AAB 032 Breastfeeding: Breastfeeding and Medication and Weaning-Heather Ryan and NCIS

Heather grew up in Northern Indiana in the Southbend area. She lived with her parents and younger sister. Heather describes herself as a child of the 70s and her parents were hippies from the 60's. With her hippie parents she ate organic food from their garden and only had processed foods when she went to her aunts house, which she loved doing. There she could get white bread and potato chips! Her parents were into recycling and organic gardening and loved nature. She planned on becoming a teacher and never would have guessed that she would become a Special Agent and work undercover narcotics. Heather went into premature labor with her first baby and at 27 weeks was put on bedrest and kept her baby "cookin" until 31 1/1 weeks. She was prepared for having a small baby, who would probably need special care in the nursery, however, he was whisked away to the nursery but they quickly realized he was a healthy almost 5 pound baby who did not need any help breathing. So he was brought back to her room. She did have great difficulty breastfeeding and the Lactation Consultants at the hospital explained to her the specific issues premature babies had with breastfeeding. Heather feels she had lots of great support from her family, from the hospital Lactation Consultant that she saw numerous times, to the regular Breastfeeding support groups she attended, as well as her pediatrician. Heather shares with us her struggles and how she tried real hard for 3 months to make breastfeeding work. She had a baby that cried frequently and ultimately found out that he had some health issues with his intestines which was probably at least one of the reasons for the frequent crying. It was felt that perhaps there was something in her breastmilk that was bothering her baby, so she was put on an elimination diet, however, this did not help. She tried different formulas and ultimately would up using a very expensive hypo allergenic formula that he seemed to do well with. She combined pumping and formula went she returned to work, however, finding the time to pump during her working hours, did not work out at all and she soon discontinued pumping. She recognizes that some workplaces are better about giving their employees time and place to pump, however, this was not available to her at the time. Heather talks about what it was like returning to work with a new baby and why she decided to leave her position with NCIS and founded her own business so she could be home with her kids. She does say that most people in her life thought she was pretty insane to leave a great job with good benefits. However, she felt that it was the right thing to do for herself and her family. She spent time trying to figure out exactly what she could do and like most entrepreneurs, she took what she has learned and turned that into a business model and is very happy with what she has accomplished so far.