Breastfeeding is a vital topic that deserves focused attention, and today, I delve deep into the essentials of milk production and the natural alternatives to formula. As I discuss the importance of nourishing our babies with real food, I emphasize that formula often lacks the necessary nutrients and can even harm a baby's gut health. I share practical solutions for mothers facing challenges with milk supply, highlighting natural herbs like fenugreek and fennel as effective aids. You’ll also learn about the significance of proper feeding techniques and the benefits of using human milk from other mothers when needed. Join me as we explore the intricacies of breastfeeding, the value of colostrum, and the alternatives available for those unable to breastfeed.

Chapters:

• 00:04 - Introduction to Health for Mothers
• 00:14 - The Importance of This Topic
• 02:00 - Understanding Milk Production Issues
• 03:06 - Natural Alternatives to Formula
• 05:55 - Using Herbs to Increase Milk Production
• 07:17 - Essential Oils for Nursing Moms
• 12:54 - Managing Breast Tenderness and Mastitis
• 19:19 - The Role of Raw Dairy
• 25:24 - Finding Real Breast Milk Alternatives

Welcome, healthy mothers to the reality of health.

I can't believe we're on part four.

Never even did a part three until this one.

Now we're on four.

That's because this is a very important topic.

Could you say maybe it could be one of the most important.

I mean, after all, this is how you start life off.

You need food, come out of mom.

You're crying because you know the world is no longer comfortable.

You're in that perfect temperature water and got all the nutrition you need.

And all of a sudden, what just happened?

And then you're probably like, I don't know, maybe somebody who's ever experienced this says, oh, I remember being born.

Those.

There are people who claim that they, you know, they have.

Maybe they can explain this.

I wonder how long afterwards that, you know, the baby is starting to think, man, I'm hungry.

I mean, is it like five minutes, or is it something like an hour or two hours?

I mean, they come out, you know, a little upset.

Then of course, we spank them.

Then we wrap them up after they do their whole nonsense at the hospital.

And then now they're feeling warm and cuddly again.

They're swaddled.

Then you're holding them.

They're feeling you, you.

They're feeling love and whatever they feel because they're very sensitive to mom, as you know.

I mean, they were the same person up until just a little bit ago when they separated anyway.

So now let's get into what you can do if you have issues, and here's some simple solutions.

None of these are going to work for you every single time.

A lot of this stuff is things I've learned or have learned recently.

But I will say that there's a lot of information out there.

This is going to be just kind of a.

Like I said before, each.

Pretty much each episode, this is a primer.

Get you started, learn a little bit.

You can get really deep into this subject, and I would love to.

What we're going to basically go through is you're having the issues which, as you can see on the screen, we talked about how to unclog the ducts.

Well, now we're going to get into some other things.

Like, all right, so I need to make milk, but I can't.

Or I'm having real issues and I'm up against the wall and thinking, maybe I should go to formula.

I will tell you.

No, no, just don't.

Formula is absolutely horrible.

There's no reason for it, and I'm going to show you why.

But Basically, formula is nothing but sugar.

Really, really bad fat, fake vitamins, horrible minerals that you can't absorb, flavorings and preservatives.

And not to mention, it's not real.

You know, I talk about things in our body that are real quite a bit.

I talk about fake food, those kinds of things.

Well, formula is fake food.

It's processed food.

And in some cases I would say if you look at the brand and what's in it, it's probably worse for you than many of the ultra processed foods that you know of.

Yep, I just said it.

Eric, you don't understand.

I can't afford, I can't make, I can't afford much and I can't make my own milk.

Going to show you how to get milk and I'm going to give you an alternative.

It may not be the greatest, but it's better than anything.

Formula.

Eric, I buy natural brand formula that's clean and, you know, organic and all this kind of stuff.

It's not a real food.

It doesn't come from another human that a baby requires.

I mean, if you want to consume formula as an adult, I mean you're basically doing that for the most part with like hot cocoa.

A lot of the hot cocoa mixes are exactly the same thing as formula.

They just add cocoa powder.

Anyway, I digress.

You want a human made food that is a living food, a life giving food.

If it comes in a container, that's not food, especially not for a baby.

All right, just get on with it, Eric.

Well, that's my diatribe.

So we went from issues now to how do I make more because I'm not making enough.

You've seen this product, if you're familiar with this, a billion times and I will tell you it's absolutely fantastic.

Fenugreek and fennel are known to increase milk production.

The, I should say the whole world uses things like this.

There's lots of societies that have healing techniques, you know, villages up to whole countries that just know how to create mother's milk.

If you're running a little dry, this is one of them.

But fennel and fenugreek, amazing.

And by the way, the flavor is pretty good.

If you don't like licorice, you're not going to like that.

So just take out the fennel and use just the fenugreek and just get fenugreek, it's fine.

There's other products like this, this is just one of them.

But the reason I brought this one up is because it is ubiquitous.

You can Find it everywhere.

Regular grocery stores and health food stores.

It's everywhere.

Anyway, very well known product.

But I will say there's a lot of herbs and there's a lot of ways to increase production.

This is just one way.

Again, this is a primer.

We're not getting into every single thing that you can possibly do.

So we're back to the lab aroma that I just showed you earlier.

These are five ways to use essential oils while nursing.

So here we have milk production again.

You have a carrier oil and then you add the fennel essential oil to it.

Just a couple drops to a tablespoon.

You don't need a whole bunch of it.

So I think it's working in a couple different ways.

And by the way, I'll just mention really quick, like they say here, massage the breasts while avoiding the nipple area.

Like they say, baby's not going to probably like the taste of fennel.

Okay, just.

I think this works a couple ways.

First, fennel is known to increase production.

The other thing is when you are activating, you're touching, you're giving attention to the breast tissue.

You're doing many things.

You're giving it lymphatic movement, you're giving it circulation, touch.

So especially if you have somebody else, like your husband or your other or someone else touching it, moving it, massaging this.

Remember last episode, I told you jojoba oil or castor oil as your two carrier oils as they massage that in.

You don't have to go crazy.

It's just light movement and moving it around and stuff.

Just massage it in there.

And all of that manipulation.

It moves things and flow is movement.

And if you ever need help with anything, I mean, what do you do when you like bang your leg in something?

You start rubbing it, right?

It's just a natural reaction.

And then when you were a kid, you'd hit yourself, your parents would be like, just rub it.

And you're like you're rubbing really, you know, well, anyway, so the point is the manipulation of the tissue plus the essential oil should help you increase production.

I want to hit a couple other ones here really quick while we're in this.

So breast tenderness.

Here's a great one for a bath.

You add geranium oil to the bath when they're feeling heavy or sensitive.

Great way to go.

Love it.

Mastitis, we're going to get into more of it, but tea tree oil.

And again, like I said, jojoba oil or castor oil.

Great way to go.

And I'm going to say it again.

So mastitis, if you have manipulation of tissue, you're getting circulation and you're getting lymph flow, and therefore you get healing.

You're moving bad stuff out, good stuff in.

You're getting the tea tree oil in there to help relieve inflammation.

And dare I say, if you had a bacterial infection, which, if you know me at all, don't believe in bacterial infections.

No such thing as infections.

They're there to help you regardless.

If you're having one side that's got mastitis, then you just nurse from the other one.

Simple.

Erica got mastitis on both sides.

Well, that's a problem.

And then if you're just feeling, like, lazy and tired all the time from doing this bergamot, lemon and grapefruit and that you can add into a diffuser or add it also into a bathroom.

Okay, fantastic.

Why not take a bath, Mom?

Baths are amazing.

Of course, we have the problem of decreasing milk supply because you're producing too much and you have engorgement.

And of course you're like, all right, this is really uncomfortable.

First thing you can do is fluctuate feedings.

One side.

Next time, do the other side.

Go at least two and a half, three hours in between.

Hopefully the baby's okay with that.

If you're producing good milk, the baby will be okay with that.

The other one is to express.

Okay, let me just.

I wanted to save it till later.

I'm just going to say it now.

I'm not a fan of expressing, but I will say that.

Expressing first before you.

Yeah, I'm just going to say it.

I didn't want to ruin it.

I wanted to.

I really wanted to hit you with this one, but you don't know.

I'm going to wait.

Express first a little bit.

Express a little bit here and there.

Just relieve the pressure.

Okay.

Don't, don't.

Don't do it a lot.

Just some.

You can go back and forth in between feedings.

Okay.

You're just kind of bringing.

They're bringing the volume down.

You're not expressing enough.

That would be the equivalent of a full feeding.

I'm going to show you why.

Hang on, hang on.

Okay, we're doing one side, then we're doing the other.

Two and a half hours or so, three hours in between.

And express.

Not too much, but some.

Just to relieve some pressure.

There's lots of other ways.

Those are the basic ways.

All right, so now we come to what I consider to be the worst one, which is mastitis.

You think of it as an infection.

It's not an infection.

And the easiest way to relieve it is heat and massage.

When fats start to congeal, they get thick and then you end up backed up and you get sore and get inflamed.

And we think that that's an infection.

That's not an infection.

It's just can't get out the milk can't get out.

So when that can't get out, the enzymes and the microbiome, the good flora that's in mom is going to start consuming that milk and it looks like an infection, it's not.

You have a backed up sewer and then you have a built in mechanism to get rid of the backed up area and get it to flow again.

If you were to leave it there for a while and start doing things like movement and heat and that kind of stuff, it would go away.

It's there to help you.

So here's one way.

You know, I talk about castor oil packs all the time.

Castor oil packs are amazing.

And guess what?

Yes, they do make them for breasts.

And I talked about this in the castor oil pack episode.

Get these, you can use these anytime you want.

Because here's what's really cool.

Because they come in a two pack like this.

You can, if you only have one breast that's not feeling so good, you can just use one.

You only need a little bit of the castor oil.

She makes the best castor oil by the way.

I mean, nobody makes a better castor oil than her.

It's absolutely awesome, but great way to go.

And if you're not even breastfeeding and you have breast issues, this is the first thing I would tell you to do.

If you said anything from the big C word to I don't care what it is, just any issue you can think of.

Well, maybe not growth or shrinkage, but any health issue, I would say castor opex because they're great.

This is what I wanted to say earlier.

What's crazy is you're making colostrum.

All right?

That's your first, like we said, about two weeks.

That's the most important.

Do not give up breastfeeding in the first two weeks.

And that is why you need that colostrum.

Okay?

After that it's called transitional milk starts to have less colostrum and then you get into mature milk.

So here's the thing.

The baby only needed colostrum in the very beginning.

Now as it transitions, it's getting into other things that it needs.

It needs a little bit more water, might need more protein.

Less hormones, less cholesterol.

But what it does need is more saturated fat.

Okay, so here's what I was trying to say earlier.

The reason why I'm not a big fan of expressing is because when you, when you do expressing, the beginning of the expression doesn't have a lot of fat, it's later into the expressing.

Or if you're feeding your baby in the beginning, not a lot of fat.

Later as you're feeding, let's just say it takes 15 minutes.

They're getting the mature milk, the high fat milk later.

So if you think, man, my milk is watery, it's watery in the beginning because not a lot of fat.

So if you notice that you have a lot of thin milk, then you need to express and then feed the baby.

If you can do that again, we, you know, we're talking about, can you make milk?

Can you not make milk?

Do you make too much?

But hear me when I say the big.

So let's just say you sit down for a feeding and there's 100% of what the baby is going to consume.

It's a general number, the first 25%.

Not a lot of fat.

Not really doing all that much.

There's some other things in there.

Sure.

Really what you want is the fat.

Now you express a little bit, then you feed.

Baby's getting better nutrition.

If you're always feeding a short amount of time because the baby fills up quick or feels like it's filling up quick and it's not getting a lot of fat, and you're saying my baby is not growing or gaining weight as fast as it needs to, or he or she's constantly coming back for more feedings, it's because there's not enough fat in that mature milk.

Does that make sense?

I hope it does.

If your beginning stage of a feeding is less fat than you want to express, then you can feed.

Okay, I hope it's such a simple topic, but you know, sometimes the brain says so you're saying is I can't express because you don't like that.

But then you're telling me to express and now you're saying it's because of fat.

Where before you're saying because you know, if you express because you don't like it, because then it doesn't sit in the refrigerator and you don't like the way it sits in the refrigerator.

And then if I express, I'm saying it is the best milk is later in the feeding.

I don't mind expressing.

You can toss that stuff.

You don't need it.

Okay, I think you get my point.

Now, the reason why you want to use breast milk is because it's the best.

It's the best food for a baby.

I don't care.

I don't care what anybody tells you.

There is no substitute.

So if you can't make milk, then what do you do?

Well, I'm going to tell you right now.

You go raw dairy.

Yep.

This is the difference between raw dairy, that's your milk, and cow's milk with all of the good things that we get.

Okay, the yellow over here is pasteurized.

This is pasteurized cow's milk.

Do not ever feed your child almond milk or soy milk.

So we're just going to talk about real milk from an animal.

So not only does it destroy, damage, inhibit or inactivate all of the good nutrients and immune factors, but it's really bad on the gut.

And so your baby is going to feel terrible.

So they take this stuff, they powderize it, put it into formula, add seed oils and sugar, and then really bad vitamins and terrible minerals.

They may say, oh, we add dha.

No, they're not.

They're not adding quality DHA or any of those kind of things.

And then you give it to the baby.

The baby's gonna consume it because it's hungry.

And then you're wondering why the baby's always not feeling so well and you think, wow, I should give it more food.

Well, the baby doesn't know his stomach hurts because it's been eating formula.

The formula is hurting the tummy.

This, the raw stuff doesn't hurt the tummy.

I will tell you.

Catnip or a little bit of ginger.

You can rub ginger on the outside or give them just a drop of ginger, like juice in some food, and it'll help the stomach.

Fennel as well.

Catnip.

Fennel and ginger will help the baby's tummy.

Anyway, this is important.

So now you know.

You can go with raw milk.

Figure it out, get it.

You can get it usually where you live.

It's a little bit more difficult, but you can get it.

If you can't get raw dairy, and I'm.

Let me just preface this with you can get.

I'm going to get into how to get humans milk.

But if you can't get raw cow's milk, you might be able to get raw goat's milk, if that's tough.

And believe it or not, you can get other milks like camel milk and buffalo.

There's different milks.

Sheep's milk even Babies will drink any milk you give them.

They don't care.

It's all sweet and tasty to them.

They're not like us.

When we get older, we get finicky.

But using other animal milks, great.

But they got to be raw.

You can make sure they're sourced correctly, they're handled correctly and all that kind of stuff.

It's not a big deal.

Now, if you can't get raw milk, you can.

I'm not a big fan, but you can do it.

Don't get cow's milk at the store, but you can get goat milk.

Mayan Berg is a brand that's pretty much everywhere.

If you get goat's milk that's pasteurized.

I know, but it's.

You can add this little guy right here.

It's called spirulina.

It's an algae, and because it's in a spiral shape, they call it spirulina.

Super good source of nutrition, high protein, it's got fats.

It has, by the way, plant dha, which is pretty cool.

My mentor raised his child on goat's milk with spirulina added for three years because mom couldn't make any milk.

And I will tell you, that child was so smart.

It was a great child and never got sick.

Babies can handle goat milk a little bit better than cow's milk if it's pasteurized because the fats and proteins are easier on the gut.

I'll just put it that way.

You can get spirulina like this.

You can get it in a powder form.

Super simple.

Added some goat's milk, shake it up, put it in the bottle.

Bottle, by the way, should be shaped appropriately.

And just like they're supposed to latch the nipple properly, they need to latch a bottle properly.

And you need to learn that so that you don't get that I told you about this two episode, whatever episode in.

Not good.

They need to have their jaw out, so if they don't use the nipple properly, they end up with a sunken chin.

Okay.

And that causes sinus issues and all kinds of things like teeth that you need to make sure they latch that bottle properly.

But spirulina is an absolutely fantastic food.

It's not expensive.

You can get blue or green.

Doesn't matter.

Green's pretty much the most popular version.

But babies actually taste this as a sweet flavor and they'll gravitate towards it.

I know of babies that you could give them a tablet of spirulina and they'll suck on it.

Like, they won't Even swallow it.

They'll just sit there and move around their mouth like a Cheerio.

Wonderful stuff.

And I'm going to say in the plant world, this is probably the most nutrient dense plant you can get.

If algae is a plant.

All right.

Can't make breast milk and don't want to use products in the grocery store or can't find raw or whatever the case is.

Well, there's an app for that.

You can share milk with other moms.

Oh, yeah, this is awesome.

This is only one app.

There are probably others.

There's other ways to find people.

Plus you have network of friends.

You can talk to people.

But this is wonderful.

Not only can you vet people so you can search by distance, all the specific criteria that you need.

You can go by age and then you guys work together.

So this is a great way to get real milk, not formula.

Don't get milk from a milk bank, okay?

Milk banks will pasteurize the milk.

You have no idea who it's coming from.

Even though they say we vetted these people.

Nope.

You have no idea if they've been vaccinated?

Not vaccinated.

You don't know.

All they ask for is the things that, you know.

HIPAA allow them to.

This way you get to actually connect with real people.

The other way you can do this with this app or otherwise is let's say you produce a lot.

Well, get with a mom who doesn't produce a lot in your local area and you just go over there, you know, once, twice a day or whatever for a half an hour and you feed her baby.

Obviously, if you guys talked it out and you know, you're both on the same page as far as health and whatever it is is important to you, but why not just go feed someone else's kid if you're having an engorgement problem or, I mean, you know, just too much milk, why not?

And if you don't produce enough and you want to hook up with somebody and say, yeah, I, you know, I need milk for my baby.

I don't want to give my baby formula.

Well, then give it away.

Find somebody who's willing to give it away.

Get together, become friends.

There's a lot of people who have extra milk.

Well, anyway, the fact is, is that you can get real breast milk, real mother's milk.

Just gotta find it lots of ways.

Okay, I think that's it for today that we're on.

Basically a half an hour.

If you want me to go into why you should not consume formula, I could do an episode on that, but I'm not going to do it unless you guys ask for it.

Unless I just feel like I need to to protect people.

And then I might go ahead and do it, but there's some dangerous stuff in there.

All right.

I hope this was helpful.

If you have any questions.

Yeah, go ahead and contact me.

And by the way, disclaimer, none of this is medical advice.

This is just me trying to educate you a little bit if you care to listen.

Appreciate all of you that do listen all the time.

I know this was a episode that may not appeal to you because this is you are not breastfeeding or looking to breastfeed, but I think this starts out all of your health journey.

This is very important if you are a grandma or I mean going to be a grandma or grandpa and you know, I did this.

Pass it on to your children so maybe they get stimulated to take care of mom and her girls and of course, the babies after that.

Thank you for listening.

Take care of yourselves.