Breastfeeding and Breast Cancer

Can you reduce the risk of breast cancer by breastfeeding? Today on the Milk Minute we talk about breastfeeding, breast cancer, and what the science says about their correlation. While it's wonderful that so many of us make self-less choices as parents, we also want to tell you that it’s okay to consider the benefits to you, your body, and your life when deciding what to do with and for your children. Tune in to learn more!

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Listener question: If frozen breastmilk has been against ice packs all day and still has some frozen parts, can I refreeze it?

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Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Milk Minute. Welcome. Welcome. Maureen and I were just looking at ourselves up close in the video, thinking about recommended, thinking about what we looked like when we first started this podcast.

And I was like, God, I look so tired and swollen. And when you look back at pictures, I had makeup on, I was like, 20 pounds lighter, I was sleeping, it was like a different Heather. I really, I really just feel like we both went in a high inflammatory state for like two years. I got inflamed and then I shot a baby out.

Yeah, and now it's just how it is, I guess. It's kind of what happened to both of us. We were like, what if we had another baby? Yeah, I don't think I'm in my hot mom era right now. I'm waiting for that. I think when I hit 40, I'm gonna be hot again. Like all my hair from the postpartum hair loss will grow back in.

And like the, the fat deposits on my body. I don't mind. being chubbier at all. But the placement of the fat collection is odd. They're just, I know what you mean. You're like, that's not where I'm used to it being. Yeah, I'm like, why does it have to be collected in this one area? Could it not just be evenly distributed?

Yeah, I I've been having some weird hair, like I've been having more hair loss from thyroid shit, but also more greys come in, but I, I will say the texture of my greys is a lot better. It's like, I'm like, oh, those actually like have some volume to them, so let's just do it. Not me, friend. Those, they're like thicker than the hair I have now, and I'm like, you know what?

I can deal with that because my hair has thinned out so much. I'm going to look like a wire terrier. Mine are coming in like pubes, like bright white pubes out of my head. I'm just, like, right now, like last night, you know, I went to sleep hair wet without doing anything to it and woke up literally with half of it straight and half of it curling and I'm like, I'm done with that.

Can I just get the medium wavy texture I used to have? Yeah. What is that? I don't know. Yeah. And like, that's a situation where you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, I have to start completely over. Like I can't even make this happen. I, I, yeah, no, I just walked out of the house. It was a good choice.

I'm just hoping for the best and the rest is none of my business, really. Anyway today I feel like I may have been a little overly ambitious in our episode topic. But it was an, it's an important one. So I want to try, try it. But the, anyway, it's we're talking about breast cancer and how it relates to breastfeeding today.

And it's a little muddled and a little muddy and there's a lot of conflicting research. So I'm just saying outright, I did my best. I think you're doing great, sweetie. Great. But, you know, before we begin, do you want to thank some patrons? I do. I would like to thank our new patron, Dee, as well as Emily Newman from Chicago.

Yeah, thank you guys so much for joining our Patreon. We appreciate your patronage. And if you guys out there want to join our Patreon, where you can direct message us, you get bonus material, you get ad free episodes, that is at Patreon. com slash Milk Minute Podcast. We have a quick question from a listener before we dive into this heavy topic of breast cancer and breastfeeding.

This is a question from Melissa who is in our Facebook group. Melissa says, if frozen breast milk has been against ice packs all day and still has some frozen parts, can I refreeze? I sent to daycare and they didn't know it was in the cooler. That's the worst. Yeah, consensus is yeah. It's still cold enough to refreeze that like we're not worried about bacterial growth and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, or alternately, like I'm not worried about it, but alternately you could feed that to baby and then pump and then freeze that milk. Just rotate it. Yeah, totally up to you, but usually if parts of it are still frozen, it's still very cold and safe to refreeze. You know, if I got home after a day like yours with some half thawed milk, I'd look at my husband and be like, Alright, so I guess you're doing bottles and I'm going out.

And I'm going to sleep. No, well, you can't pump and sleep at the same time. I would go out. I'd be like, Girls night! I'd bring my Elvie Stride and I would be like, I gotta go pump to replace this. So, sorry. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, but really like, breast milk is not fragile. And it can survive a lot, so I think you're okay, dear.

Couldn't agree with you more. All right let's take a quick break to thank a sponsor, and when we get back, we're going to dive right into breast cancer and breastfeeding.

Have you guys ever been listening to our show and thought to yourself, Man, I really want to work one on one with Maureen. I do, every day that I sit here podcasting across from you. Well, lucky for you and everybody at home, I offer both in person and virtual support through my business. And in my business, Highland Birth Support, I'm dedicated to mentoring you guys through your childbearing year.

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Thank you. And I just feel really happy to serve everybody. And I'm so happy I can expand my services virtually as well. Yeah, telehealth for lactation has been really important through the pandemic. And I think we just about got it. So if you guys want to work with me, head over to HighlandBirthSupport.

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Alright, welcome back everybody. As I said before, the topic today is breast cancer and breastfeeding. To start off, I want to talk about why this is important to me, not just for all of you, but me personally. My risk for breast cancer is pretty darn high. I've had a number of direct relatives have breast cancer, a number of direct relatives all test positive for the BRCA1 or 2 genes.

I don't really feel like I need to test myself because I'm pretty sure that's So I'm going to be there. And so, you know, I am proceeding as cautiously as I can, as far as this goes. And I always wanted to breastfeed my own children, you know but I also for a long time have known that this is something I needed to do for me, not just for my kids, because reducing my risk for breast cancer is important.

And there has been some good research showing that breastfeeding does that. So that's what I want to talk about today specifically. And, you know, it's wonderful that we make so many selfless choices as parents. But also, I'm here to tell you it's okay to be selfish and consider the benefits to you and your body and your life in deciding the way forward with your children.

Right. Breastfeed or don't, but if you are at a higher risk for breast cancer and you're not into breastfeeding, please don't feel pressured that you have to breastfeed. There are other options. I know several people who have had all of their breast tissue removed and they got implants and they never had to worry about it again.

And they were like, I'm kind of glad I got the tits I always wanted. And it's like, okay, great. That's your choice. That's for you. That's amazing. So you can also do both. You can breastfeed and then you can get the tits you always wanted. It's completely up to you. Yeah, we have a lot of options here, but I think because of our tendency to act selflessly and for people to shame us if we don't, the campaigns promoting breastfeeding the last 20 30 years really have largely focused on benefits to the child rather than the mother.

So yeah, you know, let's focus on the benefits to us for once. Yeah, let's make it more about us. Okay, before I start this episode, because this gets a lot into muddled research about increase and decrease risks based on pregnancies and breastfeeding and blah, blah, blah, I want to contextualize this in its importance to this demographic, specifically in the United States.

So for context, people in the USA have been having smaller families at a later age. The median age for first children has jumped up a lot in the last handful of years. It was like 25 and then 27 and now it's 30 is the median age for a first baby. Adding to that that we have a pretty low breastfeeding rate specifically for duration of breastfeeding.

We are at somewhere around 83 percent for initiating breastfeeding, 55 percent for any amount of breast milk at six months, and 35 percent for any amount of breast milk at 12 months, but those are not the numbers for exclusive feeding. Those are mixed feeding. The exclusive breastfeeding numbers are way lower and I do not have to tell y'all why.

It is so damn hard to breastfeed here, you know. And especially because a lot of people waiting until their 30s to have kids have jobs, you know, that's why they waited so long. It's because they're career women, which is great. But then try exclusively breastfeeding with a career. It makes it so much more challenging.

So just like, it's not your fault. This is a problem. And just keep those So, just kind of general, that general framework for this in mind as we talk about it, because I think it helps you understand why this is more important. In general, the risk for women in the United States to develop breast cancer is about 13 percent or 1 in 8 people within your lifetime, right?

And rates are increasing, so we are having less kids at a later age, less breastfeeding increased risk for breast cancer. Now most of the data about parity, how many, Children you've birthed, and breastfeeding, suggests that pregnancies that are not followed by breastfeeding generally increase the risk for breast cancer.

But, more importantly, the age at which someone has their first full term pregnancy affects that risk more significantly. So, as far as we know, again, like, studies are a little muddy, so, this is our best info, but it's not so bad. solid. As far as we know, studies show that when you have a younger age for your first full term pregnancy, that tends to reduce your breast cancer risk while older age for your first full term pregnancy increases it.

And we're kind of looking at that median of below 30 and over 30. In a lot of these studies. That makes sense because, I mean, you have, and this is sweeping generalization here and you're the one that did the research for the episode. But when you're 21, for example, or even 25, you have a lot more healthy cells in your body.

And when you're pregnant, you're replicating cells constantly. And there's a bunch of estrogen going on. So I imagine when you're 40 and you're having your first baby and you have some cells that are maybe like, not too healthy. tip top nip nop cells, and they're proliferating along with every other cell, it would make more sense with the estrogen on board that we would end up having some, some different looking cells that might not be the ones we want.

Yeah, and there's a lot of factors that contribute to this, like how many menstrual periods you had before your first pregnancy, what your hormonal levels are like, all kinds of stuff. So that is the challenge in. But let's, let's take a little deeper, see if we can get some more clarity. So, the biggest, like, meta-analysis that I could find had 47 studies from 30 different countries that examined the impact of breastfeeding on breast cancer risk.

And in considering all of those, the relative risk of breast cancer was reduced by 4. 3 percent per 12 months of breastfeeding. In addition, for a significant number of the people in the studies to a 7 percent decrease at each birth, but that was a little bit muddled with the age of the births, right? But breastfeeding has been shown to primarily reduce the risk of triple negative breast cancer, as well as the BRCA1 mutation.

breast cancer. So the conclusion was that women who have a family history of breast cancer should particularly be supported in breastfeeding as a way to reduce their cancer risk. Can I ask what is triple negative breast cancer? Okay, I can't tell you exactly. There are a number of different kinds of breast cancer.

I list them out later. I didn't go that deep into what each one is. is because we just don't have the time in this episode. Yep. Got it. But you can Google that. Okay. Google it, Heather. Shut up. Google it. No. I, yeah. Anyway, it's just not what I was trying to focus on today. But studies also show that the decreased risk of breast cancer The risk associated with breastfeeding is the same in high and low income countries and did not vary with age, menopausal status, ethnic group, or the age at first birth.

So overall, breastfeeding reduced the risk of breast cancer, regardless of those other factors. We also have some evidence from studies that exclusive breastfeeding rather than combo feeding further reduces the risk in Paris women, but that both combo feeding and exclusive feeding contribute. So both are good.

But if we're looking at just our reduced cancer risk, you reduce it more with exclusive breastfeeding. The research also shows that breastfeeding parents have a lower risk of both pre-menopausal and post-menopausal breast cancer. And not the topic of this episode, but most of these studies also show that breastfeeding significantly decreased the risk for ovarian cancer.

Well, that's the one that really scares the shit out of me is the ovarian cancer because by the time Yeah, by the time you find it, it's usually too late. It's just so like, I'm going to feel better about that knowing that I've breastfed three babies. Right. And like I mentioned, this is personal, right?

Like I knew before I had kids, I had this higher baseline risk due to family history. So at this point, here I am still breastfeeding my three year old. I'm breastfeeding her, like, once a day. That was not the plan, but here we are. And I breastfed Griffin until he was almost four. And while I would like to wean, I'm kind of there.

I'm also like, hey, this is a positive for me. Now I have a total of seven years of breastfeeding under my belt. Times 4. 5 percent. Right. Times 4. 3 percent, which is about 30 percent. That's a big frickin number. That is significant. And then isn't that on top of, A 7 percent decrease for having kids starting when you were like 25?

Yeah, like because I had children earlier, my likelihood to reduce risk based on parity is better. But that honestly, that data is kind of muddled. So it is a little bit harder to calculate because there are a bunch of other factors there. Okay, so anyway, obviously calculating risk for this stuff is difficult, there's differences in relative and absolute risk and blah, blah, blah, but I feel like I can confidently look back and say that was one thing that I had control over that I did to reduce my risk for breast cancer.

Well, great job. Thank you. Yeah, I'm proud of it. I'm really proud of you. That's great. Yeah. Okay, I did want to actually go into kind of how this works because I was really curious like why. Why does it reduce risk? Obviously, the answer, of course, is gray and not clear, but I have some answers. Obviously, it's because breastfeeding is magic.

I know, I did get some interesting, like, biology answers. I was just kind of on a biology kick when I was making this episode. So, let's just go into it as much as we can understand, you know? And, cause it's fun. It's fascinating. All right, take me to school. Yeah, okay, so less studies have sought to understand actually why this happens, right?

More so than just looking at relative risk, but there were a few that were looking specifically at gene expression in breast tissue from women who had children compared to those who have not, from women who've breastfed compared to those who had not, and we did get some interesting information here.

There were a couple studies that used breast core needle biopsies, which sounds horrific and they found that there were 200 and across all these studies there were 208 genes that were differently expressed. In the tissues that had breastfed before. And there were almost, or there were at least 96 overlapping between all those studies.

So that's a significant number. And the altered genes primarily related to RNA processing and cellular differentiation. Which is really big for cancer. Okay, hold on. Let me, let me pull this back in to like layman's terms. So, If we stuck a needle in all of our listeners boobs, and we All the tits. All the titties, and we read their gene expression in that breast tissue, 96 genes is what we would all share.

So we all pretty much share 96 genes, and of those, they are mostly related to RNA processing and cellular differentiation, which is a huge setup for cancer research. Stuff. Right. So all the studies found like a bunch of different genes that were different in the breastfeeding samples. And then overlapping of all of them, there were 96 that they were like, Oh, we found these in every study.

Cool. Yeah. And the thing that really stands out to me here for cellular differentiation, that is like the problem with cancer, right? Right. Is that we are having an issue with that. So that's a really interesting finding. There was one particular gene found across It's at least three different studies looking at gene expression, and it was an increased expression of TRAF3, IP3, and the protein that interacts with that gene is involved in cellular maturation, tissue development, and immune response.

But there were some issues with like them finding that gene in some melanoma tumor samples. So they were like, not really sure we're looking at here anyway, interesting. And then there were a bunch of studies on mice. Of course, sorry, little critters, suggesting that the molecular mechanisms of reduced breast cancer risk as a result of pregnancy and breastfeeding, again, appear to be related to RNA processing and cellular differentiation, possibly associated with alteration in maintenance and differentiation of breast cancer stem cells.

So, like, cool info, don't totally know what it means yet, but I feel like it's, it's giving us steps forward so that, I don't know, maybe one day we can use that information to cure breast cancer. Is that going to make more sense here after you tell me the biology? No, no, no. It's not. No, it's going to be confusing the whole time.

Okay. It is. Because that's all we have. Like, even if I read all of those studies to you word for word, it'd be like, wow, might, maybe suggest, okay. Well, it makes sense that all of that would be going on in breast tissue because that's what breasts do. Like, if we need to increase milk supply, we have to recruit more cells and mature them quickly so they can secrete milk.

We have to have more tissue development so we can have more breast milk. To give and that happens with every menstrual cycle. It happens with pregnancy and it happens after pregnancy and then breast regulate immune responses too. So it makes sense to me that all of those three magical things would be happening in breast tissue.

Okay. And then I did want to remind everybody, since we just mentioned RNA like six times the primary function of RNA is to create proteins. And it carries genetic information through the body, okay? So it is like we have this through our whole body in every cell. So RNA is very important as we all learned about when we had all these new RNA vaccines happening, right?

Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah, so there, so there is something on a fundamental cellular level that is protective about breastfeeding. And since there were so many studies that did mention like pregnancy itself possibly increasing risk for cancer at a baseline, it would make sense to me that breastfeeding is protective because it does that for so many other things like insulin resistance and neurodegeneration.

And, you know, we have across the board all of these risks of pregnancy that tend to get reduced by breastfeeding. So I'm like, thank you, this is the mechanism that allows us to continue as a species, right? Yeah, pregnancy jacks you right up and then breastfeeding is supposed to help fix you. Ideally.

That's, that's what we'd like to see anyway. And I hope we get more studies in the future that make that all more clear. But I do have to say that that is really, that's really what I decided to include in this episode because there is so much conflicting data out there. Now, one of my questions was, does this universally affect every single kind of breast cancer?

And no, breastfeeding has not been shown to affect all of these equally. I, I grabbed a couple of different kinds of cancer here, some of the more common ones, and I thought we'd just run through them. No, Heather, I don't know what they all are, but I do know their names. Ha ha ha. Yeah. So we have HR positive breast cancer which we have not yet seen convincing data to say that breastfeeding reduces our risk for that.

Triple negative breast cancer, as I mentioned, we, we've seen up to a 20 percent reduction in risk for that for folks who breastfeed. HER2 we showed an increased risk of that particular kind of breast cancer with pregnancy and a decreased risk for breastfeeding. So, that seems like a good system. For the BRCA1 mutation, again we mentioned, We've got that significant breastfeeding reduction.

There were a couple of studies that showed people who breastfed for a year or more were found to have a 20 to 50 percent risk, reduced risk of breast cancer compared to those who had never breastfed. So that's pretty cool. But the, the BRCA2 gene appears totally unaffected by breastfeeding. So, sorry. You know, so again, that kind of stuff really leads us to I think though, if we have somebody with a family history of breast cancer and that's primarily where we see their risk coming from, we should mention this, that breastfeeding is a possible way to reduce their risk to them.

Yeah, I mean, because it feels like very out of control to know that you are positive for like BRCA1 or something like that. And if a provider is, Doing their due diligence in a primary care visit, they're going to say, Hey, like, here's something that you can control if you want to, in addition to diet and exercise and all that diet, exercise, preventative mastectomy.

I mean, it should be on the table with all those things, right? Because one of the issues with mentioning a preventative mastectomy to folks who have not had kids yet is it. That, like, you know, that eliminates their option for breastfeeding. And it does really seem like that should be part of the counseling if it's not.

And I know some doctors mention it, some don't, so just so y'all know, you can do both, right? You can breastfeed and then you can have a preventative mastectomy. So, yeah. Here we are, toward the end of our episode, and I have more questions than answers, as usual. I thought I would just list some of my questions that I was jotting down while reading 18, 000 studies.

Am I allowed to spitball? Like what I think, maybe? Yes. Okay. My, one of my questions was, does breastfeeding reduce the risk of breast cancer for those who were never pregnant, like for induced lactation without pregnancy? It probably depends on why they induced lactation. Yeah, I'm just curious. I'm like, is it as an isolated factor?

Does it matter? Or does it only matter in relation to pregnancy? Because I assume, I mean I didn't see any mention of induced lactation in any of these studies, so I'm assuming they are all people who have breastfed following a pregnancy. Okay, so question, have you seen that research out there, and this is like slightly off topic, but I swear it applies, where placentas actually, supposedly can heal some of the possible jumbled up chromosomal stuff that might be happening in some embryos when they first get implanted, the placenta reads it and it's like, Oh, that's jacked up.

Let me fix that. So I kind of wild magic. I know. So I kind of wonder if Like, the presence of a placenta for a pregnancy has any bearing on, like, fixing any cells that are about to be replicated that No idea, because I feel like placentas jack us up as much as they don't. I don't know. Yeah, you're right.

Pregnancy is such a conundrum. It's like, is it fixing us or making us way worse? So, yeah. Yeah, and like, I was then also wondering, okay, so like, we have these studies saying like per 12 months risk is reduced by X, so does the reduction for each year of breastfeeding stay consistent? Or does it change based on how much milk you're making, how old your kid is, etc.

Or is it really, really every 12 months is 4. 3%? Right. Or how old you're getting. So, like, you had your first baby at 25, right? Yeah. 26. I just, it was my birthday. 26. But then your next baby you had at 30? 30, 32, 1, 31, You are not 32. I, I am older than that now. Lyra was born in 2021 and I was 31 because I hadn't turned 32 yet.

Yeah, so the older you are with your pregnancy is the increased chance of breast cancer with that pregnancy though, correct? So, inversely, For the first baby, specifically for the first baby. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So is it compounded and are the other factors, like, will the other factors affect that and decrease it at all?

Interesting. Oh, and there was an interesting study. I didn't see this in many other studies, so I don't know how valid it is, but it was mentioning like, if you had your first baby when you were like 40, but then had like three other babies, we didn't see the significant increase in cancer risk versus just having like one baby then.

Weird. Weird. to me. I don't know why. Anyway, but I was also like, did only this study look at that? Or did the others just be like, we didn't see that and didn't put it in? Don't know. Pumping. Does, does pumping affect this at all? Was my biggest question. Or is this some magic baby saliva thing? I don't know.

Baby spit only, please. Well, I mean, I, yeah, because I mean, I wonder not many people are pumping after 12 months, you know, so is it like the 12 months? You know, the 4. 3 percent reduced risk for every 12 months of breastfeeding. Yeah, I guess you're right. Like, if we just kept breastfeeding to two or three years of age, that counts, but what if we kept pumping?

Right, and I really, like, when I was looking at this, and I was like, okay, we have all these factors that are possible contributors, like hormonal levels, like cellular differentiation, etc., etc. It would make sense to me, then I'm not a scientist, but it would make sense to me that the first year would represent a higher reduction in risk because like we are using those glands more, we are making more milk, we have higher levels of hormones.

No? Yes? I don't know. I didn't see any of that. There was so much in these studies that just spent time like excluding other possible factors and not actually explaining the ones that it was showing that it really frustrated me. You know, it was like, here's 17 pages about why these factors are not looked at in the study.

And here's the one page about breastfeeding. Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. And also, I, I'm sure these studies are very much like cis hetero women. Like you're, you're doing the thing that your body was built to do. And that doesn't include people that induce lactation because they're intersex or, so who knows?

Yeah. Exactly. Like there, there are so many factors not included and I hate to be like, you know, it can reduce your risk, but maybe not. And here's 20 reasons why. But that's kind of where we're at with this kind of data. And I mean, this is what every study that looks at the risks and benefits of breastfeeding.

on a large scale reads like. They all read like this, right? Right. Because there are so many factors that can contribute to, for mothers, your health, for babies, your health. I mean, it's like Not to be a conspiracy theorist here, but wouldn't it really suck for the industry if breastfeeding was the answer?

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, if, if it turns out breastfeeding is like the biggest thing you can do to reduce your breast cancer risk, nobody's making money off of that. So And anyway, if you are a listener out there who specializes in any of this, is researching it for a living, you is an oncologist that specifically works with breast cancer.

And you would like to answer some of these asinine questions that we have, please come on the show, email us at MilkMinutePodcast at Gmail. com. We would love, love, love to hear your expertise on this. But I think the main takeaway is the most important thing here, which is we have significant data that shows us that breastfeeding can reduce your risk, especially for certain types of breast cancer, like the BRCA1 and the triple negative breast cancer.

I had another question. Okay. I thought as I was just reading this, I was like, well, like folks assigned male at birth get breast cancer too and can induce lactation if they like really try hard. So like, Do those have a connection? I don't know. I don't know. We'll find the two guys out there that have tried it and we'll ask them if they're still alive and cancer free.

I know we don't have that data. Anyway, but I just, I just felt like every page I finished, I was like, one more question. Yeah, I don't know. Well, we're going to empower you to make it the choice that is right for your body and your risk factors. And I think we're going to leave it there. But also with a public service announcement that if you are pregnant, and or just had a baby, it's a really good idea to take inventory of your breasts and to do a self-breast exam and to feel for any lumps and have your provider feel as well.

Yes, and make sure you have a consultation with your provider about when you need to start mammograms. I need to schedule one, speaking of which, and how often you should be doing that kind of stuff. The, the guidelines have changed over the past couple years. I feel like, Most of us were told what to do and we were like 20 and we were like, that's not me yet.

Oh, forget about it. So there's now other options like breast ultrasound as well. So definitely have a consultation and figure out a preventative plan of action. Yes. I mean, because like you said, pregnancy is a risk factor for breast cancer. And I think I saw a number somewhere. Don't exactly quote me on this, but it's either one in 200 or one in 250 pregnant people that Do you end up with some abnormal breast cancer cells, whether or not that manifests into being something completely like detrimental to your health and your body is another thing.

But yeah, I think if you're a provider out there listening, it's always a great idea to do a breast exam. We don't want to skip that ever. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you guys can learn how to do those yourself on YouTube. There's lots of resources and I know for a lot of folks, it seems silly, but self-breast exams really do save lives.

So please make sure you're doing those frequently. Okay, perfect. Well, let's take a quick break, and when we get back, we have an award in the alcove.

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All right. Welcome back everyone. Today, we have a very, very exciting award to give to one of our patrons, Victoria Knight, Victoria says, I didn't give up. We've been in triple feeding hell for the last. Three weeks with my now one month old. My IBCLC told me to keep going after one and a half weeks, so I did.

But after three weeks, I transitioned to exclusively pumping, and guess what, I actually have time to poop now! Hell yeah! I'm still mourning what I thought our breastfeeding journey would be, but she's happy and so am I. Nice. Yeah, triple feeding for three weeks, honey. I, no, no. All right, well, Victoria, we're going to give you the Pragmatic Princess Award.

You knew your limits, you were self-aware, and you knew when it was time to make a change, and it sounds like you made a really good choice for you and your family. Yeah, we are very happy for you. Good job. And that doesn't mean that you can't make another change later. If there's anything consistent in parenting, it's change.

So let's read an Apple review. We have one today from Sunshine Sarah 2020, five stars. She says, thank you for everything. I'm an L and D nurse turned LC because of your show. Thank you for healing our birth community. Thank you for the joy and the knowledge. I appreciate you so much. Well, hey, we appreciate you too.

Yeah. Love that. Thanks for listening. And thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Milk Minute Podcast. The way that we change anything is by talking to our friends and our healthcare providers and educating everyone around us. We do our self-breast exams, we make sure our friends know if they are BRCA1 positive or not, and what their options are for reducing their risk.

Yeah, and you join our Patreon, too, at Patreon. com slash Milk Minute Podcast. We'd sure love to have ya. All right, everybody, goodbye. Goodbye. It's a me