5 tips for nursing from Emily Middleton, The Latch RN
Emily Middleton is a Registered Nurse and a Board-Certified Lactation Consultant. Her career has been dedicated to educating and caring for women, babies, and growing families during the perinatal period.
She spent the first ten years of her nursing career at the bedside as a NICU nurse. It was through her experience caring for this fragile population and the process of breastfeeding her own child, that she discovered her fascination with all aspects of human lactation.
After 20 years of serving different roles within the hospital setting trying to improve patient experiences, she continued to witness the increasing void in patient education and the widening gap in care between hospital and home.
In June of 2021, she took a gamble on a dream and The Latch RN was born. It is here that she has been able to live out her vision and watch it evolve. Her ultimate goal is to craft a model of prenatal education and postpartum support that provides continuity of care to the clients she serves. From delivering in-home birth, newborn and lactation education to providing and facilitating postpartum support through the promotion of community doulas and nurses, Emily believes that maternal/infant outcomes within the state of SC can be improved and the well pregnancy and thriving postpartum should be the norm.
When she is not obsessing about her work, you can find her traveling, in nature, and loving her big beautiful family.
Here are her 5 tips for those thinking about breastfeeding:
1. Find A Lactation Consultant you vibe with.
2. Do a prenatal Lactation Consultation: You deserve information and education that is realistic, specific to you, your lifestyle, your body and your goals.
3. Have a buddy who has been successful in meeting her breastfeeding goals: You need a hype girl and support from someone who has experienced hardship and success.
4. Expect this to be hard: If not, yay you! But normally, breastfeeding comes with challenges and remember both you and baby are learning and each of you need to be able to give 100% effort eventually. This takes time.
5. Prepare to invest in this experience: From good education to the proper tools — unfortunately, in our culture, breastfeeding is not free.
Words of encouragement:
The best words of encouragement I can give you is to try to think of breastfeeding as something you are learning as opposed to something you are doing. Eventually with patience, persistence, and perseverance, it is something you will become comfortable and confident in, but give yourself time for that to evolve.