after that. And feeling like I had been, you know, I transferred care twice during each one, during each of my pregnancies. And I was, in some sense, I felt like a sense of a lack of control and I think that’s because that’s essentially what pregnancy is, is it’s something that you can’t control. It’s something that you cannot, no matter how much monitoring you do, that’s all it is, is monitoring. There really are very few interventions actually that are doing something to change the pregnancy in some way. And I had been made to feel so stressed out during these two pregnancies, and I had looked forward so much to being pregnant and enjoying feeling my baby inside my body and becoming a mother. And I felt like I had been, in some way, robbed of those experiences and for no reason, I felt like. Like, I really felt like all of the paths I was sent down didn’t end up coming to be anything. And I know that’s not the case for everyone. But for me, it felt wrong and unjustified for something that we couldn’t have done anything to change anyway.

And I felt lost. I really felt lost after my pregnancy with my son and I felt guilt for not connecting to him throughout that pregnancy. And that had less to do with the prenatal care and more to do with just my life stage at the time. But I felt so disconnected from the pregnancy experience. And with the first, I felt like I had been searching to connect and to make sure everything was okay. And with him too, I was relying on those ultrasounds and on those test results and on what my OB said to know that my baby was okay. And I felt like even when I went, I didn’t feel that desire was satisfied. And I knew that with my next birth, I wanted something different and I didn’t know what. And I didn’t know who was gonna give that to me and I kinda felt, I had a hunch that I didn’t know anyone currently who could give me that.

I also trusted my body. I knew that my body could do it, especially after having had two vaginal births, I really felt inherently that the birth process was made to work. And I was influenced, I will admit, by, I had been exposed to kind of like the free birth movement, which I know is controversial and I have my thoughts about it too. You know, I’m not like a free birther or anything by any means, but I think there were a lot of things that I realized could be possible even without all of the intensive monitoring. And one of the things that really drew me to that was, or just of the idea of not getting all of the prenatal care necessarily, was that I could maybe look to myself to be that northern star, right, rather than looking outside of myself and to feel and connect to my baby, rather than relying on the tests and everything. I know that sounds really, like, I don’t know. Some people might think that it sounds silly or naive, but that’s how I felt. And I even, yeah, I don’t know if that makes sense or not.

Dr. Fox: Yeah. I don’t think it sounds silly or naive. I mean, you know, looking at this from a broad perspective, you’ve done this twice, right. You’re a mother of two, so you’re not naive. You’ve seen things. You’re a professional in healthcare, in this field, right. So you certainly, you know what could happen. Like, you’re not unaware of the possibilities. But you’re describing your feelings, right, and how you’re processing this. And they are what they are. That’s how you felt. And is it because just, you know, the circumstances, that’s just how it shook out for you, or is it something that was a reaction to the way your pregnancies were handled by your doctors? Maybe. Maybe yes, maybe no. It’s hard to say. Obviously you don’t know for sure. I mean, I don’t lament that you felt that way, right. I do feel though that probably you would have felt differently if your care had been approached in a different manner, maybe a little bit, I don’t know what the right word is, maybe holistic or maybe a little bit more interactive, that you’re part of the thought process potentially. I mean, who knows. Maybe you would have felt the same way anyways. I don’t know. We can’t go back in time. But I think that, you know, you’re just describing what your state of mind is at the time, so that’s what it is. So what did you ultimately choose to do with your third pregnancy. Who’d you go to?

Jodi: So I felt pretty lost for awhile and I actually went on a vacation with my…it was the part of COVID where there were no healthcare workers anywhere and everyone was short staffed. So my OB offices, I worked at that time, I was working in a lactation postpartum clinic and I knew that the associated OB practices were not even seeing people through their initial prenatals until about 14 weeks. So I used that as an excuse to myself to not go initially because I didn’t know what was gonna…I didn’t know what I wanted. And I needed some time to kind of process. And I was going on a trip to Israel. I think I was, like, 16 weeks. And so, I just decided, like, I’ll go to Israel. I’ll think about it, and then I’ll come back and I’ll decide what to do.

Dr. Fox: All right. Then yeah, find out if you’re having twins or not.

Jodi: Yeah, exactly. [inaudible 00:08:00] in our family. But by that point, I could already feel the baby, you know. I could feel her inside of me and I could feel the movements and everything. And I was able to have that initial connection just independently of the system, right. And that was so beautiful to me. So anyway, I came back. My parents, we had met in Israel. They gave me this long lecture about how no care is not a decision and you need to, you know, whatever. And so, I was like, okay. I guess I’ll do something. But I had not decided who to go to and I was working back at the hospital with my initial OB, who was a family friend from way back at the beginning with my first. So I decided I would go to her and talk to her about my desires for a low intervention pregnancy and birth and see what she thought. And then, I also found a midwife, who my friend had referred me to, who did home birth and I was not convinced I wanted a home birth at that time. I really was open, between the OB and the home birth midwife, I was really open and I just wanted to see what they said.

Dr. Fox: Did the home birth midwife also provide prenatal care, you knew it was full service?

Jodi: Yeah. She was a CNM and she’s like one of the lone CNMs. Actually she doesn’t even do births anymore, but one of the lone CNMs in the area that did home birth.

Dr. Fox: Got it. Okay.

Jodi: And I had a personal reference from a friend, that she was really happy, like, catering to her care to what patients needed and all of that. And so, I really liked that idea. But I also wasn’t sold on a home birth. I was kind of like, well, I want people to be there to take care of me, so I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want a home birth. I’m not really sure. And so, what I ended up doing was going and interviewing both of them, essentially. I had this long drawn out appointment with my OB. She spent, it must have been an hour. I mean, we talked for a long time. She was really generous with her time. And I told her there were certain things that I wasn’t comfortable with. I don’t know if you want me to go into all of that or not. But I didn’t, you know, want cervical checks and I wanted to be able to touch my baby when they were born. And I didn’t want to do antibiotics for GBS because my understanding of the risk, from when I had worked in postpartum, was that even if you’re treated, like, it’s still a pretty low likelihood that there’s a complication given other certain factors. And so, you know, there were just certain things that I didn’t want to do the glucola. I wanted to maybe do finger sticks or something else. And so, I really, there were…

Dr. Fox: Were you okay doing an ultrasound? Like anatomy or something like that? Or did you want to avoid all…

Jodi: Yeah, I actually did decide to do one anatomy scan. But other than that, I said no, other ultrasounds.

Dr. Fox: None of that is particularly, you know, out of the box. I mean, maybe the antibiotic part, but whatever. I mean, that’s really a pediatric issue. Okay. And so, was your OB comfortable with that or just said, “You know what? I’m not for you.”

Jodi: It was very interesting. It was very interesting conversation. She said to me, you know, “I’m an employee of the hospital. The nurses are employees of the hospital. They’re trained to do things in a specific way. And I really can’t guarantee you that if you come in, that somebody who’s more naturally minded is gonna be on shift. I can’t guarantee you that, you know, they’re just not trained to behave that way. So when you’re asking someone to come in and do their job differently than they’re trained to do it, I’m not gonna tell you that’s what’s gonna happen because that wouldn’t be fair.” And then, she said, “So why do you want to give birth in a hospital?”

Dr. Fox: Yeah. Listen, that’s a very wise response…

Jodi: I know.

Dr. Fox: …because you can say, yeah, you can say, oh yeah, I’ll do that for you. But it’s not true. I mean, you could try but, like you said, you don’t know. Yeah, that’s great.

Jodi: It was so wise. And I said to her, I mean, I thought for a minute because really I didn’t think…I mean, I hadn’t really said that answer out loud yet. And so, I said to her, like, “I guess because it would make my family more comfortable.” And saying those words out loud, I was like…

Dr. Fox: Like, all right.

Jodi: …that’s not a reason. That’s not a reason for me. You know?

Dr. Fox: Because I don’t want to have another sit-down with my parents.

Jodi: Yeah, exactly. Well, that ended up happening anyway. So in the end, like, there were also just some other funny things that happened at that appointment. They gave me a hard time for not being available, like, exactly four weeks after to schedule my next appointment. And the lady at the front desk said, like…I asked her if we could schedule five weeks out and she gave me a hard time about it. And then, when I went to see the midwife and she sat with me for an hour and a half, and before she even checked my blood pressure or asked me my medical history, and really, like, listened to me and gave me, you know, I think, kind of the care I was looking for or the…I don’t know, the compassion in some way based on my past experiences. But when it ended up being that she couldn’t see me for five weeks anyway. And so, I just took that as a sign from God in a way that okay, you’re on the right path.

Dr. Fox: It’s interesting. I don’t know if it’s compassion so much. I think it’s just a different philosophy of pregnancy or prenatal care. And I’m gonna draw very blunt lines, which obviously are blurred. But it’s almost as if the way you, either the obstetricians felt this way or the way you experienced what the obstetricians were doing, was in your first two pregnancies, it’s almost like the default is there’s a problem unless proven otherwise. And with the midwife, it’s everything’s fine unless proven otherwise. And so, it sounds to me like that’s how you experienced the difference, that in the first two pregnancy, it’s always like, here’s the problem, here’s a problem. We got to make sure it’s not a problem, fix the problem, diagnose the problem, get rid of the problem, avoid the problem, res with the midwife, it’s like, you’re fine, you’re good. Unless something tells us otherwise, we’re just gonna operate under that assumption. And I think that it’s not supposed to be different like that, but I think it sounds to me at least that that’s how you traveled through those pregnancies differently.

Jodi: Yeah. I think you’re right. And I still, after that day, wasn’t really decided, to be honest. I had good feelings about the midwife and I didn’t have…I definitely had that question in my mind after the conversation with the OB. But what ended up actually really sealing the deal for me was a few days later I got a notification in MyChart of a note that was put in my chart from that conversation with the OB. The note…

Dr. Fox: I know where this is headed. All right. You say it. I’ll tell you if it’s what I thought it says. All right.

Jodi: Jodi feels as if she is equipped to make these decisions, being a postpartum nurse and lactation consultant, and counseled on the risks of declining GBS testing and GDN…really, really, whatever. Like, not compassionate and CYA, definitely covering your ass. And then, at the end, it said, and this is not even, I think, a clinical judgment that can be made at that time, she said, “Baby is LGA. For now, monitor closely.” And I was just like, okay. I couldn’t even close the phone fast enough. Actually I could because I went on the MyChart and I canceled all my future appointments. I was livid for a minute and then I said, “That’s the system I work in. That is the system I work in. That’s the system I know. It’s always cover your ass. That’s how I trained all my nurses that I ever trained to do things. I get it and I don’t want that for my pregnancy.”

Dr. Fox: Right. Right. There’s definitely some things that are better off being put in the chart and not put in MyChart. Yeah. I was thinking it was like, discuss risk of stillbirth, death, disability, injury.

Jodi: Yeah. Exactly.

Dr. Fox: We discuss all the horrible things that could happen to her and her baby and then I wished her a good day.

Jodi: Exactly. Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah. So look, it made a decision for me and it felt good to feel like I was making choices now and moving forward and knowing what I was gonna end up doing. And I really checked my intuition and I did as much research as I possibly could about the types of pregnancies I’ve had and the real risks of, you know, being at home and home birth and how far you should be from a hospital, which I live, you know, 10 minutes from two different hospitals and with delivery centers. And I just felt like I fully understood what I was getting myself into and that I wasn’t making a dangerous decision.

Dr. Fox: Right. I mean, listen, you’re healthy. I mean, you’re healthy. You’ve had two healthy births. Listen, I don’t do home births. It’s not my cup of tea. Okay. Listen. I’m a high risk OB. We’re not doing home births. Right? That’s how it is. God bless. But, you know, we had on our podcast, a friend of mine who’s an OB, who’s a terrific doctor. And she chose to have a home birth. And she said sort of the same thing. For her, I didn’t want to be in the hospital during COVID. I was looking for something different. And she said, “I’m young. I’m healthy. I’ve had an easy birth. I live 10 minutes from the hospital. I’m seeing a normal midwife who knows what she’s doing. If there’s a problem, we’ll go to the hospital.” She’s like, “I’m not a nut job. I want something different.” And the truth, the risk is very low and other countries, where there’s systems set up, sort of like the default is to deliver at home, or many people deliver at home. It’s just an issue of making sure you’re the right candidate. Right? Because if you’re someone with twins and diabetes and a prior C-section, then it’s a different calculus. But if you’re young and healthy with two prior births, and you’re seeing someone who’s qualified and capable, and you live near a hospital, the chance that it’s gonna go awry is not really markedly different than it would if you were in a hospital. And so, it’s not like a crazy decision but it’s a big jump for you sort of philosophically, because like you said, that’s not the system you’ve been working in.

Jodi: Right. It was a huge jump, I think. It was a bigger jump maybe for my family than for me, because…

Dr. Fox: Yeah. I hear ya.

Jodi: …I, you know, in nursing school, we had to do a senior project during our practicum and mine was about the hormones of birth and the hormones of sex or whatever. And I made this beautiful poster about it. And so, I feel like I had kind of had that seed planted years ago. But yeah, professionally, I was, you know, pushing mag and managing, you know, severe preeclampsia. And I was working in the highest, most at risk birth center in the area for miles around for the last, you know, four years. So right, it was a jump. But I had it within me. I had this desire, you know, to have two unmedicated births that didn’t end up being unmedicated. And so, I did. I had it down in my mind, can I [inaudible 00:19:55] because I hadn’t done it yet. I hadn’t had no epidural, right. But I trusted my body and I valued the potential for that experience. And I felt like the information was on my side.

Dr. Fox: How did it ultimately go?

Jodi: It ended up being perfection. I don’t know if you can have, I mean, for me, it felt so much easier. My deliveries have all been essentially [inaudible 00:20:22] by time, so with the prodromal labor included, my second was 24, 25 hours and this one was 12. So not the shortest delivery but, like, it was perfect. It wasn’t too long that I got exhausted. But I had a friend share with me, like, a book that really helped her a week before I delivered called, “Mindful Birthing,” which really helped me kind of get my head in the game for having the unmedicated birth. We had a birth tub that we set up and, you know, I really set boundaries around my personal, I guess, like, what energies I allowed in my space, both in pregnancy and for the delivery. Because there was so much anxiety, like I said, their birth right, from my relatives that while I had had more family oriented pregnancies and births before, I really had to kind of set, tell people, “This is the decision I made. Thank you for respecting my privacy. But I can’t have any kind of anxiety in my space.” Which was hard. It was hard to say because I’m very close with my family and I like being inclusive of them in my life. And so, it was a little bit hard. But my husband was onboard and that was what mattered to me.

And so, yeah, I went into labor at 4 a.m. or so. I realized things, like, were getting pretty serious. My husband heard me, like, breathing through contractions and he goes, “Are you in labor?” And I had had kind of a hunch the day before, because I set up a whole pot of chicken soup that all I had to do was put the water in and it could boil all day while I was in labor. So I had this, like, feeling even though I hadn’t been contracting yet. And then, so 4 a.m. rolls around and I’m very quickly in active labor. By 6 a.m, you know, we had contact with the midwife and my parents to come get my kids after school. And it seemed like it was going fast. They were really intense, really quickly. And after awhile, I got in the tub. My midwife arrived. And they also thought, based on looking at me, that it was going to go more quickly than it did. And so, by the afternoon, and I chose not to look at the clock because we were in a room with windows, so I knew that I would know when time was passing, when it got dark outside again. And so, I just labored all day.

But the midwife started to kind of get a little antsy about nothing was happening yet by sometime in the afternoon and they had me kind of get out of the pool and do different positions. And I was a little annoyed, honestly, because I really just wanted to do what felt good, which was be in this birth pool. But after awhile, you know, they said, like, “Maybe we should check you. And if things are not moving along, maybe we can break your water or something to help move things along.” I was like, “I really don’t want you to break my water, but I’ll let you check me.” And things were getting pretty intense at that point so I thought, like, okay, if this isn’t transition, then I don’t know if I can do this. So maybe it’ll be some good information and then if I need to [inaudible 00:23:45] or whatever, I can have more information. And so, they checked me and I was, like, nine and a half. And so, then I knew, like, okay, this is happening here…

Dr. Fox: It’s happening.

Jodi: …and it’s gonna be fine. But, like, when I tried to feel the baby’s head, I could not feel it. And so, I was a little discouraged before that point. But then, when they said I was nine and half, I was like, okay, this is happening. So they let me get back in the pool, which was the only place I was comfortable. I did some [inaudible 00:24:15], so I just did a couple kind of asymmetrical lunges and things. And suddenly, I felt the most intense, weird, bizarre experience of my life, which was the fetal ejection reflex. I mean, I have heard so many birth podcasts and I have heard so many people saying it’s, like, vomiting out of your vagina. But I did not know what that meant until I experienced it. And it was so intense. Like, I was in shock, I think, for several hours afterwards too for, like, having had that experience. But it was, like, my full body kind of convulsed and naturally, I did purple pushing with my first two because I had an epidural and I couldn’t feel. And I would always tell my friends, you’re pooping. And I would never say that about this experience. It was not like that at all. It was truly my body knew, my body was like, programmed with the software of how to get a baby out. And I got to feel what that felt like and it was so amazing. I had so much awe for my body after that because I trusted that that could happen and it did. And I had, like, a few contractions where I wouldn’t have one of those feelings every single time, but they kept coming back. And then, by the time she was just about to be born, they were happening basically with every contraction. And then, it was like three or four contractions maybe before her head was out.

And she actually came out to her eyeballs, I’ve seen in the video now, and they were like, “Can you push a little?” And I’m like, “I don’t feel like I need to push, so I’m not going to.” And they are like, “Okay. She’ll be fine.” And then, so I really listened to my body. And then, with the next contraction, she was out and she was fine. And it was amazing and I just, like, got completely hysterical. And it was joyful. It was so joyful.

Dr. Fox: First of all, that’s awesome. Congratulations. I want to give you a chance, in our last few minutes, to talk about how that experience, specifically how it was different for your other experiences, how that has impacted you personally and professionally. So we could start with personally, if it has, and then after that, we can talk professionally.

Jodi: Yeah. I actually think that it has totally impacted me personally, I think. There are so many facets of your life that you don’t realize you go through versus it’s almost like, I don’t know if it’s a rite of passage, but it’s a portal that you can, you know, you can utilize the experience and apply it to many different areas of your life. And for me, listening to my inner voice, and relying on myself and trusting that I know what’s best for me and for my children, even if you’re not having a home birth, that is a powerful tool that you can use in every corner of your life. And knowing when something feels like it’s jiving with your soul and with what you need and when it’s not and being able to state it and ask for what you need and go for that. I mean, it benefits you in personal relationships. It benefits you in your career.

And I think there are some ways that the mindfulness aspect of really going into the contractions and sitting with them and not resisting them, and trusting that the hard moments are going to, you’re gonna come out on the other side okay, and really relaxing into those moments, I feel like it applies to my parenting, being able to go through tough moments with I have, you know, I have three toddlers right now. And there are tough moments. And being able to take a deep breath and not lose it during those moments, I think is related to my birth experience and the mindfulness I had to use to go through those contractions. And I wouldn’t have known that beforehand, but going through that experience, I really have seen a little bit of a shift in my life in those areas, for sure.

Dr. Fox: That’s so cool.

Jodi: And then, professionally, yeah, professionally, man, there are so many notes that I’ve read over the years in my patients’ charts when I was working in the system that just, I knew the kind of…I knew that they were at odds with the care that they received and I saw pain that they had experienced in that context and struggles they were having, maybe currently or in the birth process that were part of that. And I felt so strongly for them and, you know, when you work in a hospital or in a system, you are governed by their protocols, even against your better clinical judgment in some ways. And your schedule too because you have to schedule on their schedule and you have limited time to see people. And I felt strange in my…I mean, I want to care for people. My job wouldn’t be worthwhile if I didn’t care about actually, truly helping people. And I felt like working within the system limited me in actually being able to develop my care and my practice for my patients in a way that would really, truly see them as individuals. And, like, I would have to, right, cover my assets, just like the one that I got and I didn’t like that.

And I’m, you know, super passionate about postpartum care and about birth itself, but the most holistic area of medicine that I’ve run into so far, besides I think birth and postpartum, you know, when, unless I’m interrupted which doesn’t happen very often, is lactation. And I breastfed my first two babies and loved that experience. And then, I actually loved it so much that I, in labor at home with my third, one of the images that I would, like, concur up, while I was trying to relieve the pain and get through the contractions, was the joy of holding my baby and breastfeeding her. And I just love it so much. I decided to pivot and start doing private lactation consulting for myself because of that experience, I think.

Dr. Fox: Listen, that’s a big shift professionally. It changed your profession literally, you know.

Jodi: Yeah. There’s a lot of overlap between patient consulting and RN. Yes.

Dr. Fox: It’s a new job. I mean, and you’re working for yourself. So this experience, this birth, had an impact on your personally, had an impact on you professionally. Now you’re doing lactation consulting. So give us a flavor of Jodi, the lactation consultant. Like, you know, give our listeners just a taste of what you do or sort of your approach or maybe you wanted to talk about maybe some common misconceptions or myths about lactation, about nursing, about breastfeeding. So hit it. What do you got?

Jodi: Great. Okay. This is Jodi, the IBCLC coming at you. I mean, as you can imagine, from my stories, my approach is very individualized. And so, when I meet a family, my first thing that I ask them are, like, what are your breastfeeding goals. What do you want? If you could have your ideal situation, what do you want? Because my goal is not to tell them, “Breast is best 100% of the time for everyone, always.” I’m not going to be able to help you if I’m coming in with my agenda and not considering who you are in your situation. And so, that’s always my first step. And I really like to meet people, even prenatally, before their babies are born so that we can kind of set them up for success, keeping those goals in mind. Because the very first breastfeed that you have is in the delivery room. And so, I’m not usually there for that because they have lactation consultants in the hospital and, you know, it’s so soon after delivery that if you don’t have that information beforehand, it can be a detriment to you and your experience. And so, I really encourage people, and every OB I meet, I try to tell them, “Hey, start referring all your patients for prenatal lactation consult,” because it’s covered by insurance, and it should be if somebody wants to breastfeed, standard in terms of prenatal care, because it doesn’t just set the mom up for breast health postpartum, it also sets up the baby for their best health in their first steps in life.

Dr. Fox: Do you do it mostly virtually or in person for the initial visits?

Jodi: Yeah. I do both. So I’ll do prenatal lactation appointments either virtually. If people want it in person, I will go in person. But most of the stuff you can do virtually. So I’ve seen people who don’t even live in my area, but what’s best about seeing someone in your area is that then they can be the person that you see. You already have a relationship set up with them. And then, they can be the one who comes to you, once you’re home from the hospital, in most cases. And they can be the one who kind of guides you through those first few days. And so, you know, one thing that happened with hospital, like most hospitals have lactation consultants now, but I worked both inpatient and in the clinic as a lactation consultant. And what I didn’t realize as a patient, when you get lactation care, they are prioritizing seeing whoever is discharged first, which delays new moms from getting lactation help until their baby is, like, maybe a day and a half, two days old. And so, they’re not getting that help right at the beginning when it matters and by the time inpatient, like, even sometimes by the time they get the postpartum room after recovery, they might have nipple damage already based on a poor latch. And so, because of that system, like, having to see everyone before they’re discharged and prioritizing people in that way, which I understand why it has to be that way, but because of that, it makes it even more important to have prenatal lactation care delivered.

And it’s getting easier and easier to get lactation care in your home or virtually. One of the companies I work with is called The Lactation Network, and they actually will have…they make it easy for me to get insurance-covered visits and for people to get insurance-approved, fully covered visits in their home so that they don’t have to pay somebody, you know, out of pocket, which sometimes you need to if you don’t have that coverage. But most people with major insurance can get somebody to come to their house or do a virtual visit for this kind of thing nowadays because they have companies, like The Lactation Network. So anyway, that’s kind of like my general approach and my little soapbox about why it’s so important.

Dr. Fox: How do people find you? Let’s say my listeners in the Seattle area, the thousands and millions of listeners in the Seattle area, or those who may want to just work with you remotely, how do they reach you?

Jodi: Yeah. So they can reach out to me on suckleandspritz.com or on Instagram @suckleandspritz and that’s my lactation company.

Dr. Fox: Suckle and what?

Jodi:Spritz. S-P-R-I-T-Z.

Dr. Fox: Is that one word or is two words?

Jodi:Yeah, it’s one word.

Dr. Fox: So it’s S-U-C-K-L-E A-N-D.

Jodi: A-N-D.

Dr. Fox: S-P-R-I-T-Z.

Jodi: Exactly.

Dr. Fox: Perfect. Wow. Cool stuff. Thank you. Suckle And Spritz.

Jodi: Yeah. No problem.

Dr. Fox: Jodi, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, for spending so much time with us, telling us your stories, how they affected you. It’s really important stuff. I think that it’s awesome. I’m so happy that you got what you were looking for and that it has been such a positive impact on you. And I think that, you know, we learn a lot from everything you had to say, so thank you.

Jodi: Thank you, Dr. Fox. And thank you for delivering what is clearly very compassionate and personalized care that you do. And I can hear it from you on the podcast every day, and that’s why one of the reasons I wanted to come on the show is because I can tell that you’re the kind of OB or MSM that really does the right thing for their patients. And we really, really appreciate it. I appreciate it on their behalf. And so, thank you for having me come on today. It’s been a pleasure.

Dr. Fox: That’s very sweet. Thank you for listening to the “Healthful Woman” podcast. To learn more about our podcast, please visit our website at www.healthfulwoman.com. That’s www.healthfulwoman.com. If you have any questions about this podcast or any other topic you would like us to address, please feel free to email us at hw@healthfulwoman.com. Have a great day.

Man: The information discussed in “Healthful Woman” is intended for educational uses only. It does not replace medical care from your physician. “Healthful Woman” is meant to expand your knowledge of woman’s health and does not replace ongoing care from your regular physician or gynecologist. We encourage you to speak with your doctor about specific diagnoses and treatment options for an effective treatment plan.