The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog

Making More Milk: Diana West talks about milk supply and answers your questions.

Welcome to another Motherwear Podcast!  This episode features Diana West, IBCLC.  Diana is best known for her work supporting mothers who have had breast surgeries through her website Breastfeeding after Reduction Surgery and her book, Defining your own Success.

Diana is co-author of a new book, The Breastfeeding Mother's Guide to Making More Milk, which will be out in December of this year and is available now for pre-order.  This is the first book to focus solely and in great detail on milk supply, and it looks like a wonderful resource.

This interview is divided into two parts.

Part One discusses what determines milk supply, what causes low milk supply, what mothers can do to increase milk supply, and what feelings are common among mothers with low milk supply.  You can listen to it on the player below, or download it.

In Part Two Diana answers your excellent questions about milk supply (shown in the comments section of this post), on topics including the impact of birth on milk supply, suggestions for maintaining milk supply when pumping at work, how stress and periods impact milk supply.  You can listen to it on the player below, download it.

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Bear with me for a moment.

Due to reasons too boring to explain, I'm re-posting a number of past podcasts. 

The podcasts themselves aren't at all boring, though!  I'll shortly be moving them back to their homes in the archives, and you'll be able to find them under the Podcasts category.  Thanks for your patience!

Making More Milk, Part II - Diana West

Part II of an interview with Diana West on milk supply.  Diana answers readers' questions about birth and milk supply, keeping up milk supply while working, and how stress affects milk supply.  Download it.

Hathor the Cow Goddess - Heather Cushman-Dowdee

An interview with the funny and intrepid artist behind the Hathor the Cow Goddess cartoon.  Heather Cushman-Dowdee shares the origins of her cartoon, her own breastfeeding experiences, and how she balances life as an artist and mother.  Download it.

Postpartum Depression and Breastfeeding, Part II - Kathleen Kendall-Tackett

Part II of an interview with Kathleen Kendall-Tackett on breastfeeding and postpartum depression.  The role of inflammation and omega-3 fatty acids, and ways of advocating for breastfeeding-friendly treatment plans are discussed.  Download it.

Postpartum Depression and Breastfeeding, Part I - Kathleen Kendall-Tackett

Part I of an interview with Kathleen Kendall-Tackett on breastfeeding and postpartum depression.  Causes, treatment options, and new research is discussed.  Download it.

MilkShare - Private milk donation - Kelly Faulkner

This episode features Kelley Faulkner, founder and owner of MilkShare, a website on private milk donation. 

Download the podcast to your own player. 

The Milk Memos - Cate Colburn-Smith

An interview with Cate Colburn-Smith, co-author of "The Milk Memos: How real moms mixed business with babies, and how you can, too." Download it.

Do you have questions about increasing milk supply?

I'm planning out a podcast interview with Diana West about her new book (out later this year) Making More Milk.  Diana is the founder of the the Breastfeeding After Reduction website, an incredible resource for mothers who have had breast surgeries, and Low Milk Supply, a great resource on milk supply issues.

If you have non-urgent questions about how milk supply works, or how to make more milk, please leave them as comments below.  I'll work them into my questions for the interview!

Want to get email updates from the Motherwear Blog?  Subscribe here.  Want an RSS feed?  Click here.

Motherwear Podcast: Heather Cushman-Dowdee, creator of Hathor the Cowgoddess.

Welcome to another Motherwear Podcast!  My guest for this recording is Heather Cushman-Dowdee, creator of Hathor the Cowgoddess, shown to the left nursing and drawing in her kitchen.

This was a very fun interview.  I got to ask Heather about how she draws, the inspiration for Hathor, and the time she baked breastmilk bread with 150 college students.  Bonus knock-knock joke at the end!

This one is a bit long, but I just couldn't bear to edit it down more.  It was such a fun and interesting conversation.

You can listen right here using the player below, or download it.

Heather's new book, Hathor's Zines, Slings, and Do-it-Yourself Things, (cover to the left) is now available for pre-order!

Be sure to check out a few past posts featuring Hathor:

The Zoops (video)
Hathor on covering up to nurse in public
Hathor on Applebee's breastfeeding policy

And more podcasts are here.

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