26 | Goal Setting in a Lactation Consult

Leah: Hello Annie. How are you today?

Annie: I'm terrific, Leah. How are you?

Leah: I'm doing really well. I'm excited to be talking today. I love our podcast days. It makes me so happy. I feel like I just get to come talk shop with somebody who gets it. Everybody else other than my LC friends, they don't get what we do and what we think about, how our brains work. So I'm excited to be here with you where you're gonna get it.

Annie: It's so true. It's just really fun and we can't even tell you how many topic ideas we have. We just keep coming up with things we want to talk about and it's just so fun having these conversations. And today's conversation is a topic that I think we're all going to get a lot out of, because it's really at the heart of what we do as lactation consultants, and we're going to talk today about how we work together with our clients to set their goals and help them achieve what they want out of their relationship with their baby related to feeding, pumping, supplementing, all those things that are going on. How we use communication skills to work with our clients. And something that I think Leah and I are both really passionate about and it's kind of for me, one of my favorite things about being a lactation consultant is seeing how different people are. I love it.

Leah: It is really interesting just to see how different personality types or just different approaches and just attitudes towards different things and how we have to be so chameleon-like. Okay, this person is gonna respond better to this type of presentation, whereas this person's going to respond better to this type of presentation. I really think it just makes us such a unique and that we consider. I mean just the fact that we even think about and consider these things. I don't think there's a lot of other healthcare professionals that are willing to be chameleons, but we're so dedicated to helping our families feel like they can trust and be honest with us and know that we're on their team, not just telling them how to do this or that or breastfeed or chest feed their babies, but we're actually on this journey with them, trying to empower and help them. So I think it's really great. I'm getting all deep into content when we get other things to talk about first, like our sponsor. Annie, tell us all about it.

Annie: Our sponsor for today is the lactation private practice toolkit, which is a collection of resources, trainings and tools so that you can build a private practice that works for the way you work to help families. So we've got everything from legal forms that have been attorney review that you can plug in your information, to charting templates that are lactation specific for a whole bunch of different platforms, and training on how to use those platforms. We've got a workbook that is a policies and procedures manual, all of this in one toolkit and it's upgraded for life. So every time a new product is added, you get it. And you can go to paperless lactation.com/toolkit and use code PODCAST for 10% off the toolkit. That's paperless, lactation.com/toolkit and code PODCAST.

Leah: And I cannot speak highly enough of the toolkit and the amazing resources it contains. I use it all the time. I love it, love it, love it. It should be priced at like a million dollars, but of course that would price us all out of getting it, but that's how much it's actually worth, I'm telling you and the upgrades, Annie. That's just such an amazing thing that you guys do is to give us those upgrades and I always look forward to when I hear Annie's got something new. She's going to upgrade the tool kit. I can't wait for the new stuff to come out. So thank you for that hard work that you did. Putting that altogether and it's worth every penny. And if you are starting a private practice or like me had one for a really long time and then got the toolkit, I promise you will find value in it for sure.

Annie: Oh well thank you. Well enough marketing for me and my stuff. Can you give us a marketing tip that us and our listeners can use to help promote their amazing things that they are doing?
Leah: Yes, absolutely. So we're talking today about helping your clients reach their goals and I think one of the ways in marketing that we can set the stage for this is kind of how you as a lactation consultant are approaching helping them is to make sure that the copy on your website and in social media and however you're presenting yourself really gives off a vibe of meeting them where they are and helping them reach their goals. And I think it's really important we say that often in whatever way you would present that. You don't want to say it in my words, but say that in your words so that families really start out interacting with you from a place of like, Oh, she really gets me, she's gonna listen to me, she's gonna be respectful of my decisions for my family, whatever those are. I think this is just such an important way that we show families how we come to breastfeeding. We sometimes get kind of a bad rap of Oh, we're only going to be about exclusive breastfeeding 100% of the time and we're going to be upset with them if they chose to formula feed or chose to pump or whatever the case may be. We can really change that attitude or that viewpoint of us by starting out with the thing that they are going to see first is most likely going to be something on your website or in social media, and that's where you need to start that conversation, build that foundation from there, and it really works. I actually had a family who reached out to me because they wanted to stop. They didn't want to initiate any breastfeeding at all, and they just were like, we felt like you would be happy to help us with that, and I was and they were shocked. They were mind blown when I was zero judgment, let's do this. I didn't push it. I made sure they had all the information, but it was just really a testament to how empowering that is and that they didn't have to leave the visit feeling yeah, we'll begrudgingly give you this information, but I really think you're making the wrong choice, and I think that starts all with how we present ourselves online.

Annie: So it's so great. It's like we talked about in a recent episode. We really want to start by making people feel safe and someone who feels safe to ask you, how can I not breastfeed? That's awesome. I want everyone to think of lactation consultants as being a place where you can go to get healthy, a place where you can go to get the right information related to reproductive health with your breasts and for some people, that's going to mean not breastfeeding and that's totally fine.

Leah: Right, and I think that's really a way that we can start changing how we present ourselves, and the information that you share out there to include everybody, so that it doesn't have to just be one way. I think it's super important in a way, we're just making our reach a little bit further, because you never know that family that felt secure and safe with you to have that journey might turn around with their next child and say, Hey, you know, I remember I didn't want to do it that time, but maybe I want to explore it more this time because I did feel so safe. I could ask more questions and you never know how you'll change their journey later on down the road, so...

Annie: I bet those of you who have blogs are thinking of ideas of new kinds of articles that can address what Leah's bringing up, which is not just focusing on breastfeeding tips, but also creating that inclusive environment for all kinds of feeding scenarios and helping people do that in a healthy way. So I love that marketing tip and it really does feed so well into our topic for today. So we're talking about goal setting with our clients, and just right off the bat, if you're not familiar with the concept of motivational interviewing and you have any kind of continuing education budget for yourself, I recommend buying the book Motivational Interviewing. It's really thick and really great and I would consider one of the essential texts for the work that we do, because that really is at the heart of what we're doing with our clients as we are working with them, having a conversation with them that is designed to elicit them to articulate what their goals are and to be the ones who are naming the steps they're going to take to reach those goals. So with our input and our guidance, but it's all originating from them not being dictated to them by us.

Leah: Yeah, and it's a hard kind of twist in your head to do. Sometimes you're like, but wait, they called me because they wanted me to tell them what to do. Why else would I assume they want my help, except for me to say do X, Y and Z to make everything perfect. But we have to always remember we're not going to be the ones doing the X, Y, and Z and if they're not on board with it, everything that you wrote down on that piece of paper is not going to work for them because they are not going to be invested in what it takes to get to their end goal. So I think it's really such an important step that we take in setting up our visit just from the get go. How do you start incorporating this, Annie, just from the beginning? What are some of the ways that you incorporate goal setting from the beginning of your consult? Where does that start for you?

Annie: So it definitely starts in the intake process, asking people to explain what they're struggling with, because they're reaching out for help because they're struggling with something or they have a question about something. So asking a lot of questions in the intake that are asking them, are you in pain or what's happening? Tell me what's going on. And so I'm collecting that information in advance so when I come in, I do have an idea about what I'm walking into. But then at the top of the visit when I'm sitting down and getting comfortable with them, we're here, we're ready to do this and asking them. I always say, I know you gave me a lot of information during the intake and I really appreciate that. It was super helpful. I would love if we would just start by having you tell me what you want to work on during our time together today, because sometimes that's different than what I inferred from the way the information was given to me in the intake form.

Leah: Yes, I have that happen all the time and I say something similar trying to figure out what is the main thing that they're most concerned about in the visit today. I think it's great to have some open ended questions about that so that they can really express themselves and what's most pertinent to them to figure out. And we might be guiding that a little bit. They might be thinking, well I want to really make sure that I have a freezer stash for when I go back to work, but we're seeing your baby's losing weight right now so it might be us helping them see the bigger picture. We're seeing it, but we're not telling them no, that is not where you need to put your focus today. This is the problem. You could guide them into seeing some different options, seeing some things differently. Not necessarily dictating what they should see, but helping them see it in some different light, guiding them. Oh, I love open ended questions.

Annie: So with open ended questions, so in case there are people out there who aren't sure what is an open-ended question. So what is an open ended question?

Leah: A question that can't be answered with yes or no. So I like to say I just keep this phrase in my head like tell me more about.... So that's just like if I can't think of how to word an open ended question, I'll just say, tell me more about the pain you're feeling with latching.

Annie: Oh, that's great. Tell me more about the behavior your baby has after a feeding. So that might be how I help a mom start to see like, Oh you know, I am thinking a lot about return to work, but you're right, I am having all this pain with latching right now and my baby's been so fussy and is not gaining weight properly. You're just helping them look at the bigger picture because we always come in with this really big view, but they're thinking, Oh my gosh, how am I going to return to work with this new-born and we have to kind of help them see, okay let's broaden this perspective, but how they do that? They got to come to it on their own because us just explaining don't think about that, think about this. Oftentimes these open ended questions help. So if I can't come up with a real savvy one, which sometimes I do, but oftentimes I'll just say, tell me more about whatever it is that I'm trying to help, or I'm trying to learn more about how they feel about something or what they're experiencing, or if I'm trying to guide them, I'll be like, well tell me more about that, because sometimes as they start to talk about it, they kind of have these realizations like, Oh my gosh, I hadn't really thought about this, but I am feeling like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah or that kind of thing. How about you? Do you have any phrases that you go to first for open ended questions?

Annie: I also do the 'tell me more about that', or I'll say, can you tell me a little more about that after they've shared some information with me? Another example of the contrast between an open ended question versus a closed question would be not asking does your baby click when they feed, do your nipples seem blanched or bubbles when your baby comes off? So those would be closed questions because the answer is either yes they do or no they don't. So instead of asking a question like that, I would ask, can describe for me what your nipples look like when your baby is done eating and then let them tell me. Or can you describe a typical feeding for me?
Or I'll do this when the baby is latched on, and so if I'm seeing baby's latched on, but I'm seeing some gulping or hearing some stridor or seeing the baby be very squirmy instead of saying, does your baby always make that noise? I would say, can you tell me how this compares with a typical feeding? Just the way your baby's moving, the sounds your baby is making, or I'll say, I'm hearing this sound right now. Is this a sound that you've heard before? Which that's a closed question so the answer is yes or no, but that's like an open/closed question because it's not saying yes or no, and it would be helpful if she says, no, I've never heard that before. That's useful information. She says, yes. I say, can you tell me more about that? So you're really looking at the questions you're asking as opportunities to branch the conversation in a direction where it needs to go, versus a closed question prunes the branch and says, well now we're done with that line of inquiry, because if it was no, then you're done. And the more branching and the less pruning you do during a conversation with a client, the more likely you are to actually get them to feel ownership over their goals and to be able to see where they want to go.

Leah: I think that's such an important skill to learn and I feel like it takes time to cultivate, so don't be hard on yourself if you get in a visit and you say, Oh my gosh, I just asked three closed questions in a row. What am I doing? Just be kind of open to just throwing in and when you have such a quick little statement, like tell me more about that. Just practice throwing that in and see how it leads the conversation and see if you can work with that more. I think it's a good way to start and I feel like in the beginning I would be harder. In my head I'd be thinking, oh my God, that was an open ended again. Oh man, I did it again. I'm thinking like that and it's okay. Just take a deep breath and just start incorporating it and before you know it, it just becomes how you talk. I talked to my kids like that all the time. Tell me more about what your teacher said.

Annie: And then when you do it to your kids though, they're like, mom! If they are anything like my kids.

Leah: I know. I know what you're doing.

Annie: Don't ask me those questions. I don't want to tell you more about it. I want to go in my room and...

Leah: Roll their eyes and like, can I eat something? That's it. That's my whole house right now.

Annie: Roll their eyes and ask for food.

Leah: I mean, literally we're back in new-born stage where I cannot ... they're cluster feeding. They are teenage cluster feeding. It is a thing. I go to Costco, I spend $1 million and it's gone in three days. It's maddening. These teenage boys, Oh my gosh. Sorry. That was a tangent.

Annie: That was a tangent.

Leah: Let's talk about what steps do you take to really start to pull in what does this family to work on? Beyond just okay, you get there and they're thinking I want to work on this, and you're thinking, well we have other things that we could talk about too and help them see, but as you get further down and pulling out what is really the direction they're going to go with their breastfeeding or chest feeding journey?

Annie: Yeah, I mean I think that it's about mindset going into the consult and going into the relationship is the most important thing. Your mindset needing to be, first of all, you can't want anything for them more than they want it for themselves, and so what you want for them is unimportant and really the lower value you can place on what you want to see happen, the better it's going to be for your clients. And then secondly, respecting their autonomy in this decision making process because breastfeeding is not always the goal for these families. So, for example, you might walk into a situation where a parent is asking you, I want you to teach me how to use my pump and the baby's five days old. And so you might be thinking, well no we don't really need to do that yet. We need to establish breastfeeding first and that might not be what that client wants. That client might have their own reasons for why they don't want to breastfeed, and one of the tenets of trauma informed care is that they kind of don't have to tell you why. That story does not belong to you of why they don't want to breastfeed. We know that some survivors of sexual abuse might not want to breastfeed. We also know that some survivors of sexual abuse can find breastfeeding healing. Not your business. Either way. That's between them and their therapist and their support system, which you are not a part of for that journey. And even trying to get to the bottom of ... well you might be thinking, if I can find out why she doesn't want to breastfeed, then maybe I can get her to breastfeed. That makes you kind of an unsafe person and it's not appropriate in this situation. So really walking in there and saying, I'm going to learn as much as I possibly can about what this family wants. I'm going to respect what they choose to share with me. I'm not going to force them to share anything they're not comfortable with, and I'm really gonna strive to bring the conversation back to them wherever I can, and to help them see from the very beginning that I'm here to hear, reflect back, understand and help them implement their goals.

Leah: And I actually even like to ask. I might not say what are your goals with breastfeeding? Because I think oftentimes there are these scripted answers, like I'm going to exclusively breastfeed for six months and then continue for twelve, because that's what everybody expects every mom to say. But I might say, what do you want breastfeeding to look like for your family? And sometimes that open ended question will get you a lot more information about what they perceive this is going to be like or what they envision, and there might be some education in that. Like when they're like, well, I'd like to only have to breastfeed my new-born four times a day. Okay, well then you know, new-borns typically need eight feeds a day, so we might have to then think about incorporating some additional feeding in another way, something like that. I mean, some perspective of what's possible? I would like to have 70 degrees, sunny weather every day, but it's not possible. So we can educate in those areas and help them kind of see what possibilities and that's helpful for them because they've never done this before, so they may have zero concept of what this should even look like. So sometimes I like to start from a place where I need to see it from their perspective. What are they seeing right now? What are they thinking right now? And by asking them like, what do you want breastfeeding to look like for your family? It really gives me a glimpse into how they're perceiving everything, what information they might have or might not have and how I need to provide education and that kind of thing and where we're going to start looking at the goals that they have. And sometimes goals I feel is a hard word with breastfeeding. I wish there was another word. I'm going to lose 10 pounds in a month I just always think of like a goal, or I'm going to run a 5K is a goal. Breastfeeding doesn't feel like it should be goal setting, but more like what are your desires? You know what I mean?

Annie: I mean I see that is a great point because with the population that I serve here in New York City, I've got a lot of people who were professionals who are on maternity leave from their job where they might be setting goals all day and setting goals for other people, and they're used to metrics and standards and evaluations and reviews and you get all these ways to tell you how well you're progressing towards your goal. And so it's a very different kind of goal setting because you're not going to have outside metrics. Like all we really have is like you made it to day two, whatever that count is. And it is so beautiful to celebrate those milestones but it's also really helping your clients articulate what kind of relationship they are hoping to build with their new family. So I like to bring my clients back to that and to say, you're here building a family and the way you feed your baby is part of building a family and how you feel in your body. Whether you're in pain or not in pain, that's going to affect how your family grows and so that's what we're really going for. And so then to try to say, okay, what do you want? What do you want this relationship to look like and where do you place a breastfeeding relationship in there? And there are some cases where you can find that focusing too much on just breastfeeding can be harmful to building that family. If breastfeeding isn't going well and you have a client who feels like I just want to breastfeed but they don't understand that that's going to require doing X, Y, and Z to get to exclusive breastfeeding. They just want the goal of exclusive breastfeeding, but there are challenges that need to be met, and so really shifting the conversation off of the physical act of feeding at the breast and into something bigger, which is about this is the beginning of a lifetime relationship that you're building with this person who like your new roommate has been dropped into your house to live with, and just that exclusive breastfeeding is something that is worth celebrating but it is not something that is worth holding up as this is what has to happen. We walk into every house to make this happen. And as healthcare providers again, I feel like I say this a lot, but I think it can't be said too much and I think it is because I have been wanting more education on this topic and knowing that we are working with vulnerable people who may have been harmed during the birthing process or in pregnancy by other care providers, and that the tendency is there to lay up risks in order to push people towards a given health outcome. And so an equivalent in birthing would be the threats that some families get during labour to do this, accept this intervention or this terrible outcome is going to happen. And that at a certain point this can become what's known as gas lighting, which is where you dictate to this person who trusts you a different reality than the one that they're living in to make them do something that you want them to do. And this is something that because we are working with vulnerable people who are putting their trust in us. We really need to be careful that we're not saying things to them, like if you give your baby even one drop of formula, they will have an altered gut forever and their grandchildren will have two heads because of the epigenetic changes. We know a ton about the impact of non-human milk on epigenetics. I mean there's amazing science about that. These things are happening. Clinically, it's not appropriate to use information in that way to scare people or to try to persuade them. We're not con artists. We're lactation consultants. We're here to help. We're here to help them meet their goals.

Leah: Yes, and I feel like if you have a family who they're saying one thing but their actions don't match it, helping them explore what's holding them back, and sometimes that can open up like one, referrals need to be made because this is not in my scope. I had one family, it was so simple and it was so empowering to see her. I asked the question. I said, I hear you are so passionate about exclusive breastfeeding and it's so awesome and I know you're working so hard, but I see you're really struggling implementing what we talked about. What do you feel is really holding you back by being able to do that? And it was literally the washing. She's like, I hate washing stuff. I never do the dishes. I've always been somebody that ... I'll do any other chore in the house if somebody else can deal with the dishes, but now all this weight is on me to take care of all these pump parts and all the bottles and I'm just losing my mind. I know it sounds so silly, but literally that's the thing that stops me. And I was like, not the thing that I would think. I would think it's the time stuck to a pump and the things that are in my head of what is hard about triple feeding. And I was like, why don't we just get you more pump parts and then have your husband wash them at the end of the day. And it was like a million light bulbs. She was like, Oh, you can do that? You can have more than one set of pump parts? If I could get four, then that would last me the whole day, and my husband said he would wash them. He always washes the one that I have for my evening pumps, all this stuff and her mind just was blown and then everything changed for her. And it was just by looking at what was holding her back. It could have been me perceiving what's the big deal, or we might have come in with our own bias of well this doesn't seem like this or that. But by helping her see what are her constraints for getting her where she obviously wants to be, and it might be something like, I thought that it was exclusive breastfeeding that I wanted, but now that I'm doing this, I'm really liking other people helping and I'm shifting and I didn't really want to say it but now that you asked me, I'm going to say it and that can be really insightful too on sharing your care plan that we're not causing more stress on the mom because she's not following the care plan because I think they stress themselves out about that.

Annie: Totally. They do. And I have had some of my triple feeding clients who get to where they've come to the other side of it and things are going a lot better and it worked. We give them a triple feeding plan because it can work but they say, you know what? I really want to keep these two bottles a day because I really love that my baby is comfortable taking the bottle. My baby's going back and forth between breast and bottle and I am going back to work in a few weeks and I'm like, that's awesome. You just hit your goal. When we first started, you were like I want to be exclusively breastfeeding and then they get to a place where they're like, Oh wow, this is really working for what's happening with us, and that's great. And say, goal achieved! Well done! And celebrating those milestones, when they reach their progress, we'll wrap it up by talking about the care plan, which is not, I always tell my clients, this is not a blueprint of me saying do this or else. You don't have to follow the care plan. These are guidelines. These are recommendations. If something is not working for you, I want you to come to me right away and say, Annie, this isn't working for me and I say, I'm giving you the first thing to try. I got a really, really deep list of things we can try so if this first thing isn't working for you, we're going to go to the next one but I want you to tell me. This change is... this is for you.

Leah: Yes, I did the exact same thing. I tell them I have a huge toolbox. I'm giving you the first set of tools. If these tools don't work for you, then we can always shift gears. If something is not seeming to line up with you guys, or feeling like it's working for you, then let me know because we want to be able to continue to guide them through that. So I like to have that open ended. I also like to give them some parameters on how we're going to measure progress in that care plan. Okay, I want you to check back in with me in one week and we're going to reassess where milk supply is at that time or we're gonna reassess milk transfer. How is the baby improving here? Giving them something of like, where's the next step in this? Because especially like with the more intensive care plans, sometimes it feels like, okay, well I can't do this for 12 months and so I'm changing my goals to one week because it just seems so overwhelming. This is what we're expecting them to do. So helping them kind of have some foresight and, okay, this would be the progress of what we're doing right now.

Annie: I think that's really great. Like with triple feeding and I'm realizing that the last time we talked about triple feeding there was somebody had raised a question on our Facebook page, like wait, what is triple feeding?

Leah: People call it different things though.

Annie: Yes, apparently people don't always use the same words that I use for things. I should realize this. It means that you have a parent with low milk supply that you're working on increasing. So the triple feeding would be they're doing direct breastfeeding, they are also pumping and they are giving human milk or formula by a bottle or another device, could be at the breast, supplement or a cup as a means to increase milk supply and with the hope of having the baby do increase the amount of direct breastfeeding that they're doing. And when I give my families a triple feeding plan, I tell them, I said this is hard work. It's boot camp. But the whole point of boot camp is to get out of boot camp. You're supposed to graduate so this is not how breastfeeding is now going to be for you. By giving this plan, I'm not describing what breastfeeding will look like for you. I'm giving you some steps to take to help you reach the goals and we're going to re-evaluate in a week. So the best way to re-evaluate that progress and make sure that you're updating goals to keep your families, make sure they're feeling aligned with what their actual goals are would be in an in-person visit. If that's not possible, having an email check-in or a phone call or some people will do clinics that are just for their established clients to come in and get a weight check and just check in on their goals, so there's a lot of different ways to do it, but I think it is really important that if you're serving a population where they're expecting a one-and-done and we see a lot of that here in New York City, it's so hard to get out of that. They wait so long to see us because they know insurance isn't going to pay them back for it and then by the time they see us, there's a lot going on and we're having to do a lot of hand holding afterwards to help them. So building that in, helping your clients see how you're going to continue to support them and getting, if you are doing a lot of one-and-done clients, maybe take a look at how you're talking about follow-up to try to prompt more follow-up visits, because the second visit I find for me is often the one where we really get somewhere, goal-wise in terms of they've had some time to think about it and now they come back and they're like, Oh wow, okay. Now that I've done this for a week, I'm thinking about things in a different way and I think that's really good because I really feel like I'm not there to achieve some particular outcome. I'm there to invest in that person who reached out to me for help and give to them. Not give to the goal of breastfeeding like that, and I find that in the second visit is where we really get there where they do trust me and they've seen things happen and now we've got more data to work with and they feel more comfortable with me and that's when they will often open up and say, you know what it is that they really want or what they're really afraid of, what they really hope and then we can help them apply that to their lives and then have them, a lot of times they're telling me what the care plan is. They're saying, okay, I'm not willing to do that. I'll explain to them, here's an at-breast supplementer, and they will say, I am not willing to do that. Okay, now we know something. That's great. That's important. You just told me it's a goal of yours, which is you have a goal not to use an at-breast supplementer. Heard, received. understood. I'm here for you.

Leah: Yes, and I think when we take this approach, it's really, really empowering when done well for the person that is on this parenting journey. This is kind of their first task as a parent is to feed their child, and so how they experience this first task could influence, not to put too much pressure on all of us, but could influence them through how they perceive their ability as a parent, how they perceive their ability to figure things out as a parent. I feel like, and I've heard this and I've felt this in my own life, this is a big jumping off point for parenting, their journey as a parent, and if we can help them, empower them and make them the self-efficacy - I can figure this out, I can do this. Yes, I'm calling in resources and help, but I'm the one doing this hard work. I'm the one investing in my child. I'm the one that is making decisions and making plans - and I just think that we have this huge ability to change how their journey takes off from this point. And I know I've experienced that in my own life and other families that I've worked with. I just think that it's a huge responsibility and when we take the time to learn these skills, it just makes us just better people, just better people to work with. Just in general, better humans to work with, better parents ourselves, better partners. It's really, really helpful.

Annie: Absolutely. It's so true. You just see, over the years that I've been doing this, I'm just blown away at what families are capable of being for each other. You know, getting moved at the way a partner looks at that mom and just gives the support or the family coming in and you just get these windows into people's lives and you just see. Breastfeeding at the beginning, it might be a fragile thing that will become robust if cultivated and if that support is given, it can become this great thing. But what I really actually see is that it's hard to get to robust breastfeeding. We know this is true and there's a lot of things sometimes that just can't be done about that in a situation, but what I see always can be made robust is that family bond. And by pouring in to what those parents are capable of giving to their baby and by showing parents what their babies are bringing to the table, which is a lot of awesome things, and having them see that a-ha moment, that's what really opens it up for them to be able to set goals, work towards them and feel great about wherever they land up, even if it's not where that initial goal was. And that's, that's a beautiful part of what we do. So

Leah: I love this talk. This made me feel really good and it also such good reminders. I have consults the rest of the day today and I'm going to be speaking and talking in such a different way. It's such lovely reminders. I love our podcast. So as we wrap up as always, Annie's going to give us some super awesome tech tip. What you got for us today, Annie?
Annie: So I recommend creating some canned emails with formatted links to some commonly asked questions. So for example, how do you prepare to return to work? And you could create a canned email that's got links to your favorite resources and articles about getting ready to go back to work. And by creating them as formatted links where it's click here for an article on this topic, and the here is the hyperlink as opposed to pasting the link. The pasted links look spammy and they could get filtered into the spam, especially if you're sending a lot of links. So by formatting them you are able to bypass. They look like a real email, and then by creating canned emails, which is super easy to do in G-Suite, a lot of charting platforms will let you create formatted emails as well. I know practice better does some beautiful formatted emails that you can set up as protocols and charm does that as well. And having those at your fingertips to send out and so in one of the components of the toolkit that we mentioned at the top of the episode is a resource collection, which is a whole bunch of client-friendly links for breastfeeding professionals. You can buy it on its own as well as a separate product or it's bundled in the tool kit and you get every time people write new great stuff that would be good for families about all kinds of topics, we put them in the toolkit...I mean, in the resource collection and then you have it and you can just pull up, you can search a topic and find all these great resources, blog posts that have been written for parents that they can easily understand. You use those to amplify your care plans and I use it all the time. It's maintained by Jen Deshaies of Syracuse Lactation in New York State. She's a research pro. She's amazing. She finds the best stuff, she puts it in there, she keeps it organized and updates at about once a month with new stuff. So having those resources that speak directly to parents really helps them see. It's not just me, Annie telling them here's what you gotta do. It's also like I'm inviting you to understand best practices that have been developed over time that you can apply to your situation. And it's not just me saying it. There's some other people who say it too.

Leah: Yes, I love that resource list, Annie. I use it all the time. I really do. I love it and I love when it gets updated because I'm like, Oh, what did they add? New stuff that I can add to my templates because I do that. I definitely do that. But I love the tip about making it a hyperlink. I think it keeps the care plan looking really clean or the email that you're sending looking really clean, so such a smart tip. Thank you so much for just adding more value to the work that we do. I love it. I love it. Well it's been so great talking to you today Annie, and as always, I hope you have a great week and I look forward to our next podcast.

Annie: Totally, and I will see you next time. Have a fabulous day of consults. I know you have to run out the door right now, but I think you'll have a great time with your families today. I always have a great time with you.

Leah: Yes, thank you so much. All right. Have a great day, Annie.