Choices and the problem of mothers headline News in the past week. This discussion focuses on women’s choices to have children, but for some women, there’s a less-discussed mother’s choice: choosing how to feed a newborn.
U.S. severely lacking Provide pregnant women with available breastfeeding resources as they prepare for the arrival of their baby. Many women don’t know where to look for help, or don’t have the time to do so in the already arduous journey of becoming a mother, so they choose not to breastfeed. For women who are able to find a lactation consultant, they often have to spend hours trying to get insurance to cover the cost of an appointment, while they can be stressful mothers of a newborn. To solve this problem, Trinity Health New England join forces and Nest Collaborationa startup offering telehealth breastfeeding support for free to patients.
This partnership comes at a good time as mothers are choosing to breastfeed precisely because National formula shortageDr. Walter Trymbulak Jr., an obstetrician at Trinity Health in New England, said many women feel they have to breastfeed their babies because they may not have access to formula, but still don’t have the resources to prepare all of them.
Judith Nowlin, CEO of Nest Collaborative, agrees.
“We no longer live with our own mothers, grandmothers, aunts, cousins,” she said. “If we went back 100 years, that was the case. We lived with a built-in support network who could help us. Know what to do when it comes to childbirth, breastfeeding and parenting. Nest Collaborative comes in to fill the isolation that families face after being sent home from the hospital.”
Founded in 2017, Nest Collaborative offers paid lactation support telemedicine appointments through an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). Patients visit the company’s website, choose an appointment time that best suits them, and choose an IBCLC who speaks one of eight languages. They also enter their insurance or Medicaid information, and Nest Collaborative “does all the hard work on the back end” to complete the appointment, according to Nowlin. Once this initial process is complete, patients can see a lactation consultant on the platform in as little as two hours.
The platform also offers discounted out-of-pocket rates for uninsured patients. Dr. Trymbulak said the Nest Collaborative is paying for the health system’s uninsured patients thanks to a partnership with Trinity Health of New England.
During an appointment, Nest Collaborative’s IBCLC develops a breastfeeding plan based on each patient’s unique needs. These programs vary and can focus on elements such as prenatal education, baby positioning, teething, preparing the home breastfeeding space, preventing jaundice, and returning to work. The platform serves more than 10,000 parents and babies across the country.
According to Dr. Trymbulak, breastfeeding mothers typically experience difficulties in the first 72 hours after discharge. He said his health system sought to work with the Nest Collaborative to ensure more women had quick and comfortable access to breastfeeding support when they needed it.
“She can log in, she can find an IBCLC who speaks her language, and she can get the help she needs in her own space when she needs it,” he said. “She doesn’t have to pack the kids to travel anywhere – it happens at home.”
For Dr. Trymbulak, this partnership is important because he sees breastfeeding as true preventive medicine.Not only has breastfeeding been shown to improve the health of babies, for example by reducing ear infection and asthma, but it can also help prevent obesity in children as they grow up. Babies who are fed formula usually get a certain amount, usually two ounces, and keep feeding them until the fluid wears off. For breastfeeding, there are no measurements. Breastfed babies learn to accept their satiety signals, which means they eat when they’re hungry and stop when they’re full.
Breastfed children generally do not overeat when transitioning to table foods, and this population usually has Childhood obesity rates are lower, Dr. Trymbulak said. This benefit of breastfeeding is often overlooked, he says, because the “return on investment” is more reflected in the child’s life.
Through Trinity Health New England’s partnership with the Nest Collaborative, he hopes patients will receive more information about the benefits of breastfeeding and how breastfeeding fits into their lives.
“I love choice. I just didn’t know breastfeeding was an option that people could make a fair choice because I didn’t believe there was support and information in the community,” Dr Trymbulak said. “For that, I think from a public health perspective, from a prevention perspective, it’s important that we increase breastfeeding rates.”
Photo: asiseit, Getty Images
