Lactation Counseling
Brooke offers a unique perspective in optimizing success of breastfeeding for both mom and baby. She brings 3 major components to the table, when offering support to breastfeeding moms:
1) Lived experience - both a (self-identified) successful breastfeeding experience and a much less successful breastfeeding experience, including the joys, triumphs, frustration, & bewilderment;
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2) Education/training/licensure in Occupational Therapy, a practice which views breastfeeding as a co-occupation: the space in which the mother-baby relationship exists, where there is shared physicality, emotionality, and intentionality. Through her occupational therapy lens, she is looking at environmental and contextual factors that either inhibit or facilitate success of this relationship. Additionally, her therapy background allows for evaluation and intervention with regards to oral-motor skills of the baby, as well as mental health promotion for both mother and baby (soothing/bonding/attachment, potential protective or contributory factors for postpartum depression and stress response elicitation).
3) Lactation Counseling Training/Certification: training and competency verification in assessment of and support in latching/feeding process, milk production, milk transfer, and generally attitudes, expectations, and values about infant feeding and healthy lifestyle.
Why choose She Thrives to help with breastfeeding?
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Full hour 1 to 1 dedicated care in comfort of your home (or in Norwell clinic)
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Holistic approach looks at bio/psycho/social aspects of this very intense, not always intuitive, "art"...looking beyond latch, pain, and supply concerns
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Fed is best. It is understood that our expectations don't always match up with realities, that each individual has her own goals, and that each mother knows what is best for her and her family. While it is my duty and mission as a certified lactation counselor to support breastfeeding, my job is just as much to help moms make educated decisions as it is to counsel on breastmilk production, transfer, and so forth. Mothers are not judged, no matter the outcome/decision(s) made about feeding their baby.
