Postpartum women are unfortunately prime targets of online data trafficking. Apps that track feeding patterns fuel a mom’s panic over pump volumes. This leads her to google results that offer “miracle” product solutions.
Apps, gadgets, and products also makes mom lose touch with basic familiarity with her baby cues and feeding. Northern California lactation consultant Debra Brender describes this as “bluetooth parenting” in her USLCA blog on the topic. Debra is the person who pointed me to a helpful commentary on the dangers of the infant SNOO, another very expensive parenting device that may have risks not readily apparent to desperate moms looking for help with infant sleep.
Manipulative and deceptive advertising techniques in social media platforms motivate users to click through algorithms that further fuel anxiety, desperation, and comparisons that aren’t accurate. It’s time that we do away with for-profit companies seeding nagging, crushing self-doubt in a woman’s mind, fueling the motherhood crisis. Irish lactation consultant Caoimhe Whelan illuminates the dark side of Instagram “medicine” in this excellent blog post.
I was asked this past year to speak about what “breastfeeding gadgets” are useful. I told them the answer was easy: NONE. Save your money rather than having your nipples measured. Nipples can be different sizes at different times of the day, different week or month postpartum, before or after feeding and/or pumping, hot or cold, etc. It’s like a shoe size that is flexible based on the brand and other factors. As long as your nipple isn’t hurting and you are removing milk comfortably, the flange size is right. There are no absolute rules. If your areola is pulled into the flange, but everything else feels fine, it’s OK!
Other expensive gadgets to avoid are commercial massagers, which can traumatize the breast into a soupy mess – literally (imagine what a pulverizer does to meat), breast shells and silver shells that cause nipple swelling and bathe the breast in sweat and breastmilk (high water content liquids), feeding tubes attached to nipple shields (the baby is sucking a pacifier at the breast, the mom’s nipple isn’t getting any stimulation, and she loses any milk production she has worked for).
It’s also important to recognize a concept called “conflict of interest” when working with a lactation professional or someone else promoting a specific message. As lactation and motherhood, in general, becomes commercialized and driven by profit-making ventures, parents must be more cautious than ever.
For example, if a lactation consultant is promoting herself as an “exclusive pumping expert” or suggests interventions such as “pumping to relieve engorgement and oversupply,” it is important to question whether this person receives any financial compensation from a pump company. This information is not only medically inaccurate, but it also increases the need for mom to continue utilizing a pump and/or purchase additional pumps or pump accessories.
