Joanna Wilder RN, BSN, LM, CPM has been practicing “good birth” for 25 years. As a nurse Joanna started out in an inner city Phoenix hospital in 1990. Three years gave her a good foundation in Labor and Delivery, Nursery and Postpartum. Next, she helped create Bethany Birth Center. For fourteen years, she had the privilege to work as a nurse in the birth center, led a unique childbirth education program, and served as a community liaison orienting women to birth choices in AZ. This birth center closed in 2007. In November 2006, she began to work toward her licensure as a midwife. In May 2010, she was licensed as a midwife in AZ and completed her national certification or CPM in April of 2011. Joanna has been involved in grass roots community development in inner city Phoenix for 25 years. She works with a teen mom program in “the neighborhood”, and also with a breastfeeding grant program bringing support to Hispanic moms. She is passionate about helping women learn to trust their bodies. One of her passions, birthed from her own story, is walking with women as they heal from childhood sexual abuse. Joanna believes that the birth space is “holy ground”. Breastfeeding creates a powerful space for attachment and bonding to occur, and for mothers to reclaim their bodies, and their stories.
Heather Kinsy was born and raised in Arizona and now residing in Oregon. She is married to Michael and mom of 2 boys, Joseph 2 years old and Vincent 4 months. She is an Associate Director in Technical project management for an International Clinic Research Organization and enjoys the flexibility of a home based working arrangement She enjoys cooking and baking exercising is an advocate for natural birth and breastfeeding. Heather had a very tight knit community with her classmates and extended family living within 1 mile of the house that she grew up in. She is just now realizing what a blessing it was to have both sets of grandparents who lived close and were healthy for many, many years. Heather has a younger sister who is an amazing support person for her. While she misses her Phoenix family and friends, she does not miss the heat.
Heather shares with us her story of the births of both of her sons. She had natural childbirths with both her babies and was very pleased with her experiences. Heather had a difficult time with breastfeeding her first son Joseph and hoped for a better experience with her second son Vincent. Joseph was tongue tied and she suffered with poor latch, a high level of pain and low milk supply in this breastfeeding relationship. She worked very hard to keep up with pumping when she returned to work, and yet at a certain point, her supply began to gradually drop and she discontinued pumping and breastfeeding in his 8th month. When Heather was pregnant the second time, she took steps ahead of time to ensure that she educated herself during her pregnancy and she also made sure she connected with an IBCLC before giving birth.
After an evaluation by a specialist, she was told her son was tongue tied. While she was not happy that this was something she was going to have to deal with, she was happy to know that she was with the right pediatric practice who was familiar with babies with tongue tie. She had the procedure done and within a day, she realized that breastfeeding was so much better. She could really feel that her baby had a good latch now and there was very little soreness, if any. Heather could also tell that Vincent had a better, more productive feeding. He seemed more at ease and she could tell his belly was full. From that point on, she was able to breastfeed Vincent.
With all the difficulties she had with Joseph, the pain and the low milk supply, she was pleasantly surprised to have a very different experience with Vincent and thrilled that she was making plenty of milk. Almost too much milk. Heather talks to us about how making too much milk can sometimes be a problem and what she did to work through this.
Medication and milk drying up
There are some mothers who will need to or who chose to exclusively pump for their babies. In this show, Lori talks about hospital grade pumps and single user pumps. She explains why the hospital grade pump is the first choice for EP moms. Lori discussed what moms need to do so they can ensure a good milk supply and be comfortable while doing so. There are choices to be made and Lori shares some ideas and gives some great tips on how to make EP as easy as you possible can.
Heather grew up in Northern Indiana in the Southbend area. She lived with her parents and younger sister. Heather
describes herself as a child of the 70s and her parents were hippies from the 60's. With her hippie parents she ate organic
food from their garden and only had processed foods when she went to her aunts house, which she loved doing. There she could
get white bread and potato chips! Her parents were into recycling and organic gardening and loved nature. She planned on
becoming a teacher and never would have guessed that she would become a Special Agent and work undercover narcotics.
Heather went into premature labor with her first baby and at 27 weeks was put on bedrest and kept her baby "cookin" until 31
1/1 weeks. She was prepared for having a small baby, who would probably need special care in the nursery, however, he was
whisked away to the nursery but they quickly realized he was a healthy almost 5 pound baby who did not need any help
breathing. So he was brought back to her room. She did have great difficulty breastfeeding and the Lactation Consultants at
the hospital explained to her the specific issues premature babies had with breastfeeding. Heather feels she had lots of
great support from her family, from the hospital Lactation Consultant that she saw numerous times, to the regular
Breastfeeding support groups she attended, as well as her pediatrician.
Heather shares with us her struggles and how she tried real hard for 3 months to make breastfeeding work. She had a baby that
cried frequently and ultimately found out that he had some health issues with his intestines which was probably at least one
of the reasons for the frequent crying. It was felt that perhaps there was something in her breastmilk that was bothering her
baby, so she was put on an elimination diet, however, this did not help. She tried different formulas and ultimately would up
using a very expensive hypo allergenic formula that he seemed to do well with. She combined pumping and formula went she
returned to work, however, finding the time to pump during her working hours, did not work out at all and she soon
discontinued pumping. She recognizes that some workplaces are better about giving their employees time and place to pump,
however, this was not available to her at the time.
Heather talks about what it was like returning to work with a new baby and why she decided to leave her position with NCIS and
founded her own business so she could be home with her kids. She does say that most people in her life thought she was pretty
insane to leave a great job with good benefits. However, she felt that it was the right thing to do for herself and her
family. She spent time trying to figure out exactly what she could do and like most entrepreneurs, she took what she has
learned and turned that into a business model and is very happy with what she has accomplished so far.
How and why to use nipple shields
Dawn talks to us about the projects that she is working on. Her favorite topic and her Board Certification is addiction medicine. Her biggest interest is in alcoholism, drug addiction and recovery in all populations including pregnant and breastfeeding and women. Written two books about addiction and recovery, and are both available on Amazon or on her website on docdawn.com Her first book is about missionary medicine. Dawn and her husband have both done short term missionary work all over the world and she wrote a book about that.
We learn a lot from Dawn during this interview. She talks about prescription drugs and street drugs, marijuana use and alcohol us in women during their pregnancy and postpartum years. I am so glad that she was able to answer some very important questions that I had and I just know that you will find this part of her interview quite fascinating. If this topic is of interest to you and you are in healthcare, please know that Dawn is available to consult with and she also is a very experienced speaker on the subject of Drug Addicition and welcomes your request to speak at your facility.