Rapid Response Fund

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The Childbirth Collective

The Childbirth Collective empowers families in the Twin Cities through mutual aid, providing essential support and resources for childbirth and parenting. They collaborate with local partners to ensure equitable care for all families in need.

Very few people call a lactation consultant before the baby arrives, but the families who do overwhelmingly say it made the difference &mdash; 93% of them, according to The Lactation Network. Everyone else reaches out when it&#39;s 3am, the baby won&#39;t stop screaming, and a breaking point is quickly approaching. The biggest gap between these two groups isn&#39;t luck. It&#39;s whether a prenatal professional connected a thyroid diagnosis to the need for a feeding plan and said so out loud.&nbsp; Because the signs are often there: a history of PCOS or infertility, a breast reduction, a thyroid diagnosis, tubular or widely spaced breasts, certain medications, mental illness &mdash; any one of them warrants a prenatal consultation with an IBCLC. But the doulas, educators, mental health therapists, and bodyworkers who see families throughout pregnancy aren&#39;t taught to connect the dots. Most introductory training on lactation support points toward latch adjustment, social support, or systemic policy change &mdash; which all matter tremendously and sit squarely within scope &mdash; but to a parent facing a real anatomical or biological barrier, can sound like &quot;you didn&#39;t try hard enough,&quot; however far that is from the intent. This session covers both what to identify and what to say: what these markers look like in practice, where common assumptions steer well-intentioned birth professionals wrong, when to refer to an IBCLC and the hardest part &mdash; how to name risk honestly without stealing a family&#39;s confidence or writing the ending before it begins. Meredith will make the argument for why naming risk early, paired with a plan and a person, protects a feeding relationship rather than threatens it. Attendees will leave with screening questions to add to intake tomorrow, language for the conversation that follows, and a referral instinct they can trust.

The Childbirth Collective

Past events

Past events

When The Warning Signs Come Before The Baby: Prenatal Lactation Screening & Referral

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