EP 37 | Prenatal Visits

Annie: Hey, Leah, are you ready for today's episode?

Leah: I am. It's good to hear from you again. How are you doing?

Annie: I'm very good, but. You know, this is not my favorite topic of all the things we do that we're talking about today, and that's my own issues, but, um, but I'm always happy to talk through hard things with you.

Leah: Oh well, today we're talking about prenatal visits and if and why you should have them as part of your practice and what are they? What's the point? And yeah, lots of good stuff about prenatal visits. But before we get started. And to talk to your point that you opened with my motivation tip today is don't let yourself get overwhelmed with the thought that you need to offer every possible class and every possible service, because there are things that just don't suit. And it's okay to say, that's not something that I want to do or that I feel like I want to develop my skills in. You don't have to be the everything for everyone IBCLC. You have to be the best version of you and putting yourself out into the world with your strengths because we all have unique strengths. And I think it's important to remember that there's no pressure, Annie, there's no pressure. You don't have to do everything. You have to do what is best for you and what, what really works for you and your practice as an individual. So that's my motivation today. I'll take it.

Annie: I heard and received. Thank you.

Leah: So like we said, we're talking about prenatals today and how they could be part of your business or not. So let's just dive right in with. thinking through what is a prenatal, why are we doing them and why
Annie doesn't like them. Do you want to start there, Annie? Tell us, we can start there.

Annie: I know why we do prenatals because prenatal education has been linked to increased rates of breastfeeding initiation and duration. They're definitely people who really benefit from the anticipatory guidance for dealing with certain medical conditions that they might have. I mean, there are like a million good reasons to be talking with people prenatally about breastfeeding and infant feeding. Absolutely. So not arguing that. So for me, I definitely You know, feel the passion. I really struggle in two areas. And the first is with just my delivery. I feel like being a class teacher, even if it's a one on one class where I'm giving you information and you are taking it from me. I find that really challenging to do. And I'm way more excited by troubleshooting someone's actual situation than by educating them on a potential situation. I also have the luxury of knowing that the childbirth educators that I can refer people to are doing an outstanding job covering breastfeeding. And I also know that many of the hospitals, they will get very good care by the hospital lactation consultants, because we have a lot of hospitals. I mean, not all of them have lactation consultants, but the ones that do, those people do a fantastic job helping people in the hospital. So the second place I struggle is just with logistics. So a lot of people, they want the prenatal visit prenatally, which means they are often still haven't taken time off from work yet. And so they want them to be done in the evening or on the weekend. And that is just very difficult for me with my family to make time for that. And then if I schedule a prenatal with them, there's also like we've created a relationship, which is a great marketing reason to do them to build your client base. But I don't have, I've been in the situation where I saw someone prenatally and then couldn't see them after their baby was born because of just timing worked out, didn't work out. And I don't like that. I feel like it's, you know, like a bummer all around. Like I was looking forward to meeting their baby. We had established a rapport, you know, again, I'm really fortunate that I can refer them to someone else who's fantastic, but. It just didn't work for me. It doesn't work for me on a business standpoint. Like I don't need, I don't need them for marketing to build my client base and it causes more trouble when I can't see them than just not doing them at all.

Leah: Yeah. I could totally see your points there. We do them. And I feel like they've been worked really well for our business and it's something we do fairly regularly and I really enjoy them because I feel like, oh my gosh, I want to head off any issues. And my favorite is to really get to dive into the families. Just ideas and thoughts and kind of help them have a broader scope of like what could this look like and you know It's just so nice to catch them on that front end before the baby's even there and let them really kind of digest information in a quiet peaceful way versus I feel like it's so hard to teach and like open people's minds up once the baby's there. So it's such a neat opportunity to kind of reach them before any ideas have set in their way on how things are going to go. So I've really enjoyed prenatals, but I can definitely relate to some of the points that you put out there because they're definitely scheduling. And so that definitely makes it more challenging with scheduling and so I can totally relate to your points there. So as we go into. More about what a prenatal might entail. What are some of the things if you did do a prenatal any in the times that you have done a prenatal, what are some of the things that are are really high on your list that you're thinking about as you're going into the prenatal visit?

Annie: Yeah. I mean, the one thing is Always to start by asking questions, you know, things like, what have you heard about breastfeeding? What have you heard about feeding your baby? And you just getting them to kind of share where they're coming from and then asking them, what are your goals for feeding your baby? How do you picture all that? And asking them about when they're returning to work, because it is prenatally when, when people are receptive to learning to really plant that seed, that it is possible to continue giving milk to your baby after you go back to work. And that, you know, that's something that a lactation consultant can help you with. So I love, I love it for those two things. And I also love to really make sure that they are able to articulate why this is important to them, why it's important enough to them that they hired someone to come one on one prenatally to talk with them. Like that speaks to a very deep need. I do think the time can be well spent. You know, really honoring that and making space for that and just, you know, helping them see that, you know, there's, there's what's possible and what could happen and, and those are, you know, your future is not something you can control. You don't, nobody knows if breastfeeding is going to work out and there isn't a prenatal class. Is it going to make that certain, but by being really clear on why it's important to you, that can really help you be able to make proactive decisions. if and when things don't go the way you thought they would versus just reacting out of fear that you're going to lose everything if you can't breastfeed.

Leah: Definitely. And I think that really speaks to the self efficacy. You know, if they can articulate why it's important to them, they might be able to link that to visualizing themselves. Being successful breastfeeding, which we know the self efficacy, feeling like you could actually do this is a big part of the initiation and duration of breastfeeding statistics. And they've done some great studies, that mentality of like, this is something that I could achieve. And I think that starts with motivation, like why, Why do you even care? You know, and then, and then you can really link that into helping them see that this is possible for them. I think so much of, um, the prenatal is just helping with mindset and you're definitely going to get some con, some good, you know, advice and information and, and kind of teaching in there, which I always like to really look at what is their baseline knowledge like you, like, have they, do they have any, any baseline knowledge? Like where do I need to start? Cause I think you could waste a lot of. time in a prenatal assuming they know nothing. And then you're like, Oh, they've already read, you know, the womanly art of breastfeeding. And, you know, they've already read five books. So I don't need to start at the super basics. I need to kind of help them pick out the things that are standing out to them as, you know, areas they need help with. So I think that kind of asking a lot of open ended questions and finding out what their knowledge base is, is a big part of using your time wisely in the prenatal.

Annie: I really like that because it's coming in from a place where you're not making any assumptions about what they want, what they know, where they want to take this. And so I think there's that part of being really open to what their individual journey can be as a family. And then also being up to date on birth culture in your area and just kind of, you know, if you do know things about the hospitals and to be able to prepare them, you know, to say, you know, that this hospital maybe doesn't have any lactation consultants at night. And so just here's some things that you can tell yourself, you know, if you're having a hard time at night, here's some, here's a little list of things that you can do, or, you know, the one thing I always want anyone I see prenatally to know is if in just start Expressing your milk. Yeah, I always do that. And then we'll fix it later..

Leah: Just like, please. Please, please just, just if anything's not going as expected or really, I just think, you know, hand express, just keep pan expressing and keep pumping and we'll get together as soon after. I always try to give them that like fallback plan and then really just set the mindset of that. Even if it's not working out day one through three while you're still in the hospital before we get to meet together, like, don't panic. That has like almost zero in my experience, like how it could turn out long run. You know, the moms are, if they get too stuck in like, oh, it's just falling apart on day two, it's never going to work out like, no, no, no. Like there's so many things that you will be able to work on. Don't get discouraged by if things don't feel like they're coming together really easily and that's something I really want to help them to understand and then making sure that they know that breastfeeding doesn't have to be one way or the other. It can be so many things and like opening their eyes to like, don't get too tied into like, it has to look this one exact way to be successful, I think is a, is a great thing. time to do that because I think so much of our Information out there is just kind of like exclusively breastfeeding for six months with nothing, you know, no bottles No supplementation, you know, and i'm like it could look so many different ways for so many different families.

Annie: Encountering the messages that are really harmful to families and babies, you know, and this is something in our episode about books that is covered in the big letdown is that when people think that breastfeeding is their choice. So this is what Kimberly seals Aller said, then it's their fault if it doesn't happen. But she likes framework that she uses is that when breastfeeding doesn't work out, it's because the system let that family down. So we can really get in there early and say, you know, you, you have a right to have your body work the way it's supposed to work. And if things aren't working, we can help you. And that's independent of your choice of how you use your body is 100 percent up to you. That is for you. You do what you do what you need to do and want to do with your own body. But I'm here to help you figure out if you're like how to have your body work the way it's supposed to work and troubleshoot if it's not because your wellness is really important. You get wellness and choice. You can have both of those things and that can really like take a lot of the pressure off of these families who are told like you make one mistake. And it's all over. And you must mean you didn't want it enough. And that is that those are just lies from the people who profit when breastfeeding doesn't work out. And when babies can't get human milk, they make a lot of money. So they want you to think that it's super hard and that The possibility for failure is really high, and they like they like people in that place of fear because people spend money when they're afraid, and we can really counter that by showing them that life is a lot more robust than we give it credit for sometimes.

Leah: Definitely. So I think there's a lot that we can, you know, help a family, kind of guide them. And then certainly we're doing the clinical aspects too, you know, where we might need to do a breast exam. We might need to do some teaching because of a certain health condition or some anticipatory guidance because of that. So I think those are also It's certainly going to be big parts of a prenatal visit. And there's a lot of like ways to approach prenatal visits that I think we can think outside the box that are really great for business. And some people I've even heard of doing like, you know, group, more of like a group type of prenatal visit. You can certainly continue with the one on one. I think it's so helpful to let other people know that this is a service that you offer because I think a lot of times the OBs don't even realize that this could be something that's offered and they might see something concerning or know something concerning about a patient's health, but then they don't really know, you know, kind of how to guide them on helping that family be as successful as they want to be.

Annie: Definitely. I mean, marketing this as a service, especially if you're really good at it and really passionate about it, really connecting with those other healthcare providers to know that you're doing this and to know what you have to offer, find out if insurance will cover it. You know, think about group offerings or one on one offerings. Some people might really want to the personal, other people might find that a little overwhelming to be like, just face to face with a lactation consultant with no baby there to kind of diffuse things. I remember when I was pregnant with my older daughter, I went to prenatal class. It was a group class that was taught by Leanne O'Connor. I feel like I've talked about her this so many times on this podcast, but I just, it really, um, made a huge impression on me just being in that room and having somebody who like, she like clearly knew what she was talking about. And I remember in this part, she was having us hold baby dolls and showing us how to hold your baby when you're breastfeeding. And I had been a babysitter my whole life. So I held the baby the way I held the baby and she came over and she was just like, no, no, no, like this. And she just like turned the baby and I was like, Oh, Oh, I was like, that's a little intimate. Like you want my baby to be like right up against me like that? Like it was, and it was very like good for me to be pushed in that way. Cause I really, I really just had. No clue what breastfeeding was about and what it needed to be and was it really like she was just really confident. It was really informative. I also liked being in the group setting because it was nobody was like looking at me. I didn't have to talk. I could just kind of listen and receive. But right. So there's something for everybody. And some people will do a group prenatal And have it be free as a great marketing tool for your practice to say, once a month, I'm doing a free prenatal and maybe even add, you know, OB office, midwife practice, pediatric practice as a way to just tell people what you do and that that can be a fun, you know, Like, Hey, it's just one hour, learn how to breastfeed and then you can hand out your cards and people will make a connection with you. Maybe they'll hire you to be your lactation, their lactation consultant. And I've heard that work really well for some people.

Leah: Yeah. I think that just one consideration you'd have to have in that type of setting is going to be definitely more broad, general class. You're wouldn't be kind of asking people about their specific health concerns and going through history like you would maybe in a one on one. So you think there are like these more generalized classes. that can be done in a group setting. And then you have maybe some families that need deeper look into their history and their health concerns, and they might really benefit from a one on one class. And that's something that you I mean, a one on one, not class, but like a one on one prenatal. And that's certainly something that you can be doing some triage work for and making sure that when people are looking at what services you offer. You're distinguishing between the two that like this is a class, this is a group setting and this is a one on one and dives a little deeper into you individually.

Annie: Definitely. And another great source is to reach out to childbirth educators in their area and to reach out to childbirth educators in your area because you might find that they're like, well, I teach breastfeeding, but it's actually not my favorite part of my comprehensive childbirth ed. series, maybe there's a possibility to come in and be the breastfeeding teacher for that childbirth educator and getting access to their cohorts. Those can be really great relationships to facilitate.

Leah: Yeah, I definitely agree. So this can be a great way to market your business. Especially if you're first starting out. I think this is a great way to build clientele and, and presence in the community and especially in the birth community, which we know we get a lot of great referrals from. So I don't know, are you feeling a little bit better about prenatals now?

Annie: I mean, I am. And you know, as I talk about them, obviously I have a passion for. What a prenatal visit can achieve in a family. And I've seen it in my own life and seen it in my clients. It's something that I will probably revisit when my Children are older. And I'm not, you know, the dinner bedtime thing doesn't take three hours every day to get people and homework and all of those responsibilities I have as a parent. So it is something that I can see myself doing in the future. But I'm also, you know, I'm gonna stick with my policy that I don't do right now.

Leah: And I'm okay with that. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Awesome. Well, as we wrap up today, I know you have a tech tip for us, Annie. What you got?

Annie: I do. So using G suite, if you're using G suite for your email calendar and document storage, you can use G suite sites and you can create a Not very pretty. I'm gonna I'm not gonna lie. I mean, but it doesn't have to be a little site where you can host prenatal resources that you want to make available to people who've done your class or that you've worked with one on one, but you don't necessarily want to give them all away on your website as like a public page. And if you use the Google site, you can keep it private. It won't be indexed or publicly available. You can share it with people and it'll look just like a web page. Any those of you with some of you with kids might, maybe your, your kids classrooms have this for like homework. My, my fourth graders, they have a Google site page and that's where the teacher puts the homework and it's like not pretty, but it doesn't have to be pretty cause it's not branded. It's not representing you in that really, you know, forward facing way. It's just a resource hub and you can really just call it that. And then that way you're not having to like. Update your PDF every time you find a new link. You just have this private link that you can share with people after the visit.

Leah: Oh, I really like that, Annie. That's a great tip. And now I'm going to have to go start on a new project. Thanks so much. Awesome. Awesome. Well, it's been fun talking to you today, Annie. And I look forward to our next time together.

Annie: Me too. And, and hopefully we will see some of you on our next deeper dive. We are having such a good time going deeper, deeper, deeper into topics and hope you will join us for the next one. All right, Leah, take care. Talk to you soon. Bye

Leah: Bye.